I recently re-read Edward Hungerford’s book The Run of the Twentieth Century describing what all was involved in operating the NYC’s flagship train Twentieth Century Limited between New York City and Chicago in 1930. What I found most interesting was how, on any given day, the type of sleeping cars selected for the Century was based on passenger demands for various facilities: upper or lower berths, compartments, drawing rooms, etc. If, on a certain day, the demand for compartments was particularly high, those sleeping cars with the most compartments would be used for that day’s train so that the supply of compartments would meet the demand.
As has been pointed out, the demand for bedrooms on Amtrak LD trains now exceeds the supply, even with the super-inflated prices being charged for these bedrooms. If Amtrak were to adopt a policy similar to that of the NYC’s Century, it would take into consideration how many requests for bedrooms had been made for a particular train and date and then add more sleepers to that particular train on that particular date to ensure that the demand for bedrooms was met.
To imagine this ever happening is, of course, pure fantasy. As things stand now, it is unlikely that the supply of bedrooms will ever meet the demand, particularly during peak travel times. (This is why we book our bedrooms six months in advance.)
