Consequences of sitting in a different car than instructed?

What happens if you sit in a car other than the one where the conductor told you to sit?

I recently took the Palmetto on a short Northeast Corridor trip. When I was boarding, the conductor standing at an entrance asked where I was traveling to and then pointed a few cars down, to the Amfleet Is that I guess are for short-distance passengers.

I wanted to sit in an Amfleet II. (Bigger Windows and more legroom.) My trip was so short that I am sure that the car wouldn't have been full. I know that Amfleet IIs have manual doors so I would have walked to an Amfleet I to get off.

I knew what I was doing, would have gotten off fine and wouldn't have displaced anyone from the long-distance car, but I followed the conductor's order.

What would have happened if I had moved to another car and sat where I wanted o sit?

Thanks.

I'll bet the answer is almost entirely dependent upon the mood of the conductor. I have no doubt that a conductor would have no trouble taking someone off the train at the next stop for 'not following instructions.'

It depends.

On the Empire Service, generally the conductors are like, "that's fine, but I can't guarantee you won't miss your stop, you're on your own." Only if the train is really crowded will they really pressure folks to move.

On the other hand, when I took the Crescent last year, a few of us simply moved a seat or two (from NYP-WAS). We all knew the score and were going to move back once the car started to fill.

Well, you would have thought we had insulted the car attendant. She was greatly perturbed. Even after folks started to move back to their seats and apologize, she went on and on about how she had to rejigger her seat schedule, how much harder we had made it, etc. Again, this was after every single person offered to move back w/o any pushback.

Generally in my experience, a conductor, if it won't impact his/her loading/unloading that much, won't care. They tend to be more concerned about making sure someone misses their stop.
Car attendants, seem to worry a bit more (probably because in part they really are worried about seating patterns.)

If you are assigned a car to sit in and want to change cars, you will definately want to ask the conductor.

One time I boarded 49 for Chicago. I got on at either Poughkeepsie or Rhinecliff, I forget.

Anyway the train was pretty full. Except for these 4 seats that had a handmade sign on them as being reserved for families.

Well I was riding all the way to Chicago and I wanted a window seat. So I removed the paper sign on one of the seats and sat down. There were 2 girls across the aisle who started giggling and then one of them told me to brace myself because others had tried to sit there and the car attendant was really mean-spirited according to them.

Sure enough along came the car attendant and she was not happy. She asked me to move. I told her that I became nauseous unless I sat next to a window - and that if it was not possible for me to sit there that I wanted to speak to the conductor.

She went away and never bothered me again.

You pay for transportation and on a reserved train you also pay for a seat. You do not pay for a seat in just any car but need to sit where you are told to sit. WHY? Quite simple a train like 89 (The Palmetto) makes a lot of stops between New York and Savannah and the best cars need to be reserved for the folks going the longest distance. Maybe some of the other cars will come off at either Washington or Richmond and by your taking up space for a short NEC trip you might well force somebody who is traveling a longer distance to change cars enroute. Many stations especially on LD routes, local stops have only platform space for one or two cars. No wonder the conductor or the car attendant is upset when somebody for one reason or another decides to make their own decision where to sit. When you act this way you just make the crew's job that much more difficult. You get a lot more with cooperation than with being stubborn. You get more with sugar than with vinegar.
Noel Weaver

If Amtrak wants me to sit in a particular spot, give me a seat assignment.

Airlines figured this out a long time ago.

Railroads overseas figured this out a long time ago.

If you're just selling me 'a seat', then don't be upset that I can't read your mind and pick a seat you don't like.

As for the usual "passengers can't figure that out!", that's BS. I had a seat assignment on my Amsterdam to Paris trip. Had no trouble figuring out where to stand and which car to go into and where to sit. It's not rocket science if you have a system that's intuitive.

Noel Weaver wrote:You pay for transportation and on a reserved train you also pay for a seat. You do not pay for a seat in just any car but need to sit where you are told to sit. WHY? Quite simple a train like 89 (The Palmetto) makes a lot of stops between New York and Savannah and the best cars need to be reserved for the folks going the longest distance. Maybe some of the other cars will come off at either Washington or Richmond and by your taking up space for a short NEC trip you might well force somebody who is traveling a longer distance to change cars enroute. Many stations especially on LD routes, local stops have only platform space for one or two cars.

Yes you're right Noel. None of this applied in my case because I knew that all the passengers in the coach I was riding in were ticketed to Chicago.

Had the car attendant explained that a family of 4 were boarding at "Willoughby" and needed special assistance requiring that they sit together - and that those seats were for them - I would have of course obliged.

Noel Weaver wrote:You get more with sugar than with vinegar.

This car attendant could have benefited from your advice. I omitted some details from my anecdote - specifically the nasty demeanor of this particular car attendant. She was about the worst I have ever seen on any Amtrak train.

Nasadowsk wrote:If Amtrak wants me to sit in a particular spot, give me a seat assignment.

^^ THIS ^^

Seat assignments are a nice possible revenue-enhancement for Amtrak. An extra $10-20 to choose a seat that hasn't already been assigned to someone else on tickets purchased until 24 hours before the train departs its origin terminal (so the conductors could have a list of which seats are spoken for along the way). There are more important enhancements to the ticketing system, but this one basically adds pure profit.

