Away’s sleek new luggage is designed for train travel
As Amtrak continues to roll out new high-speed trains, it’s also improving on another pain point of train travel: unwieldy suitcases. A new partnership with Away is promoting a set of sleek luggage designed to tackle some of the issues of maneuvering a suitcase through the tight spaces on a moving train car. The first feature is small, but undeniably useful—a brake to stop your suitcase from rolling away when you’re standing in a train corridor before disembarking (or in similar situations, like balancing in a crowded subway car). “Luggage has a tendency to shift or roll away at the exact moment you need it to stay put,” says Hannah Clayton, vice president of design at Away. [Photo: Away] Away’s team designed a new type of wheel brake that locks both the wheels and fork of the suitcase “to eliminate the drifting and shifting that’s common with many other brake systems,” Clayton says. The switch to turn the brake on and off is also easy to reach, sitting on the top of the suitcase where the brand previously had a battery pack. “From a user experience perspective, it was important to us that the system felt intuitive and easy to access while moving through transit environments,” she says. Grabbing something from a suitcase is also less awkward in small spaces. Instead of laying the bag flat to unzip it, there’s a second way to get inside—a vertical opening on the front, so you can reach into the main compartment while the suitcase is still upright. (The collection is named Topside after this feature.) The lid has an interior laptop sleeve and other storage. [Photo: Away] The bags are as compact as possible to make it easier to roll down aisles or squeeze into luggage racks. “We focused on maximizing capacity while minimizing footprint,” says Clayton. “The design offers significantly more depth within a more compact footprint, making it easier to navigate dense urban spaces and forms of public transportation.” The suitcase has more vertical packing space because its de