There's nothing wrong with the location of the new Metropolitan Lounge. The problem is the way the rest of the station is operated!
Matt Yglesias's article remains relevant:
Here's how boarding a train works. Once you have your ticket and you've ascertained what track the train you want to ride on is coming to and you're more-or-less ready to board, you walk to the appropriate platform. There you wait for the train. When the doors open, you get on the train. That's how I got on a train from Brussels to Strasbourg a few weeks back, and it's how I got on the train from Strasbourg back to Brussels. It's how you board a New York City subway train, and it's how you board a Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority train. It's how the train stations in Rome and Paris and Berlin work. But—remarkably—it's not how you board Amtrak trains at Washington's Union Station.
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http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/07/10/_.html )
So, if this were operated like a normal station, each platform should have a sign up saying which train is departing from that platform, at what time, and whether it's delayed or whatever. It should be clear which side of each platform is which... it isn't right now at CUS thanks to deteriorated numbers. When the train's ready to board, people should go to the platform.
Pre-boarding? That's been done too. You have to spot the train in the station early. Put out the red carpet and an official who checks for first class tickets. When it's X minutes before boarding time (30? 15?), open it up to the scrum. The usual problem with doing this is that the same train will both unload and load, but *that never happens for Amtrak at Chicago* so it should be easy to do this. If they can get the trains out of the yard early enough and allow them to occupy platform space long enough.
The primary problem at CUS is that the platform experience stinks (...literally) which means they don't want people waiting on the platforms. They need to get the ventilation working, turn off the diesel engines when the trains are stopped, and repair the actual platforms. Some of them should be widened too.
The problem of pushing through the Metra crowds to get to the platform entrance would be addressed by removing all the obstructions in the "concourse" and turning it into open space, like it was originally. And it appears that they're getting closer to doing this with every iteration of the plan.
So here's hoping....
