One of the interesting quirks about the Amtrak trains in the USA is the inability to select seats when booking. Unlike most of the rest of the world, there is no seat map in the booking engine to allow you to select where to sit.
This isn’t particularly good, especially if you’re travelling on a scenic route and wish to be seated to get the best view. It makes it much more difficult for tourists for starters.
Seat Selection on European Trains
In Europe and other parts of the world, seat selection on long distance trains is quite standard. During the booking phase, you can select which carriage you want to be seated in plus the actual seat itself.
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- Seat selecting during booking with Irish Rail
This means you can choose to face in the direction of travel or backwards as is your wish. More importantly you can choose which side of the train to sit on, and whether you want a window or an aisle seat.
Why Not On Amtrak?
According to some reading around the web, the Amtrak booking systems do have the ability to allow people to select seats. That would be expected considering they appear to have a modern system.
It appears seat selection was introduced on a trial basis but people just didn’t like it. Some would sit in others assigned seats and it all became a customer nightmare.
Seating Assignments But You Can’t Choose
Some services such as the Amtrak Cascades do have assigned seating. However you are only assigned your seat when you check-in at the station before boarding the service.
Therefore this becomes a bit luck of the draw on the day. Checking in early for the trains would be recommended in this case to have any chance of getting seats that you want.
Overall Thoughts
Clearly assigning seats on commuter trains is not what I mean here. I am specifically talking about long distance services where an assigned seat could be offered at the booking stage.
All the long distance trains in Ireland offer assigned seating and for the most part people adhere to the rules. There really is no reason not to. At the same time I can see the benefit of having no assigned seats, except when trying to find somewhere to sit on a full service.
What do you think? Should Amtrak assign seats or is the current system best? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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I would like to be able to select seats in advance. I take the Autotrain and you do get to choose aisle or window when you check in. Also, I ask for a seat in a “quiet car” and not at the ends of the car to avoid listening to doors opening and closing during the night.
Yes, it puts my mind more at ease to know where I am sitting. I dread having to walk the carriages having to look for a seat with the possibility of not finding a good one. Thanks for the comment!
Even in Acela first class, there is a bit of a scramble to get the desirable single seats.
It’s not very first class to be scrambling for seats really, is it? That would annoy me having to do that on a daily basis if I was a commuter. It is just interesting how different the countries are on this aspect. Thanks for the comment!
No assigned seats is ok as long as it is guaranteed that there is a seat for every passenger.
Very true, it would be terrible having to stand on your service, especially if you were going a long distance. Thanks for the comment!