Passenger Trains > CAF Elmira

Anyone in the know? Looked thru the fence lately?  August  gone. Summer gone. No new diners, much less revenue  cars. Punch list on diners supposed to be completed in August. Oh well. More  frustration.

My guess is that they are being reconfigured, to replace the am-lounge meal service cars.   ONLY a Guess.

mundo Wrote:
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> My guess is that they are being reconfigured, to
> replace the am-lounge meal service cars.   ONLY a
> Guess.

EDIT: To be clear - and start off - I have no idea what is going on with the Viewliner Diners. I just wish they would get on Amtrak trains as we have seen them designed and how prototype Diner 8400 operates. Sarcasm aside from the below.  
 
I can't imagine that the WHOLE fleet of diners would be reconfigured - can't digest that one. Each change would cost not only CAF, but Amtrak.

Amtrak has tried - the Amfleet Lounge (failure), buffet and table cars (failure), Diner Lite (failure).

Go with what has worked since 1950 for crying out loud - and that is the regular "kitchen area" and "dining area" for the single fleet. Is it possible to have variations (e.g. Cardinal operates with a configured car that has a dining section and a lounge section all in one) - yes. But Amtrak is wanting uniformity. It's not that the car itself (e.g. regular single level full service diner you'd now find on the Crescent or Silver Meteor), is flawed and designed wrong, its that Amtrak can't turn a profit with its dining cars regardless of what they produce. The only way to do it - look to the Silver Star and provide no diner.

But the efficiencies with even a NEW diner "upgraded" from say the 1950s design was supposed to bring about some cost savings.

First place the new Executive Director of Amtrak should go is up to CAF and sit down with the head of operations (or chief of whatever up there) and figure out - "how do we get this order complete." Enough is enough! If the accountants can't figure out they have a captive audience (and limited audience) to sell food to, which will NEVER yield a profit as long as Amtrak runs the standard consist of: baggage, two Viewliners, diner, lounge, and four Amfleet coaches then they need to go back to school. Look at the Florida trains of years past. People were talking about how they were 18 cars long. What do we have now - a FRACTION of that operating. Amtrak's marketing efforts to even get the regular rider keyed to the fact that there are trains running from the Northeast to Florida and the Atlantic Coast Line is abysmal. Actually I take that back - it's non-existant.

GET THE NEW VIEWLINER II DINERS OUT AND ON THE ROAD. MODIFY THEM AFTERWARDS. Afterall, the Viewliners are made to be modified. Amtrak will eventually have more sleepers in its fleet. So that will bring up the Diner "pool" of passengers and paying customers. Is the allocation between sleeper and diner correctly done? Is the food appetizing enough for the price that one has to pay? The last question bears scrutiny.

I can remember when the diners in the East were full. There was even some regular standard menu items from train to train, but there was at least one or two items that were "special" for that train. Typically that was the one most ordered. On the Capitol Limited for example, it was crab cakes.

Amtrak should figuring out how do they get each rider into the diner. Pre-sold vouchers at a slight discount. I've advocated that for years. Reason being, I had to send a group of 50 people on the Silver Meteor. I was able to pay for their coach fare. But I could not pre-pay their meals, which the organization would have been happy to have done.

There are people travelling to and from Washington and NYP who are single, business oriented, and let's say won't get home for the family dinner. Why not load them up in a train that has Diner from Washington DC.

Amtrak does NOT think outside the box for the eastern long distance trains when it comes to the diners. I mean let's order 70 box cars (in essence)  before getting a car on the road that would produce over $10,000 in revenue if full. How much are the baggage cars averaging per trip? I have yet to see ANY number regarding this. Getting the crew out of the regular Viewliners and into the Baggage/Dorm would also help revenue and passenger/crew convenience. 

So backwards. And I am sure Amtrak has a reason for why they wanted to do the baggage cars first. Quite simply, they could cancel the additional sleepers, and go with Amfleet Diner Lites for the dining car. 

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/04/16 20:32 by jp1822.

message PCCRNSengr ... that's his territory ...

In the first decade of Amtrak, the Florida trains (Not only the Silver Meteor and Silver Star, but the Champion, too) carried TWO full dining cars - these were 18 car long trains. Both diners stayed busy because the food choices were good and the prices were acceptable, not hotel prices such as are found today.

