New Seats and Other Refreshes Coming to Amtrak Cars

As part of a 16 million dollar investment, Amtrak is installing new seats aboard their Amfleet 1 cars, a process that will take them through the summer of 2018.

Here’s what’s included:

• Brand-new seat cushions
• New carpeting
• New LED reading lights
• New bathroom flooring
• Upgraded wainscoting and bulkhead
• New curtains in Business Class cars
• Redesigned galleys in the café cars

Interestingly, Amtrak doesn’t expect any service interruptions with the upgrade; cars will be pulled in and out of a rotation so it doesn’t delay any training schedules.

Here are the services receiving the new seats:

Northeast Regional (including trains to Springfield), Vermonter, Downeaster, Empire Service, Maple Leaf, Adirondack, Ethan Allen Express, Keystone, Springfield Shuttles, Pennsylvanian, Carolinian, Illinois Service, Hiawatha, Missouri River Runner and Michigan Services.

My Take

These changes mostly appear cosmetic, though it’s a welcome refresh on a very already tired product. There doesn’t seem to be any major changes to the seats as far as function, so consider these new seats to be just that – seats only.