Airline seating for Amtrak?

That’s exactly what I said; and, in my sometimes-humble opinion, that’s just not what Amtrak needs. But that’s exactly what lame-duck CEO Wick Moorman said on July 12, 2017. Well, what he said exactly is that Amtrak may consider reducing the amount of personal space per passenger to crowd in more passengers per train.

So here’s my somewhat sarcastic (okay, a lot sarcastic) take on the thinking that would let this idea even be voiced. Amtrak speaking:

The new co-CEO who will take over from Moorman on January 1, 2018, is a former airline executive. (Delta – motto: if it breathes and has a credit card, we’ll cram it in--unless we're overbooked.) So, we wouldn’t want the new CEO to feel out of place trying to fill a train that does not have optimized seating.

Just what would those passengers do with that extra leg room, anyway? They will probably just stretch out and actually feel comfortable, until the person in the adjacent seat—who is not a friend or spouse because Amtrak refuses to actually reserve seat positions in coaches—falls asleep leaning their way and starts to drool on them. But, hey! It’s all part of the airline-Amtrak experience.

We manage to fill up all of our long-distance trains, so by putting in more seats, we’ll be able to turn every fare for those extra seats into gravy, which we will refuse to provide for any dining car meals, if we even have a dining car anymore, or meals. What would those passengers do with food anyway? They’ll probably just spill it and we’ll have to underpay someone in the on-board crew to clean it up. No, wait! We won’t clean it up until we get to the end of the line, if we’re on time enough to get the train cleaned before it has to be turned to go out again.

Oh! Here’s a thought! We could charge extra to ride in coaches with more legroom! I bet the airlines never thought of that. If only we had enough cars to add a premium coach seat arrangement on every train. (Of course, don’t tell anyone. If we had enough cars we wouldn’t have to be considering reducing the legroom.) God, we’re on a roll!

Maybe we could do a center row of doubles on each car. That way only two of six passengers will have any hope of watching the scenery, which is overrated. We’ll just do our best to schedule—or delay the train—so that all the good scenery is at night. They won’t miss anything that way.

We’ll have to increase the bathroom facilities, of course. Let’s see…there are 62 seats on an Amtrak Superliner coach now, so with the new arrangement, less seats we can’t put on the stairs to the lower level—or can we?—we’ll probably have 90. That’s an increase of 50%. We’ll need 3 new bathrooms. But that will take away seats on the lower level. What will those passengers do with all those extra toilets?

They’ll probably just stuff them up and we’ll have to pay to fix them. Good hard cash we could carry to that profitable bottom line. Let them wait their turn. There’s always the end of the line. Probably at a closed station with no toilets. What do bears do? Wait'll Congress hears we're saving money on poop.

Come to think of it (says Amtrak) we should close more stations and save money. But at the same time, how do we beef up security? We can’t screen passengers (like the airlines do) at closed stations. Oh, woe. We’ll just have to do more random searches and pat-downs on board the trains.

Hey! That would be easier and more efficient if the coach passengers were already standing up. We should have standing room only sections. Yeah! That’s it! Increased capacity.

Well, one good thing: You won't be using an Amtrak seat as a flotation device. Most passenger cars won't float long enough for you to float anywhere.

Oh! We may have gone too far this time. This time? Maybe with a (former) airline exec for CEO we can just settle down to do things exactly like the airlines, and hope for the best. Yes, that’s one of the things Amtrak has been doing, one thing we have a lot of experience doing. At Amtrak, we try every screwball suggestion that comes under the door, even if it is leaking white powder and is labeled “toxic,” and hope for the best.

My apologies to those hard-working people at Amtrak who go out of their way every day to give good, decent, cheerful service despite the huge, government sword of Damocles that hangs over their heads.

©2017 – C. A. Turek – mistertrains@gmail.com

(Charles A. Turek is a writer and novelist based in Albuquerque, NM. After four decades working in areas of the insurance industry related to transportation, he now writes on all aspects of American railroading. Charles is a political conservative but believes in public funding of passenger rail as a part of the federal government’s constitutionally conservative obligation to provide for defense and public infrastructure so that private enterprise may flourish.)