Crew size on Amtrak overnight trains? On day trains?

[chakk]

While most Amtrak long distance trains have one SCA per sleeping car, I recently rode Via Rail's "Canadian", which had one SCA per two sleeping cars. So the SCA for my sleeping car selected me to be "taught" how to open the car's exit door in an emergency, saying that he would first open the other car's door and might not be able to get to my car's door quickly enough. As it was a standard Dutch door, I already knew how to do it (having observed same for more than 50 years as a frequent train rider), but politely watched his training session again. No emergency occured, so I never had to apply my newly-trained skills.

 

[Gemuser]

If you scroll down to the second to last page, there's a list of train mannings, by position, as of February 15,2004. This is for OBS personnel only.

Sunset Limited: 10 positions
Southwest Chief: 9
California Zephyr: 9
Empire Builder: 8
Coast Starlight: 13
Crescent: 9
Texas Eagle: 9
Capitol Limited: 9
Lake Shore Limited: 9
City of New Orleans: 9
Silver Star/Meteor: 10

Admittedly, this is a decade old, but I haven't been able to find a more recent contract.
OK, using these numbers 9 appears to be the standard number. So what factors cause the variations?

Here are some thoughts:

Sunset +1 Because it transfers cars into the TE?

Empire Builder -1 No idea

Coast Starlight +4! OK +1 for the PPC, where are the other 3?

Silver Star/Meteor +1 No idea

Anybody have any more ideas/knowledge?

 

[neroden]

Of course, day trains (non-LD trains) do not have sleeping cars or a Dining Car. They also do not have CA's.

Some of the longer day trains do have coach attendants (I think the Palmetto does). The number of coach attendants is... complicated. It's dependent on the number of coaches, but it's not "one for one". It's also not particularly rational.