No they don’t get cheaper right before

The way Amtrak sales work is they sell the tickets in “buckets” starting with the cheapest price and after a certain amount are sold, they start selling the next “bucket” at a higher price, continually going up in price as more tickets are sold. Once the price goes up into the next bucket, it pretty much never comes back down.

So the longer you wait, the higher the price will be 99 times out of 100.

We’re lucky to live in the region where Amtrak has its absolute hands down best service, but this practice does really make it hard to use them for a last-minute trip.