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By the time I was old enough to ride the PRR's Trail Blazer, as well as the Santa Fe's El Capitan and the UP's Challenger, they had been combined with their all Pullman counterparts.  The PRR's coaches were a distinct step down from those on the western trains.  I made numerous trips on the PRR from Altoona to New York whilst in high school.  I usually returned home on the General, which by 1956 if not before had the Trail Blazer's coaches. It also had a double dining car. I don't remember being required to have a reservation to eat in the dining car.   As a young person I made several trips across the United States in coach class.  I also made several trips from Pennsylvania to Florida in coach class.  Not a problem for a young person, but I would not want to do it today. Only 2.2 per cent of Amtrak's system passengers booked a sleeper in FY13.  Approximately 14.5 per cent of the long distance passengers booked a sleeper.  These percentages have remained relatively constant for the last five years or more. According to the DOT IG's 2005 report, the subsidy for sleeping car passengers was considerably higher than the subsidy for coach passengers.  Whether that is still true is unknown.  As far as I know the study has not been replicated, but I would be surprised if the outcomes would be dramatically different if the study was repeated. I am hard pressed to understand why it is in the public interest to subsidize people who have the means to go first class.   Given the results of the 2005 study, a prudent business management team would either raise the fares for the sleepers, as well as the prices in the dinning car, to eliminate the subsidies or at least put them on a par with the subsidies for coach passengers. Most of the influential advocates for Amtrak probably are articulate, higher income people who know how to push the political power levers, which is important when trying to influence a government railroad. To the extent that they ride the trains, they want first class service, i.e. Acela Express, business class, sleeping cars, etc.  Even if it were in the public interest to run coach only long distance trains, this group probably would have a hundred reasons why it is not a good idea.
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