Do the western trains really need bilevel?
I was looking at passenger capactity:
Two Superliner Sleepers can accommodate 84 passengers, assuming two passengers per compartment. Not counting family bedroom here.
One Viewliner Sleeper can accommodate 32.
A train with three Viewliner Sleepers would be the equivalent, except that you'd have 6 bedrooms instead of 12 - allowing for differences in the family bedroom.
3 Viewliners would have 36 roomettes vs 28 for two Superliners.
Looks like adding just one car would accommodate two superliners' worth of passengers fine, and if reconfigured, you could have the same number of bedrooms while by reallocating space devoted to roomettes.
As far as dining goes:
Superliner dining car has 18 tables - theoretically accommodating 72 passengers.
Viewliner has 10 tables - for 40 passengers max.
Also looks like the kitchen in the Superliner is much larger (with almost twice the seating capacity, I'm not surprised.)
Allowing for the (relatively) minor differences in coach capacity in Viewliner (70 or 58) v Superliner (74), it looks like any long distance train could work as a single-level with the addition of one sleeper and perhaps a creative approach to the dining car(s).
Am I missing something here?
