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[quote user="oltmannd"] I was recently in Germany for the first time.  Sensory overload!  Trains everywhere! ...but many of you know that already. The one really cool thing that Amtrak should emulate is seat reservations.  A train ticket gets you on the train.  That's it.  Then, you have to hunt down a seat.  Not always easy to do when the train is full and everyone is schlepping suitcases.   But, for a few dollars, you can get a reserved seat of your choice.  Even with all the complexity of the DB Bahn network, they manage to assign you an exact seat in a particular coach.  You get to pick window or aisle, or compartment or table and they assign you a seat. Each seat in every coach on every ICE or IC train has either an electronic sign or a slip of paper that shows if a particular seat is reserved and between which two point on the route it's reserved.  All you have to do is stand on the right spot on the platform, board your coach and sit in your seat. It's a value added service and they charge for it.  Amtrak's network is much, much simpler.  Ought to be a slam dunk. They do some other things that are worth emulating, too.  I'll save those for later. [/quote] I just returned from five days in Baltimore.  I rode Amtrak from Baltimore to DC on Saturday and Sunday to attend a symphony and visit the Air and Space Museum.  I took the MARC yesterday.  The fare is considerably less than on Amtrak, especially for a senior, and the congestion did not appear to be as great as on Amtrak. Because Amtrak does not assign seats, which would be doable given the computer technology that is available, not to mention that most of the airlines assign seats, boarding the train in Washington is a scramble.  People begin to line up approximately 40 minutes before train time.  The line snakes around the waiting area and out onto the concourse, which creates an impediment to the free flow of people in the station. When the train is called, there is a rush to get the better seats, especially those in the quiet car.  Moreover, there were numerous instances of line jumping, i.e. people hang off to the side until the gates open and then jump in the line.  On Sunday a fight nearly broke out as a result of line jumping.  Assigning seats would eliminate the scramble.   Amtrak just does not get it.  Their sense of customer service is nil.  The organization is a poster child argument for bidding intercity passenger rail service in the U.S.  Amtrak is a classic example of what happens to an organization that has no competition.  It simply becomes deaf to customer service.  And its ability to read customer desires.  After all, where is the motive to do things better?
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