I think a big part of it too is that Amtrak's California management has been pretty adept at positioning all their product to take advantage of the environment. As I recall, the parlor car idea was something of a gorilla campaign to improve train ratings and load factors, and ran counter to trends elsewhere to strip services. As it turned out, the experiment was very successful, driving lots of buzz and increased loads, so they held on to the cars and the service. I believe that Amtrak is looking at putting a Cross Country Cafe car onto the Empire Builder in addition to the current Lounge and Diner, to provide meals for the Portland section and help fill demand. However, I'm not sure if it'll ever get used as a first class car only, although without the larger windows a CCC would be a poor cousin to the PPC.