Originally Posted by
jackal
Room numbers with an odd number and then an even number one more than the odd number are across from each other. In other words, roomettes 3 and 4, 5 and 6, 7 and 8, etc. are opposite.
Amtrak's pattern of booking roomettes is fairly strange...they do seem to alternate upper floor, lower floor, upper floor, lower floor, etc. However, you would think that, given availability, they would place two rooms on the same reservation adjacent or opposite.
Amtrak's computer assigns rooms based upon which rooms have the cheapest price at the time of booking. And since they vary the various price levels across both levels of the car, unless a special request is made, you can easily end up on two different levels. In fact, I've seen people end up in different cars.
The drawback to requesting opposite rooms is, as the Jackal mentioned, not all agents know how to swap rooms without changing the price or don't want to be bothered doing the work.