(details that were formerly in my previous post, but were moved into this one to avoid overwhelming people who just want "the big picture")
Rooms would start out at the same price as the other ones, with a catch... for 14 days after reservation, or until 28 days before departure (whichever happened first), others could offer to pay Amtrak more than you did and take the room away from you unless you agreed within 72 hours to match their offer (as the original purchaser, you'd have right of first refusal). For convenience, you could auto-agree to some maximum amount less than or equal to double the nominal rate, and automatically win once and for all if the price hit double the initial reservation price and you matched it. If you got outbid, your entire price would be refunded.
Cats must be in carriers when not in room, and must be "secure" whenever the door is partly or fully open so they can't slip out. Passengers may bring a soft carrier for use in-room, and check a hard carrier with the attendant after boarding & have it returned an hour prior to arrival.
Dogs must be on a leash or in a carrier at all times when the room door is open and/or when boarding or getting off. Before exiting the room with the dog, passenger must notify the attendant, who will notify passengers who might be waiting by the door so they can move if desired. As with cats, hard carriers can be checked as baggage after boarding and retrieved prior to arrival. Passengers intending to walk dogs at a stop must be ready to get off immediately upon arrival at the station. A grassy patch with faux fire hydrant lies within 100 feet of the tracks. Passengers are handed a poop scoop and bag by the attendant prior to getting off, and sternly reminded that there's a video camera watching their every move & their dog will be banned from Amtrak for at least a year if they leave behind a "landmine".
Bottled water is available from attendant. Food must be provided by passengers.
Disposable litter boxes and litter available for purchase, and REQUIRED for passengers with cats unless the passenger brings his own. Only disposable litter boxes that can be bagged, tightly sealed, and thrown away are allowed. Box must be bagged and sealed prior to arrival at destination to avoid additional charge. Plastic bags in dispenser and airtight waste receptacle provided. Litterbox normally sits by the door, but can be stowed temporarily under the second seat while preparing the roomette for bed, and sit under the lower bunk (between the two seats) overnight.
"Accidents" must be cleaned up by the passenger, or a $100 cleaning fee will be charged. A bottle of enzymatic cleaner will be provided in the room's closet along with paper towels.
A dog who barks "excessively" (at the discretion of the attendant, with less and less discretion as the number of other passengers who complain increases) on the outbound leg of a trip will be allowed to make the return trip, but will be banned from travel on Amtrak for doubling periods that begin at 6 months and are reduced by 50% for each complaint-free trip thereafter if the dog also barks excessively on the return trip. A dog who behaves on the outbound leg, but barks excessively on the return, will not be banished initially, but the passenger will be warned that a repeat performance on the next outbound trip will immediately escalate into a 1-year banishment following the return trip (6 months, if the dog behaves for the outbound trip, but barks excessively for the return, and 2 years if the dog barks excessively on the outbound trip AND the return). The idea is to cut owners who've never traveled with pets a bit of slack, and refrain from leaving them stranded (or force the owner to endanger them by flying them home... air travel as cargo for pets is EXTREMELY dangerous), but make sure the owners understand that their dogs are welcome only as long as they can behave themselves. Personally, I'd love to see the same policy applied to infants and children, but I know that would be politically untenable
When booking online, passengers who are NOT traveling with a pet will be asked to indicate the minimum discount they'd insist upon for travel in the "pet (bed)room(ette)". If all roommettes or bedrooms are sold EXCEPT the ones set aside for pets, travelers will be offered the option of either booking the room at the normal fare, or paying the lowest-bidding other passenger with overlapping travel plans to take it instead. In other words, if the thought of a roomette used by cats is untenable to someone faced with the last-available roomette between Philadelphia and Orlando, but a NYP-Orlando (or WPB..Miami) passenger is willing to take it for a $120 discount, that cat-hating passenger can pay the extra $120 & the other one will be happy to get a discount. A similar bid-offer mechanism might be incorporated to accommodate passengers who are *vehemently* opposed to sharing a railcar with animals (random assignment to one or the other, but if you *really* hate the idea, you can find someone willing to ride in the pet car for $x, and pay him to do it willingly and guarantee your room in the other car).
No, this isn't the kind of single-sentence policy the kind of people who'd rather not have animals on the train at all would prefer to see... but by clearly laying out expectations, it would have the potential to not just satisfy the letter of the law, but could actually drive substantial new business for Amtrak as well. Air travel with pets (especially as cargo) is EXTREMELY dangerous, and Amtrak would quickly become the preferred way to safely transport pets across the country.
A single roomette and bedroom on a long-distance train set aside for pet travel would be largely revenue-neutral (if they went unsold, at least one of each room would have probably gone unsold anyway, and if push came to shove, someone who can't deal with a room that had cats and dogs in it could transparently and automatically find the passenger who'd object the least and pay them to take it instead).
