Amtrak is entirely bucket based. And revenue management places X number of rooms into the first bucket, second bucket, etc. But they can and do adjust the number of rooms in any given bucket based upon the two things you mentioned, along with consideration of two other factors; namely holidays and how far away is the departure date of the train.

Amtrak used to call up people several years back offering a chance to pay for a reduced price upgrade to a Bedroom if enough hadn't already sold. They have since discontinued that practice however to my knowledge.

Special means that they announce a promotion that allows one to earn status points outside of the normal rule. It does happen occasionally, but I can recall only a few such promotions.

That's not true at all. Sorry! For example, the Lake Shore Limited is a single level train using Amfleets & Viewliner cars. It runs with 3 sleepers, 1 diner, 1 cafe car, and typically 6 coaches; for a total of 11 cars not including baggage cars.

The SW Chief runs with 2 Superliner sleepers, 1 Trans/Dorm with 6 revenue rooms, 1 diner, 1 cafe car/Sightseer Lounge, and 2 coaches; a third is added during peak seasons. That's 8 cars total.

Even the Silver Meteor runs with more cars than the SW Chief and the Capitol Limited for that matter. The Meteor runs with 3 Viewliner sleepers, 1 diner, 1 cafe/lounge, 4 coaches regularly and a 5th seasonal.

The CZ Zephyr has 7 cars all the time, plus 2 extra cars are added seasonally. Only the Empire Builder and the Coast Starlight have consists that rival the Meteor and the Lake Shore.

Actually the reason it's harder to get into the diner on the single level trains is because 1/3rd of the car is given over to the kitchen thus reducing the seating area. On a Superliner the kitchen is downstairs which allows for the entire upper level to be used predominantly for seating.

The best that single level dining cars can seat is 48 people. The Superliner dining cars can seat 72 maximum.

The Capitol Limited goes east to DC using Superliner equipment. The Auto train runs from just south of DC to Florida using Superliner equipment. The Cardinal used to run with Superliner equipment when it terminated in DC.

Actually, outside of the NY City tunnels and the Baltimore tunnels, Superliners could pretty much run anyplace in the east. Perhaps in a few spots the overhead wires would need to be moved, but predominately the cars could run on most of the NEC save those tunnels. I'm aware of Superliners being operated into Philly from the west and into Albany, NY.

The real problem in the east is that Superliner's aren't compatible with high level platforms and many east coast stations only have high level platforms.

I didn't think you were being aggressive at all. Sorry if my reply made it seem like that.

Unless you are Select Exec, most people can't buy enough points in 1 year to take multiple trips. And while I don't know exact numbers, I do know that the bulk of the inventory is sold via payment. I say at best, on average, maybe 25% of the rooms on any given train were purchased using points.

Compared to most CEO's Mr. Boardman is a pauper. He makes a fraction of what most CEO's get. And he has no stock options and no golden parachute awaiting him when he retires.

That's not to suggest that Amtrak's management isn't bloated and that it doesn't have problems with people making decisions who have no idea about the reality and impact of their decisions. But that's true in most companies too. It's not unique to Amtrak at all.

What is unique for Amtrak is that it has more than 500 people sitting in Congress who also think that they know what's best for Amtrak and they love to micro-manage. Then they make things worse by never passing a long term plan for Amtrak that they stick to and most times not passing a budget on time.

Imagine trying to buy a car and take out a 5 year loan when your boss won't tell you if your salary will go up or down next year, or even remain the same.