How comfortable you'll be in coach for 2 or 3 nights is impossible to determine without first trying. Obviously, people do it all the time (or thrice weekly in the Sunset's case), and are perfectly comfortable. I suspect that if you had no problems with your coach trip on the Capitol, you'll be fine on the Sunset--bearing through the first night means acclimation for the second and third. And if that doesn't happen, you'll have all that extra money in your pocket to make yourself feel better.

Most conductors I have dealt with acted like they just did not want to deal with it. I have had to ask them several times and start all over when the crew changed. I often get some bogus response. The latest one (last month) was: "They shut off our phone service because Amtrak didn't pay their phone bill, so you have to get off at ABQ and buy it at the ticket counter." Huh? They need a phone?

At the ticket counter, they charged me almost twice what I saw on the website the day before I left. The room they sold me turned out to be already occupied, so the attendant put me in a room still full of garbage, and I never saw him til the next am (I still tipped him though!)

It used to be you would get something like a 20% discount purchasing vacant bedrooms onboard. Several years ago I experienced conductors walking the train offering bedroom space at a discount.

Now, wouldn't it make sense to sell vacant bedroom space at a discount to increase revenue? And shouldn't conductors be aware if there is vacant first class space available, so I do not have to wait hours to get an answer?

I would be interested to hear if anyone else out there has had similar experiences.

But you say that you paid cash? And all you were given was a standard seat check as a "receipt?"

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The latest one (last month) was: "They shut off our phone service because Amtrak didn't pay their phone bill, so you have to get off at ABQ and buy it at the ticket counter." Huh? They need a phone?

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OK that is WAY TOO FUNNY! Amtrak Conductors don't need a phone to upgrade a ticket onboard, as far as I know, all they need is an updated Manifest to ensure that the space in question wasn't sold already.

And to answer Dilly's question, I was thinking the same thing about what happened to the cash I paid for the room. I was too tired to haggle over the price at that point since I had spent the previous night either sitting in my hotel room then trying to "sleep" in a Superliner Coach with my scanner on all night so I really didn't get that deep of a sleep to begin with. I had also spent the next day sightseeing in Washington so I was super tired and needed a BED and quickly, to avert a "system shutdown", or how should I say it, TO AVOID JUST PASSING OUT DUE TO SEVERE LACK OF SLEEP! ha ha ha!!!

Had he sold the room, he would've risked bumping someone else--who had paid full fare and reserved prior to boarding. Could he have checked at the next stop? Probably. But with everything else he has to do, that could be asking alot.

But, I would guess the onboard price would have been considerably less than the $223 I paid for a standard for 1 night and 1 meal (But hey, I got 446 guest reward points and Amtrak is my favorite charity). And since it was a Rail Sale trip I still saved much bucks over booking in advance.

I really think they should explain the onboard upgrade procedure in the National Timetable. I have just learned enough from this panel to handle it with a little more savvy in the future.

I am actually a convert to coach overnights. I used to always go first class, but I have found that with the right preparations (extra pillows, a small towel for the birdbath, my trusty hooded sweatshirt, and the luck of the seat next to me being unoccupied), I slept just fine in coach and felt less claustrophobic.