Theres a reason they smell like smoke! Its because "porters" worked the trains back in the day when smoke was everywhere, we all "smoked"! (ie clothing,hair,buildings,trains etc.)
The correct erm is Train Attendant or Sleeping Car or Coach Attendent! (abbreviated here as TA/SCA/CA), also LSA is like the boss of the on board staff, similar to the head waiter in a land based resturant! The conductor is the boss of the train, the engineer drives the train! Hope that helps, the myth ofg smoking on a train has gotten lots of people thrown off in uncomfortable places and even a visit to the cross bar hotel! 
I'm sure you meant a car with an area for smoking, like a smoking lounge but It's kinda funny to think about Amtrak trying to hide a train car! The trains are pretty open to visitors! Some Revenue passengers are permitted in every single car on an amtrak train except the baggage car (this is assuming that space is sold in the Trans Dorm) so if they were going to hide it... where would it be? I'm also not sure why it would be a problem for amtrak employees to smoke in the baggage car.
If it works anything like the aviation market you might have one of those purposely entangled agreements where a government body agrees to enforce a carrier's rules as part of its own authority. In the case of airlines this can lead to all sorts of illogical contradictions depending on how the individual carriers structure their own rules, but at least in the case of Amtrak it would be one rule for virtually all rail travel. As for the Auto Train it's probably not that smoking itself is illegal so much as you need to provide substantially separate air supplies and various other considerations. It may be possible that if Amtrak was willing to provide those special modifications on other trains they could have legal smoking wherever they wanted. IIRC US airlines went smoke-free even though several of them had flights where smoking could have been legally allowed. It just became too much of a hassle to selectively allow smoking only on those routes where it was still legal so they went smoke free. And then you have all sorts of claimed loopholes, like the flight deck, where people who are legal to be seated there can apparently smoke all they want if their employer allows it. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the locomotive and possibly the baggage car are likewise under Amtrak's discretion in this regard. Speaking of which, I've never actually gone all the way to the front of the train from the inside. I suppose you reach a door to the baggage car and then what? Can anyone open it? Does it require a key?
Let us not forget that little thing called the cellfone with which someone would have called customer service right then and there. I have seen people call while on the train. I heard a person tell CS that they were on the train right now. Also taking into consideration that cig smoke makes me sick I would have most likely called if asked to move for that reason.
Actually Amtrak did provide modifications on all of its long distance trains for a number of years after smoking in general was banned from Amtrak trains. Those modifications went away for two major reasons, abuse by the smokers and a poor design for the Superliner trains.
"The smokers" did not abuse the lounges. SOME smokers did.
So which part of the part of my post that I quoted above was somehow unclear to you?
you should get healthier fiends :lol:
All of the people who abused smoking privileges were smokers. There were zero non-smokers abusing those privileges. That's the part that you're apparently missing and that's the part that counts in my view. Smokers are having their rights infringed upon only after they spent generations treating non-smokers poorly. Just because there's an ashtray in the lobby doesn't mean they need to smoke around children and asthmatics. Smokers had their chance to police their own habits and those of each other and they failed miserably. Now it's simply no longer left up to them.
If someone drinks to the point that they are infringing on the rights of non-drinkers they get kicked off the train. If a smoker lights up while on board and thus infringes on the rights of non-smokers they also risk getting kicked off. Seems pretty fair to me.
If you put passive vents on the Sunset Limited you'd be adding 100+ degree air to the interior. Not to mention that the heat and smoke will eventually start wafting into the adjacent cars. I have some drug addicted friends of my own but it never even crossed my mind that everyone else on the train should suffer a smokey and sweaty ride for their exclusive benefit. I happen to be a drinker myself, but having a glass of Scotch doesn't fill the car with a foul carcinogenic odor or coat the walls with a disgusting sticky film. Should Amtrak decide to ban all alcohol I'll simply go without.
You are quite correct Daxomni.
Well I don't smoke, a co-worker of mine who travels with me does. You are right, sleeper passengers are given much better treatment about smoking sometimes. In my friends case there was no rule breaking, but he was allowed to step off the train to smoke quickly at stops other than the designated smoke stops. This makes perfect sense of course.
Depends on your viewpoint I suppose. This sleeper passenger would consider on-board smoke breaks to be worse treatment.
Actually it makes no sense at all. You don't get any additional smoking privileges if you fly first class versus coach. The same basic rules are in place for trains, they're just not always being followed apparently. Which is simply unprofessional and raises the potential for completely unnecessary friction among the passengers and staff.
Dax, you and I often wind up on opposite sides, but this this is right on the money. Well said.
It's a matter of practicality - a coach attendant has 2 cars with maybe 75 people in them. A sleeper attendant has one car with maybe 20 people in them. It's much easier for the sleeper attendant to manage 2 or 3 people stepping off the train for a quick puff or two than it is for a coach attendant to do that for 10 people at two different doors. There's nothing unprofessional about providing a higher level of service.
