Amtrak trains in the Northeast Corridor will soon have a choice of seating directions, with half the seats in each car facing forward and the other offering a view of where you’ve just been.
While some passengers may have strong feelings about facing one way or the other, Amtrak thinks that most people will be able to find a seat in their preferred direction, and says there’s a good reason for the configuration: with the split seating, there’s no need to turn a train around at the end of the line, allowing trains to make their return runs sooner, and allowing them to make more trips per day with the same amount of equipment.
The move, which involves reconfiguring the railroad’s current cars, started yesterday, and will be matched on the new Acela fleet that’s coming into service soon as well as on the new Airo fleet that will replace the current regular coach cars.
Some older passengers, this writer included, remember when the seatbacks were on swivels; at the end of the line, conductors flipped the seatback so the train was facing the other way.
