That is exactly where the confusion lies. All of my Amtrak trips involved boxing a bike except one trip in Missouri where the conductor said to put the bikes in the front row seats. Those trips were all in or before 2014.

And reading various comments on this forum about the new improvements to Amtrak several years ago apparently were about two different kinds of service which I apparently did not grasp at that time.

Where I had read that some people put their bikes inside the car and others handed the bike to Amtrak personnel to put in a rack, I did not realize that those services were different, I assumed that different Amtrak staff did things differently for the same bike service.

I did start planning a trip about five years ago, and it appeared that there was no baggage service and no bike service on one of the trains I would ride, so I started to plan for using my folding bike as carry on, but that trip was getting two complicated when it involved three different trains with needing a motel for one layover. Instead I used an airline for that trip with my S&S bike.

Thanks for your post.