I had one give me crap on the Carolinian for no discernible reason. I was riding NYP-Charlotte, and when we got to Charlotte people were disembarking from every car...I'm sure she was trying to congregate people going all the way in one area...but when it got to the end...what difference did it make?

Instead she sat me next to the world's worst seatmate...yapping on her phone nonstop for a large portion of the trip. I ended up spending most of the trip in the Cafe Car.

From a customer service standpoint, it is unfathomable to me why Amtrak doesn't allow long distance passengers to reserve specific seats. Airlines and European railroads have been doing it for decades.

I agree that seat assignments could work nicely. I remember on travel in the UK my trains were a mix of unreserved and reserved, and the reserved trains had my seat number printed on the ticket, along with which car to board, and the doors were clearly marked with the car number.

And of course airlines perfected the practice years ago.

I've had seating problems the other way, too: boarding the City of New Orleans northbound in Illinois with a reservation for a family of four, and not seeing any seats available, and certainly no seats together. And the conductor unwilling wake up any of the people who were sleeping across two seats and no one with the wits to tell us that the diner was open if we wanted to just go eat breakfast.

Seat reservations seem like the easy answer.

I would not exactly let everyone pick their own seat in advance, though. That could result in a car that was never more than 80% full or so having no seats available from BOS to WAS or whatever, because every single seat had been reserved for some shorter part of the run. That would be dumb. I would let people reserve a generic pair of seats, or a block of four, or a window or an aisle, or whatever, and then I would let the software fit all those guarantees together so that as many people as possible could get one seat between their desired stations -- then email/text/etc.-- the precise seat assignment the day before the trip. That is, instead of me clicking seats 1-4 in car x12, which might conflict with someone else's choice of just seats 1 and 2 for part of the trip, and someone else's choice of 3 and 4 for another part of the trip, have me choose "4 together, one row beside the other" or "four together, straight across the car", have those other pax choose "2 together" and let the software smooth it out (put the BOS-Providence people and the Prov-NH people and the NH-Philly people in the same seats, and the Bos-New London people and the New London-Baltimore people in the same seats, and so on. It would not be hard for the computer to tell you "there are no more spaces for four together left, but we can get you two sets of two in the same car." Yes, you would not be able to choose your favorite seat, but you have just as good a chance of getting about what you wanted and the car's capacity would be maximized. And with the capacity maximized that way the conductors and attendants would not have work out the systems of their own to try to accommodate all ticketed passengers and keep kids with their parents and so on -- systems that I think are usually thought out to try to make seating work better, but which people here complain about because they are all different, sometimes capricious, sometimes seem lazy, and so on.

Everyone:

Interesting topic...I have had my share of memories concerning seating on board Amtrak trains:

I learned early on to keep your ticket stub with you as a proof of payment because with a seatcheck you run the
risk of losing your seat to another passenger thinking that the seat is vacant-especially just after a stop.

I remember once walking through a train and finding a better seat at a window which I moved to - but since this
car was worked by another train crew member he checked with the one that collected my ticket and the seatcheck
to make sure that it was legitimate - I believe to keep any chance of another rider stealing a check and getting
a free ride. Having my canceled stub and check with the matching punch mark on both was the key here...

I have two memories from trips I took during the year 2000 that stand out:

I rode the Lake Shore Limited from NYP-CLE and I remember that the Amfleet 2 coach I was riding in was at or
near full. At Erie, PA two middle-aged women boarded trying to find seats - I offered mine to them because I was
getting off at Cleveland and wanted to be awake. At one end of the coach there was a single seat by itself which
I sat in - not realizing at first that one of the coach attendants was either using the seat or keeping it vacant.
This attendant was working two or more cars on this run - I only noticed that the seat I used was open and
there was no designation at or near this seat showing that it was in use or taken.

I was confronted by this attendant - and after explaining what I had done to give up my seat to these two ladies
traveling together he gave me grief about using this seat but surprisingly did not kick me out of it knowing that
there were probably few to none to be had and since I was getting off at the next stop what was the trouble?

Even after my explanation this attendant would not let this go - one would think that this Attendant would at
least have been sympathetic after what I had done to help two fellow passengers but no - it continued until
I got off at CLE. What this did was leave a bad memory of what otherwise was a decent trip. I thought about
filing a formal complaint with Amtrak but ended up not doing so. Perhaps looking back I should have.

In December 2000 I was riding a BOS-NYP train boarding at Providence and I stepped outside at New Haven
to take a quick look at the station interior and watch the maintenance crews service the train. I was aware of
the tight time constraints of the station stop and took precaution knowing exactly how much time I had.

After I got back on the train a crew member asked me where I boarded and wanted to see my ticket reciept.
No problem there - I carry it with me during any train trip duration as proof of payment. I then understood
that they were preventing someone from stowing away on board and stealing a ride. I believe that train crews
are more concerned about that then someone missing their stop - which can happen on occasion.

In closing it is better if one goes through the proper ways to change your seat enroute onboard trains.
That alone will only make your trip just that much easier instead of going at odds with train crews.

MACTRAXX