Not exciting food, but better than microwave hotdogs, and even with a spartan meal plan the trip is totally worth it.
Also some routes have a stop over which gives you an hour or so to scramble for a hot meal.
Another pro tip for the thrifty, bring a blanket and sleep on the floor in the observation car.
Ear plugs help in case other people are hanging out, but usually it’s pretty quiet for at least 6 hours. You can wake up and watch the sun rise.
You can always grab a nap in your seat later, but I have trouble sleeping more than an hour in a chair, whereas even on a hard floor I can zonk out for hours.
Budget 2 extra hours due to the border. It can take up to 2 hours to for the train to clear customs. Source: been there, done that.
Edit: use http://biketrain.net/amsnag/amSnag.php to find a cheaper day.
Obviously you can economize on any of these at some cost to your comfort and sanity. But because you can read a book on the train, or play computer games, or work, or socialize (or all of the above), you can easily conclude that a modest premium is worth it. That makes the $1100 fare a bargain, and even the $2000 fare might be worth it.
The real cost is the time. Most people who get yearly vacations can count on two weeks worth, and most of them aren't going to want to spend half of that on the journey; they're either going to go somewhere closer or they're going to fly. And that's still $400 for a cheap coach ticket, 8 hours in the air, and all the suffering you can bear in the airports at either end. Plus a taxi at each end, or long-term parking. You do get an extra 4 days to explore Portland though.
That's why it's insane.
Trains should be competing with flying. Given the choice between a stressful, polluting airplane and an environmentally friendly electric bullet train with meals, legroom and cheap overnight cabins, I would choose the latter. But it can't cost 10x that of a flight.
The resulting price was $1067 for a one-way trip (the site couldn't find any return tickets). So even the high-priced $2000 ticket you saw doesn't seem that bad; that's the same cost as a trip of similar length in Europe.
A 5-day ticket for the entirety of Europe is about $480, though you get a 15% discount for two people. If you're only doing 4 countries, it's about $360. For $968 you get unlimited travel for a whole month.
As for sleeper cabins, prices vary depending on the route, but it's often somewhere around $20-50 per night per person [2] for a private, multi-bed "couchette".
Comparing US states to Europe is a bit like apples and oranges, though.
[1] https://www.eurail.com/en/eurail-passes/global-pass
[2] https://www.eurail.com/en/plan-your-trip/about-reservations/...
Apparently Amtrak considers these to be "short-distance" journeys, which don't have dining cars. I don't know if these ever had dining cars, but the idea of spending an entire day with just frozen pizza on the menu is just out of the question.
And then there are the couch seats. Who wants to be in a couch seat overnight for 12+ hours? Sleeper cars were $1,500 (!) for the dates I checked. Coming from Europe, where trains are modern and super cheap, this was extremely depressing to me.
I just checked the Empire Builder for a random date in May, and they charge $2,000 for a sleeper car. It's a 45-hour journey!