The system for boarding US Amtrak trains is strange. You’ve bought your tickets in advance, so that is no problem, and you can walk up to a station counter without much of a queue anyway – at least that has been my experience in Seattle and Portland.
But thereafter it appears everything is geared to making the experience as much as possible like taking a flight. So there is a check-in luggage service – indeed, this is a requirement at major stations – necessitating passengers arrive half-an-hour before their train.
Then the queuing kicks in – first the queue for a boarding pass with your carriage number, handed over when you produce your ticket and handwritten in felt tip on a strip of card. This is followed by the queue at the gate to the platform.
Only on the conductor’s order do you move to the queue at the door of your carriage where an attendant checks your boarding pass and assigns you a seat – which you will sit in. Slip into another and the guard will have you out in no time.
No matter - the seats make up for everything, putting some airline business-class seats to shame. I would kill for the same kind of legroom on my return flight to London.