Originally Posted by
AndyPatterson
Sorry, but that doesn't make sense. Airlines, other than for the cheapest fares, allow you to select your seat BEFORE making the payment. What does not make sense is for Amtrak to send me not one but three tickets -- the first with their arbitrarily assigned seats (not in the quiet car), the second when I change to a 4-top seat in the quiet car for the outbound trip, and the third when I change to a 4-top seat in the quiet car for the return trip. Come on, three tickets in the space of 5 minutes?!
Amtrak's IT is absolutely ancient. It's quite likely that the easiest (least complex and thus least likely to require replacing everything) way to implement assigned seating was to specifically tie the ticket to the assignment (this is the system that's applied for sleeper assignment for decades: changing your roomette has always required a ticket reissue).
Part of the reason for this is that, unlike the airlines (where any milk run is a rarity, let alone a 9-leg milk run), the fact that people are getting off and on means that whether there's availability from BOS-WAS depends on the seats selected for NWK-PHL.