Once I had my ticket, I wandered around since there was still over half hour before boarding starts, and I thought it would be first come first serve open seating, but seems that's not the case from LAUS. This is the start of a series of events I observed that are in place just to complicate a simple task of coach travel and seemingly to justify that all the staff is "doing some work". I was directed to a "Check in" desk where one person was assigning seat numbers to coach passengers. I asked him to give me a left side window seat, but he declined. He said he will only assign seat numbers in sequence and assigned me a right side aisle seat. He had a paper with coach composition and I saw half the coach was empty so I asked him can't he give me one of the window seats? But he flatly declined. I thought, thats ok, let me board, I'll get it changed from coach attendant.
More unnecessary complications in boarding- they did not announce the platform number until ten minutes before departure. I saw upstairs, all the platforms were empty except Platform 12 where a Surfliner was standing, they could have decided a platform and let passengers walk up, but didn't do, rather they announced it at 6.15pm and there was a mad scramble with over a hundred passengers running through the tunnel to PF-11!
The Chief had the usual composition- three sleepers, dining car, lounge, three coaches. I boarded the coach assigned to me, went to the aisle seat assigned and waited for boarding to complete. When we pulled out, in my car all the passengers had been huddled in the front half of the car and the rear half was empty! In the car behind mine, it was the same situation, and in the car in front of mine, there were a grand total of fifteen passengers. So I went to an empty window seat and when the coach attendant and conductor came to check my ticket, I requested them to reassign me to that window seat. But he flatly declined stating that all vacant seats are for families and groups boarding from stations enroute and I should go back and sit at my aisle seat! I told him that there is no guarantee only families and groups will be boarding the train, even if the train is full, there would be few single passengers boarding who can occupy the seats next to me, but he refused to budge from his stand.
I went to the lounge, had dinner in Dining Car and returned to coach after San Bernandino and still half the coach seats were vacant so I asked an attendant in the first coach car if I can move to one of the vacant rows of seats to sleep, since the person occupying window seat next to my assigned seat had already slept off using both seats! Again, answer- NO! We need the seats for passengers boarding enroute! Then, as if doing a huge favor, he whispers to me- come and sit at one of these "reserved" seats ("reserved" seats within an already reserved coach- Amtrak Inception
) for a few hours. I moved to one row of empty seats and slept off but ten minutes before Flagstaff, a staff member came and woke me up from sleep and told me to go back to my assigned seat because "the train will get full here and we need all open seats!" I got off at Flagstaff, looked around and there were no more than 20 people waiting to board and we had three half-vacant coaches. After Flagstaff when the train did not get "full" as claimed by the attendant, I once again went to him and asked him if I can occupy one of the empty window seats, but yet again he's like "No! All these seats are for passengers boarding from stations between Flagstaff and Albuquerque!" Now, I wonder why the onboard staff behaves so unfriendly with the coach passengers? It is a fully reserved train, they obviously know how many people are boarding from which station, the train was running with under 40% occupancy, so why can't they stop being a pain in the a$$ and let passengers move about freely? It seemed more like an ego trip for the staff.. "just because we have the power, we will enforce it" types. This was not the attitude of one attendant, I talked to attendants in all three coach cars and all of them were adamant in letting all passengers huddled up in one part of the car and let the other half run empty.
The scenery and the run was fantastic so I enjoyed the journey, but if this is how the staff behaves, passengers new to train travel would not be enthusiastic about doing it again.
