What you are saying is partially true, but a common exception in almost all travel and hospitality is last minute inventory. A hotel room, cruise cabin, or sleeper bedroom is worth zero dollars if empty. If all roomettes are sold, and bedrooms are empty near departure it makes sense to fill them even if at bargain prices. What would be a plus would be a system that upgrades existing reservations to the better space, and selling the empty roomettes. Priority to frequent travelers and high fare payers. Airlines and ships do it all the time.....
The problem is how can you manage that on a trip like the Builder, California Zephyr, or other 2+ day trips? Do you want to upgrade everyone right out of the origin and risk losing a last minute bedroom sale (or paid upgrade) down the road? Not just that, but then how much more money would be lost by folks booking a roomette instead of a bedroom and taking a gamble that they'll be upgraded?
There's a huge difference between a train and a cruise, where one has passengers board once, and the other has passengers board all day and ask night. Would make things far more difficult to implement on Amtrak.
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