Regarding the Horizon coaches, on Friday I rode Milwaukee-Chicago-Detroit on 334/352. The legroom isn't all that bad, though I do hate when seats face each other, as you're sharing the same amount of legroom with another person, so you actually get less room on those facing seats.
It's no worse than corridor seating on Amfleet Is.
I haven't seen any Horizons with blue seats yet (well, there was one car in my Hiawatha consist with blue seats, but they were the old 1980s blue, red, and orange, not the new blue). Was that Horizon one refurbished at Beech Grove, or did they just stick new seat cuhsions on old seats? Based on the photo, it looks like it was the latter, as the car had brown seats and an orange carpet. The car in the photo also lacks electrical outlets, which also suggests that they just replaced the cushions.
I saw a couple of Horizon cars in the new paint scheme, which could also mean they received a new interior (but not necessarily). It's interesting comparing the different Horizon cars. For many of my trips in the Midwest, a Horizon car in Phase III paint meant that it had an old interior, with the old red seats (which, IIRC, is different from the blue/red/orange color scheme, but my memory may be failing me on this one). Cars in Phase IV meant that they had a new interior, with solid walls instead of carpeted walls, grey seats instead of brown seats, grey carpet instead of orange carpet, green seat cushions instead of red ones, and electrical outlets.
Then, I started seeing some Phase III Horizons where they replaced the red seat cushions with green ones (but everything else stayed the same). When I took a special Horizon car set representing the Coast Starlight in January, there were Phase III and Phase IV Horizons, but none of them had refurbished interiors (such as including electrical outlets).
I know David Gunn wants the trains to have a consistent exterior color scheme, but as a passenger I'd rather they have consistent interior features.
Sorry for the long, somewhat off-topic rant. Hopefully when these cars get rebuilt in the same program that produced the beautiful Superliner sleeper, we'll get a consistent interior with features that work.
B)
