[jordanb]

The new Amtrak cars on Midwest and California service are made by Siemens. They are a huge downgrade in terms of customer comfort versus the old equipment. The seats are worse than a budget airline seat. This is in contrast to the old equipment where the coach seats were more comfortable than a domestic first class airline seat. The business class seats on the old trains were practically lay-flat, the new ones don't recline at all.

Unfortunately Siemens has become something of a monopoly outside of Asia and France for passenger trains and they've apparently decided that train travel should be uncomfortable, with bad seats and harsh lighting.

The upside to these new Acela trains is that they were built by the French railcar maker Alstrom, not by Siemens like the rest of the new Amtrak carriages.