# when did Amtrak first put passenger's name on tickets?



## Ria (Sep 29, 2018)

thank you. this will assist me in editing a novel which I have written which takes in September 1995. I have made a few conscious departure from reality in it but I would like to make as few of them as possible.


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## ehbowen (Sep 29, 2018)

Passenger names were on tickets, AFAIK, from the time the ARROW computerized reservations system was placed in service in the early 1970s. I Googled images of "Amtrak Tickets" and found one stub from the 1970s which had a space for passenger name, although nothing was written there. Elsewhere on this forum is a picture of a 1989 ticket with the passenger's first initial and last name.

Some notes: Tickets for "Unreserved" trains are least likely to bear a passenger name. See the timetable archive on timetables.org to find if the train your character is taking was unreserved. At least in earlier years, the first name was often only an initial..."T JACOBS" might mean Tom, or Terri, or Thaddeus, or...?

Also, even today there is little to stop someone from making a reservation under an assumed name, especially if you pay in cash. Station agents and train personnel are supposed to check IDs, but some can be a little lax about doing so.


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## cpotisch (Sep 29, 2018)

ehbowen said:


> I Googled images of "Amtrak Tickets" and found one stub from the 1970s which had a space for passenger name, although nothing was written there.


You sure the name wasn't just edited out?


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## the_traveler (Sep 29, 2018)

Back then, many (most) Amtrak trains were unreserved, meaning a ticket was not issued to one specific passenger for one specific train. Thus, it may not needed to have a name on it.


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## daybeers (Sep 30, 2018)

ehbowen said:


> Station agents and train personnel are supposed to check IDs, but some can be a little lax about doing so.







My ID has never been checked while onboard.


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## ehbowen (Sep 30, 2018)

I should also note that the ARROW Amtrak reservation system was compatible with the airline travel global distribution systems (and I believe was designed by the same people who put together SABRE for American Airlines). While tickets issued by Amtrak were on a unique Amtrak stock and format, the standard airline paper ticket form was accepted as well and was until very recently still used by most travel agents issuing Amtrak tickets...Amtrak paid a commission, again until very recently, on paper tickets redeemed through ARC but not on electronic ticketing. So, if it's helpful to your story, you could have your traveler holding a travel-agent issued ticket on standard airline stock with the only difference being that the carrier code is "2V" for Amtrak instead of, say, AA for American Airlines.

Edit To Add: I found after doing some more online research that Amtrak actually joined the ARC in 1985, so the airline-style ticketing from travel agents would have been standard from that date (although Amtrak agents themselves, to the best of my knowledge, never issued Amtrak tickets on airline-style stock but only on card stock with tear-off stubs). However, I personally took a Slumbercoach trip from Houston to Washington, D.C. (via New Orleans with an overnight stopover at the YMCA) in July of 1984 which was booked through a local travel agent and the ticket issued on airline-style stock, so that type of ticket was indeed in use even before Amtrak officially became part of ARC.


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## ehbowen (Sep 30, 2018)

cpotisch said:


> ehbowen said:
> 
> 
> > I Googled images of "Amtrak Tickets" and found one stub from the 1970s which had a space for passenger name, although nothing was written there.
> ...


Pretty sure. It looked to have been an unreserved ticket on a train operated by Penn Central.


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