Why does Amtrak ask for your destination before sending you to a car?

[MIrailfan]

They did this to me yesterday leaving Chicago.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

Because they group people based on destination.
This can be because some platforms are not long enough for the number of cars.

If the train is an overnight one, they try to group the passengers going the furthest so as to have less disruptions during the night.

 

[oregon pioneer]

At night, when passengers and staff are sleeping, they don't want to open any more cars than necessary at a stop. If they have all the passengers for, say, Omaha in one coach car, the conductor and one attendant can handle it. Same with sleepers, but those are assigned to specific cars at the time of ticket purchase.

It also allows each attendant more uninterrupted sleep time if they only have to be up once (or not at all) during the night.

 

[Bob Dylan]

At night, when passengers and staff are sleeping, they don't want to open any more cars than necessary at a stop. If they have all the passengers for, say, Omaha in one coach car, the conductor and one attendant can handle it. Same with sleepers, but those are assigned to specific cars at the time of ticket purchase.

It also allows each attendant more uninterrupted sleep time if they only have to be up once (or not at all) during the night.

On trains that have more than one Sleeper, the SCAs( and I've even seen other OBS do it on some Trains) take turns covering the Sleepers during nighttime stops.

On those with just 1, the Conductors handle some of the Stops since they only work for a few hours each shift,so that the Attendant can get some Sleep.

 

[me_little_me]

There are other reasons also - mostly to benefit the employees even at the expense of customers

• Once the cars containing shorter distance people is emptied and the other(s) can hold the remainder, those cars can be cleaned and shut down early. Of course that means the restrooms in the remaining car(s) get worse and worse.
• Less work for the car attendants and conductors.