The later buffet-line diners on the Florida trains served a lot of meals and were fairly efficient, but there was no dining car ambiance with them. These cars were used at a time when it wasn't unusual to have 400-500 passengers on an 18 car train which had a maximum capacity of 549 passengers, plus crew.

The Superliner diners were originally designed for 11 crew members for a single diner, about half downstairs in the kitchen and dishwashing areas, the rest upstairs, including a Lead Service Attendant, or, steward for those of us of a certain age. When the Sunset Limited was a full size Superliner consist and had the Texas Eagle through cars on the back end, it wasn't unusual for that diner to serve more than 300 meals an evening in a 72 seat diner.

And, for those keeping track, the lounge car on the Sunset, when the train ran all the way to Orlando from Los Angeles, often would gross $8,000 on a round trip for food and beverage sales. That was with a single lounge attendant, working from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. with two meal breaks during the day.

 

Regarding the two full dining cars on the Florida trains of years gone by, I didn't see them spin Amtrak into a fiscal crisis like some would have you believe today's dining cars are doing. And, that was with A LOT more employees in those cars than we have today, and with food that was something to actually brag about, not just tolerate. I really hope the new CEO will put his feet down and actually try to grow the business into what it could be (thinking late 80's early 90's as some of Amtrak's best years) instead of just hacking it to death like we have seen these past eight years.

There's enough wasteful crap in our government to cover full diner's losses for decades. 

What exactly are they modifying on the diners?

Dining cars cost a lot of money to operate, unfortunately.

They could likely be justified on the major NEC trains, given the high fares and the correspondingly high disposable income of many passengers.

andersonb109 Wrote:
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> There's enough wasteful crap in our government to
> cover full diner's losses for decades. 

and short falls in medicare, social security, medicaid assistance.

which do you think might get the first cash infusion?  Probably not Amtrak...

Summer of 1973 I worked for a package tour firm that sold a 7 day trip to Disney, including travel to and from Kissimee - In addition to including rail fare, hotels and transfers and park admissions, meals on the train from the regular menu were included. One of my tasks was to go over and reconcile the indivisual checks with the steward after each meal.  Diners were full from first call to last.

Travel was via the Champion both ways and 2 diners were standard equipment in those days.  Train also handled an ex-Seaboard tavern lounge obs, a 6 BR sleeper lounge for the sleeper passengers and many sleepers and coaches.  Typically we were an 18 car train.  Early Amtrak with a real mix of equipment from SCL, UP, SP and elsewhere.  Too many cars that had non-functioning AC, but they were very full and busy trains.  Diner crews were all ex SCL and would change out at Jacksonville.

The Santa Fe HI-level diners were designed to operate with TWO stewards.  Consist went up to 8  hi-level coaches.

But one way around serving this many folks was to have "Chico Early Bird meals". at a reduced price prior to the normal dinner hour.  One would make a reservation  (two times were offered on heavy loading days) for a set entree meal.  The diner would be filled, the tables all set including Salad.  Then all waiters work together to bring the entree to the table.  Do not have the exact time, but it was less then 45 minutes.

I saw this work in Europe in 1954  and when I was operating tours, did a prime-rib dinner on train 19 upon departing Williams AZ.  Everything was cooked, tables set and servers allworked together.  Course, when I tried it on a Amtrak eastern train in 1985 for a breakfast, steward said we are not ready, in case you changed your mind.  Hell I had paid for the food already, in order to get the service!

I tried very hard with Amtrak for them to understand the early bird concept to get more folks throught the dinner, but it fell on deaf ears.  At the time, the on board "Chiefs" did not want it to work.
 

I never said the cars were  being reconfigured, but that it was my GUESS.  Go back to the top and read what I SAID.  Gosh I post this one little item, and it sparks another war of words.

Now to see how TO readers screw up my post on "Chico Early Bird"  meals.

I think it was the message after your first one that opened the flood gates. You said it was a guess - next post from someone else was that the whole order was being reconfigured. That one, which did not offer where the info came from, made it sound like a fact, not speculation.  Don't blame yourself.

