Originally Posted by
WeekendTraveler
Amtrak’s employee manual requires ticket scanning only by the relevant employee once passengers are on board. Tickets are not scanned before boarding. (Sometimes Amtrak staff does anyway, as people enter the train, but that’s not standard practice, and only certain employees are allowed to scan tickets.) At most, tickets are visually checked before boarding. But that could be done by people stationed at car entrances; it’s not necessary to have yet another line at the entrance to the platform of that is the reason.
There’s no need to hypothesize about why Amtrak makes passengers line up before boarding. Amtrak has given a range of inconsistent and illogical reasons why it requires that.
Probably something informal setup by local staff to deal with a problem not addressed in a systemwide manual.
And if preventing homeless access to trains is the reason for requiring passengers to line up before boarding, why doesn’t Amtrak require it in places such as Newark, a rough area? And why does Amtrak place an employee at only one end of the platform at Grand Central but not the other? It’s a make-work policy, period.
Hate to ask but is Amtrak back at Grand Central? Last time I checked/rode to/from NYC, NYP was the only stop in NYC.
As for Newark, never stepped off the train there so don't know the station setup. Fewer boarding pax perhaps? Is there a vagrancy problem or how else do they keep the undesirables out?
Also didn't observe the boarding/platform access control process at LA Union as we got the redcap shuttle.