Was this on a short-distance line in the Midwest? I had a similar experience in 2005. I bought a "bike ticket" for my trip from St. Louis to Chicago. And when boarding the train I realized pretty quickly that a) there was no special equipment for bike storage and b) bikes were seen very infrequently, as the staff had no clue what to do. The conductor wanted me to wait until everyone else had gotten on, and then directed me to put the bike in an overhead rack. This was pure folly as a) I'd be lifting the bike over the heads of nonplussed fellow passengers and b) those nonplussed passengers had already filled up the rack. The conductor then just let me lean the bike up "somewhere".

Later that year I took my bike on Amtrak from Champaign to Chicago. Not wanting to deal with that nonsense again, I got in first and put my bike in the rear-most vestibule. After doing that, the conductor said "That's where I would have told you to put it!"