I wonder whether you’re thinking specifically of the dining car menu situation on the Lake Shore Limited, the Capitol Limited, the Cardinal, and/or the City of New Orleans, all of which have been marred by a diminished dining car experience at one time or another in recent years without that experience being totally removed. Most other overnight trains–the Silver Meteor, the Crescent, the Empire Builder, the California Zephyr, the Southwest Chief, the Texas Eagle, the Sunset Limited, and the Coast Starlight–have kept the dining car experience largely intact up to now (September 28, 2019).
Also, is this impression you have of Amtrak’s dining cars based on personal experience, or just on the “research” you mention having done? You can’t always trust what you read about Amtrak on the Internet or in the news media, or hear from people in conversation: a lot of it is wildly inaccurate, exaggerated, and overemotional.
