BLIND DATES
No, not the kind you go out to dinner with. When you attempt to book a reservation, Amtrak's website lists the available trains and used to show you the dates. It no longer shows the dates. This presents problems when trying to take a train which does not run everyday.
For example, try to book a train from SPG (Springfield, MA) to RNK (Roanoke, VA) on a weekday. There is, of course no direct way to do this. Amtrak should show various combinations of trains which will get you there, but it doesn't. What it does instead is put up a very passive warning:
"PROBLEM WITH YOUR ITINERARY - PLEASE CONSIDER THE ALTERNATIVE BELOW: The train(s) you selected are not available on the date(s) you requested. "
Below that warning it lists the train, 147, which will presumably get you there. It doesn't mention that this train runs only on Saturday, or show the date. So, an unsuspecting novice might go ahead and go through the motions to try to book this train and if lucky, realize near the very end when the summary page is presented, that this train is for the wrong day.
jb