Garethe7, nice post. I'd say your suggestions are overall sound. Many of them have been tried before.
Seat reservations--yes! please! In Europe you can pay a small upcharge to get a seat reserved on intercity trains. Acela trains are actually set up to display reservations electronically; older trains can be reserved with paper tickets as is done in Czech Republic, etc. There's no reason to reserve every seat but it could be an option to generate more revenue and reduce angst over groups sitting together, etc. (Or lawsuits over the conduct of conductors. Or horrid lines at terminal stations before boarding.)
Video screens--these are so cheap and ubiquitous now that even airlines are running away from this kind of equipment. Amtrak is putting in more outlets, which I think is the proper approach. That way you can bring your own movies and movie player.
Wifi--yes, please! Amtrak knows they need to do this but they need to do better.
Noise lounge--this is kind of something they have on the double decker (Superliner) trains; otherwise, it's the cafe car and non quiet cars. It's tough right now out there because Amtrak is under pressure to increase the number of revenue seats per train, and stuff like that takes away revenue space. I don't know, call your US Senator or something.
Box lunch, food cart/vendor--these were in place pre-Amtrak.
Amtrak is under extreme political pressure not to lose money on food. They also have a union that is not going to take kindly to them backsliding to the bad old days. You have to realize that before Amtrak and before the recognition of the Brotherhood of Sleepingcar Porters that
the Pullman company and others in the passenger services business
used to hire African American men who didn't have a great deal of other job prospects
for utterly atrociously low wages (you should google Pullman Strike to find out how low, or read
The Autobiography of Malcolm X for a very personal take on this kind of work). Those days are gone; we have a Civil Rights Act which outlaws employment discrimination of that sort and we have minimum wage laws, and we have the Wagner Act. That means that the economics of in-coach sales are different. Btw, I like the idea of box lunches and of food/beverage carts. But be aware that
they just laid off the guy on the Wisconsin Hiawathas who was doing cart sales because the overall operation was losing money and Scott Walker just doesn't care that amenities are a "loss leader" to get people to ride in the first place. (NNEPRA, which oversees the Maine to Boston Amtrak Downeaster, budgets for cafe car losses because they know it increases the ridership. Because they are state funded they were able to outsource food service but again that vendor has their own cost structure as well so it's not as if it drastically changes the economics. NNEPRA is paying the vendor to cover their losses every month at this point although they seem optimistic that this will some day change?)
Newsstand--they sell this kind of stuff at some stations. I'm hoping that more services can be offered at stations as ridership rises. It would be nice if they could have newsstand svcs on the platform at layover stops. Or even some vending machines.
What I would like to see:
+Enhanced baggage services. In this case, that means more stations, more stations with the package/freight svc, locker svc at rural stations, and roll-on bike storage.
+More Ambuses. Since Greyhound was deregulated
at their request, the other shoe needs to drop--remove the requirement that Amtrak not duplicate service. It's much nicer to take the Ambus to the train than to drive or take another bus service and have to make a scary cross town trip.
+Gluten free baked goods. Hey, it's a wishlist, why not?
+Have a signature regional dish on selected LD trains. Would really make the trip memorable.
+Some sort of 'train channel' that interfaces with phone/electronic devices that shows speed, forecast, next stop, est arrival, & service announcements. Or maybe have that on a screen at one end of the coach and cafe cars.
+train swag for sale at the snack bar!!! Hello impulse purchase!!! I think Amtrak does this in theory but doesn't actually have any stock for sale in practice. That's nuts.
