As to east vs. west, I do think the eastern trains had some riders who were drawn by the experience, at least before Amtrak decided to gut the dining service and turn those trains into the equivalent of really long plane rides. To me, the Lake Shore Limited route along the Hudson and Mohawk valleys is one of the prettiest rides in the east, and the Boston leg has some great mountain scenery in the Berkshires. People ride the Cardinal to see the New River gorge in WV, and the Capitol has some classic mountain railroading east of Pittsburgh. And from the Crescent, at least going north, you can see the Blue Ridge of Virginia.
That said, it has always seemed to me that the atmosphere on board is completely different between east and west. I used to think it was a holdover from the cultures of the different predecessor railroads before Amtrak. (Most of the eastern trains, after all, were handled by the dreaded Penn Central for at least part of their runs in the pre-Amtrak era.) There is just a more relaxed pacing on the western trains, maybe just because of the duration of the trip and the fact that people are riding much longer distances. On the eastern runs, the crews generally seem more harried and more focused on getting everyone on and off at the next stop. With the possible exception of the Crescent south of Atlanta, riding the eastern trains doesn't feel like a vacation to me -- and it mostly didn't even when the meals were much better.