Around 1999 when the 24 hour dining car experiment was done on the Sunset Limited for about half a dozen trips at different times, it was highly successful from the standpoint of both the crew and passengers.

This was when the Sunset operated from Orlando to Los Angeles, with three nights on the road each direction. The dining car crew was based out of Los Angeles, but the dining car maintenance was done at Auto Train in Sanford, just outside of Orlando.

Here are the results:

The crew was happy because the dining car never topped out, even with a full train (this was also when the Sunset had a complete consist). The crew was less hurried, and the passengers could eat more leisurely; there was never a rush to get rid of one seating so the next one could occupy the same tables. Diners were offered pre-dinner cocktails, wine, or beer. Passengers liked it because there was no rigidity for a dining schedule or reservations required - they simply went to the dining car when they were hungry, whether for a full meal, a snack, or a midnight bowl of ice cream. As a result of the passengers being happier, they left larger tips on the table, which made the crew happier.

The different menus available were breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, and overnight. The breakfast menu was expanded to include items like steak and eggs. The brunch menu had highlights of both breakfast and lunch. The lunch menu went all afternoon, but had a few extras that were popular in the late afternoon, then the dinner menu kicked in until around 10 p.m. The overnight menu's most popular item was the fried egg, bacon and cheese sandwich. Other typical overnight food like pancakes and eggs was also available, along with a big selection of desserts. The trick to having an expanded menu was to have selections using as many common ingredients as possible, since there is only so much cold storage on a Superliner diner. That's why eggs appears on three different menus, etc. The passengers didn't notice - they only noticed a larger selection of choices available 24 hours a day instead of the rigid and limited offerings such as found today.

Since the Sunset made middle of the night stops in San Antonio, a dining car open when passengers were headed to San Antonio or boarding in San Antonio was very popular. Kind of like going to your local Denny's after midnight.

This only took two extra crew members, an LSA/waiter and a chef. Since the overnight chef wasn't busy the entire night, he was able to begin the breakfast prep for the day chef, which allowed the day chef to have more sleep and also not be so rushed when reporting for duty. The overnight chef and LSA stayed through breakfast to help. At the end of the day, since the kitchen wasn't being shut down for the night, there was less work for the day chef to do, and he handed over the kitchen to the overnight chef.

You may wonder about the financial side; the diner had higher income as a result of better utilization and better menu offerings. Revenue went up, surpassing the additional crew costs. As stated above, the crews liked it because they didn't work as hard and got better tips. It was good for the union because more employees were used (just the two).

And, the reason it's not on there today? When some of the business groups were reorganized (again and again), the Sunset was moved from one group to another. The head of the new group pronounced "not invented here" and it died.

Because of the equipment, a new dining car cost more than any other car on the train (including the locomotive, prior to the new emission standards and associated costs) to purchase. Yet, because of the silliness of set meal periods, a dining car is used less than any other car. Go figure.
 

That's really interesting background, thanks for sharing it.

Makes sense, that's why many McDonald's Wendy's etc remain open until 1 or 2 am (drive up window only). For a few extra staff, you can provide several hours of availability.  While you clean the inside of the store, etc with the security of locked doors.

Since the Three Rivers OBS staff changed at Pittsburgh, one lounge car LSA or the other was effectively on duty the whole night, except for about on hour on each side of Pittsburgh. So of course they had to kill the train AND the crew base so the progressive technique could not be contagious.

The diner and for that matter, loading the trains at terminals, seems to have the same philosophy - hoard and herd and drive themselves nuts for the first few minutes of every timed seating.

Thanks John for the re-cap on the all night food service on the Sunset.  Always heard it was sucessfull, but never could nail down the details.

So true on the "If I did not invite it, will not be done"  This was the failure of the Amtrak Early Bird meals.

Ed

Want more revenue. How about some new items. I have been riding the trains for the last 4 years in the west, same old menu on all the trains. How about some blue plate specials.

reindeerflame Wrote:
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> Dining cars cost a lot of money to operate,
> unfortunately.
>
> They could likely be justified on the major NEC
> trains, given the high fares and the
> correspondingly high disposable income of many
> passengers.

Boy you really do cast a negative picture on Amtrak each time something like this comes up, I hope the Southwest Chief situatioon isn't the only thing that proves you worng!