It'd work on the CZ. Probably on the CS and EB, too. (Height issues may pose a problem in CHI, though--they're 18'6", necessary because the bottom floor is a full floor, not a half floor below the level of the trucks like current Superliners. Not sure what the clearance height is in CHI, especially if they have to cross under any Metra Electric catenary.)
The needs of an overnight train include cool coaches and blocking out moving light, both central to environments conducive to sleeping. The dome would make an awesome lounge and even an awesome diner. But not a coach.
As far as Colorado Railcar's products being junk: I've heard you say bad things about their DMUs, but I've never seen any testimony from you or anyone (that I can recall, anyway) to any lack of quality with their standard non-powered cars. I certainly haven't heard anyone at the ARR complain about them, and they're one of the largest users of that company's equipment.
Of course, anything not built by Budd using shot welding is crap to you, so I always have to take your statements with a grain of salt...
There's a reason stainless steel and aluminum are the materials of choice for building rail cars for just about every railroad in the world besides the Alaska. Carbon steel, as used by CRC, is relatively weak and corosion prone. To build a plausible product with it, therefore, you have to use a lot of it. As a result, cars using it are much heavier than Aluminum or stainless cars. Look at the weight specs of the CRC cars. That CRC coach weighs about 25 tons more than a comparable Superliner lounge.
In addition, the Superliners non-full floor design allows for components to be placed in such a way as to give the car a low center of gravity. In fact, the Superliner's COG is lower than even the Amfleet's. The CRC double-deckers have a very high center of gravity, and are uncomfortable with crosswinds, nor are they good at speed. Running them on the SWC at 90 mph would be a seriously bad idea.
So compared to the Superliner design, you trade 25 tons of weight, reduced durability, and a higher center of gravity for a 1/3 car worth of floor space. That means on a weight basis, the CRC car has less capacity per ton, because 4 Superliners would have more floor space than 3 CRCs, but weigh about the same.
The CRCs are perfect for what Rader succeeded at: low-speed tourist trains. They are not transit cars, nor intercity cars. They are tourist cars.
If you keep them painted, as I am sure ARR does, they'll last ok. Amtrak can't even keep their own livery unfaded on their cars. These things would be rusting hulks in 5 years of Amtrak service.
I admire Budd's designs because for American railroads nothing is better suited. I admire their products because the build quality is nonpareil. I also admire TALGOs products for their damned good build quality and impressive engineering. I have no admiration for CRCs overweight dinosaurs. Their engineering is flawed, their materials are poorly chosen. They are reasonably well screwed together, I'll give them that, but the materials are still illsuited and they won't last long on Amtrak. They are technically inept.
CRCs are designed to impress the passenger, with little thought given to engineering, operations, or usage. That's why their DMUs are sluggish, useless, overweight, and underpowered. That's why their cars are top-heavy, overweight, and over sized.
