Three nights in three different sleeping accommodations turns a long-distance rail journey into a practical comparison of what passengers actually get for their money. Jet and Suzanne Brooks begin squeezed into a roomette, move into a substantially larger bedroom, and eventually test the family bedroom, measuring beds, examining storage, using the bathrooms and showers, eating onboard meals, and scoring each option. The approach makes the differences much easier to understand than a simple tour because the rooms are experienced under real travel conditions rather than inspected for a few minutes.
The roomette provides an especially useful starting point because its compromises become apparent almost immediately. Two facing seats and limited storage make daytime use cramped for a couple, while the upper bunk measures only 23 inches wide and 73 inches long. Jet and Suzanne do a good job showing how luggage, backpacks, meals, sleeping arrangements, and nighttime bathroom trips work in such a confined space. At the same time, they acknowledge its advantages: it is private, considerably cheaper than the larger accommodations, and comes with sleeper benefits including meals, lounge access where available, bedding, coffee, water, and attendant service.
Their bedroom test demonstrates where spending more money produces meaningful improvements. The couch, separate chair, additional storage space, three outlets, larger lower bed, and private toilet and shower make the room noticeably more comfortable. The ensuite bathroom emerges as more than a luxury after the inconvenience of leaving the roomette at night, although the shower test also reveals water leaking underneath the door. More importantly, they identify a less obvious problem with most of the bedrooms: the connecting partition allows considerable sound through and rattles, leading them to recommend bedroom A when available because it lacks that partition.
Unexpected disruptions give the journey an authenticity that a more controlled comparison might lack. A tornado watch, flash-flood conditions, freight traffic, a suspected broken rail, delays, an absent attendant for part of the trip, and a malfunctioning public-address system all become part of the experience. Eventually, strong winds are said to have caused a freight-train derailment near Lordsburg, blocking the route and prompting Amtrak to replace the remaining trip with a bus. The hosts state that nobody was injured, but the disruption forces them to abandon the original plan, fly to Los Angeles, and later find another way to test the final accommodation.
Moving the family-bedroom portion to the California Zephyr from Denver to Chicago is a reasonable solution, and the hosts clearly disclose the change rather than pretending the original itinerary continued uninterrupted. Because they describe the replacement as the same Superliner equipment, the focus remains on the room itself, although using a different train and route means the sleep experience is no longer a perfectly controlled comparison. The family bedroom impresses with its full-width layout, room for two adults and two children, four beds, two tray tables, and enormous amount of usable floor space. Its drawbacks are equally clear: only one outlet, surprisingly limited dedicated luggage storage, and no private bathroom despite being the largest accommodation tested.
The scoring system gives the comparison a useful framework, covering daytime comfort, space and storage, sleep quality, bathrooms, and price. The roomette finishes at 16.5 out of 25, the bedroom at 18.5, and the family bedroom at 19.25. Yet the hosts wisely avoid treating that arithmetic as an unquestionable verdict. They ultimately say they would personally choose the bedroom because they value its private bathroom, demonstrating that the nominal winner may not be the best choice for travelers whose priorities differ.
There are some limitations to the methodology. Prices are presented as specific figures for two passengers on the Chicago-to-Los Angeles route without discussion of how fares may vary, so they work better as the prices used for this comparison than as universal expectations. Sleep scores are inherently subjective, and factors such as track conditions, room location, noise, delays, and the switch to another route make direct comparison imperfect. Still, the combination of measurements, overnight experience, bathroom tests, meal service, storage demonstrations, pricing, and candid complaints produces a detailed and unusually practical look at the tradeoffs among the three accommodations.
Pros
- Actually sleeping in each accommodation reveals practical differences that a brief room tour would miss, particularly around noise, movement, bathroom access, luggage, and upper-bunk usability.
- Bed measurements and demonstrations of storage, outlets, seating, showers, and tray tables provide concrete information passengers can use when choosing a room.
- The hosts openly disclose the derailment-related itinerary change and explain why the family-bedroom test had to continue on another Superliner train.
- Separate category scores make the tradeoffs among comfort, space, sleep, bathrooms, and price easy to follow without pretending the highest total automatically suits every traveler.
- Unexpected operational problems and the leaking bedroom shower are included rather than edited around, giving the comparison a more realistic feel.
Cons
- Testing the family bedroom on a different train and route weakens the direct comparison of sleep quality because track conditions and other environmental factors changed.
- The quoted fares are treated as the basis of the value scores without much explanation of potential pricing variability.
- Sleep ratings are useful personal impressions but are influenced by room position, noise, track conditions, and individual sleeping preferences.
- The journey occasionally drifts into food, travel banter, and disruption updates that make the room comparison less focused than it could be.
By combining measurements with several nights of actual use, the comparison makes the practical differences among Amtrak's sleeping accommodations unusually tangible. The disrupted itinerary prevents a perfectly controlled test, but transparent disclosure, specific observations, and a willingness to separate the numerical winner from personal preference keep the result useful for travelers weighing space, privacy, comfort, and cost.
