I agree with you, but people complain when there a lot of open seats being saved for further down the route (or even the same stop) and they're forced into a small section of the car with a seatmate.
There are many reasons seats might be assigned a certain way. However, there should be attempts to spread people out. Even in normal times, just assigning people seats in exact sequence (filling up each row one at a time with no breaks in the sequence, etc.) or sticking people in one section of the car when there is no good reason to do so shouldn't happen.
There are very few of the 2 to 1 seat configurations. If every long distance train could have business class with 2 to 1 that would be ideal. Most people do not relish sitting and sleeping next to a stranger overnight. Sometimes I'll take the LSL instead of the CL from Chicago to be guaranteed a single seat in BC. Only five of them. Good to be one of the first to board from the Metropolitan Lounge.
They do on some trains. Maybe this could be a premium product on more trains?
In other words a double occupancy charge - still yet a train conductor may have the authority to override that to avoid unsafe SRO
I think the suggestion was basically to offer an option similar to the Business Class option offered on some trains where there is a single seat on one side. Although I suppose allowing people to purchase the second seat when possible works too in some cases (obviously making sure they're not cutting back on capacity when they don't need to)
The new Venture cars, at least in the Midwest, have 2-1 in Business
This.
Just one thing to consider about "parties of 3" : who gets the empty seat of the 4-seats? I know, I was once that odd person out on a ride on the Silver Star. There were two seat pairs occupied by a mom and her 2 kids. I was assigned the odd seat out, which turned out to be the seat next to the mom, so it worked out OK. The kids were OK, they were in the 5-8 year old range and were pretty well behaved. I actually had the window seat, which in one way was nice, but also meant that every time I wanted to use the restroom or eat, I had to climb over the mom to get out of my seat, which was a little awkward. I did spend a lot of time in the cafe car, which shows that having lounge space on a fully packed train is a good idea.
Unless all the single seats get filled up by the time you make your reservation, which has happened to me quite frequently on the Acela.
I think the main objection is that sometimes seats are assigned in ways that aren't optimal (assigning seats in exact numerical order, ignoring seating requests like window or aisle in instances where they could easily be honored, etc.) There should be more of an effort to try to offer people more of a choice of seating while still meeting other goals (grouping people to the same destination together, allowing groups and especially families with small children to sit together, etc.)
All of those could be supported with a modern reservations system, including car assignment by destination. As I said, it really is not a tough problem technically.
Amtrak already has the ability to allow people to select seats in advance (as seen on some trains like in the NEC and in Palmetto Business Class, for example - although I don't think Amtrak offers this ability in Coach anywhere.) This hasn't been extended to other trains that use assigned seating. If they could implement this systemwide (on trains with assigned seating) and allow people to choose where they want to sit, people would be able to reserve a more desirable seat in advance. Obviously this doesn't guarantee not having a seatmate when you don't have to, although I suppose people self-selecting would likely try for an empty pair if possible. Takes us back to the allowing people to book two seats if possible idea. The main potential drawbacks I could see with allowing seat selection in advance would be changes in consist due to load, bad orders, etc. and the possibility of someone selecting a desirable seat for a short ride and blocking people going most if not all the way from selecting the seat.
Or even simpler Amtrak could simply license a reservation system from DB, SBB, FS, OS or SNCF all of which have systems that can cope with everything Amtrak has to cope with, except possibly having only one price for a sleeping compartment of each type plus x number of tickets but as zephyr17 says not very hard problems.
