The popularity of Amtrak’s Acela Express with the business elite of the Northeast Corridor might as well have earned the train a nickname: Boardroom on Rails.

Now the trains are getting another amenity straight from the corporate suite: leather seats.

Plush, blue, shiny leather seating — “Avatar,” anyone? — will begin appearing in business-class cabins of all Acela Express trains between Boston and Washington by the end of the year, Amtrak announced this week. The chairs resemble those found in the first-class section of airplanes and are expected to have “longer seat life” and cheaper maintenance costs, according to the railroad.

The seats have a cushy appearance, with sturdier headrests and white detailing — a more enticing look, perhaps, than the stiffer gray fabric chairs currently found on the trains. Carpeting and curtains in the rail cars will also be updated to complement the new leather design, which has already appeared in some first-class Acela cabins.

By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM, The New York Time >>> continue reading

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