Passenger Trains > Texas Eagle On Board Service

From Chicago to Fort Worth in late June the Lead Service Attendant (LSA) came through my sleeper to ASSIGN me a time to eat. I had no choice. The time assigned was 5:45P. I learned that this was due to the fact that the only times she was offering for dinner were 5:15P, 5:45P, and 6:30P. The 6:30P slot was filled. Coach travelers could eat in the lounge. When I questioned this plan I got an abrupt answer about how crowded the train was. The chef was walking the train with the LSA, and when she stepped away from my room I heard her say... "80 meals is enough for me to do out here by myself, and I don't care what the f..k anyone says." I ordered dinner in my room, and it was very good.
At breakfast I entered the diner at 6:35A, just as they filled to capacity after opening at 6:30A. At 7:00A, the LSA made an announcement that the dining car was full, and a wait list was being started. "If you wish to have breakfast, please send one member of your party to the diner to have your name added to the list. I will keep the list open for 10 minutes." At 7:10A she announced that the list was closed. Numerous persons entered the diner on through 8:30A, all turned away, including sleeping car passengers.
The same format was used at lunch. She opened at 11:45A, the car filled immediately, then she started the list, and kept it open for 10 minutes.
I had the same LSA and chef in February, with the same operation. Again, food preparation was good, based on the limitations of the on-board preparation. But the crew was through serving breakfast by a little after 8:00A, and lunch lasted no time at all.
I am afraid that my experience, while not happening every day, is happening often.

There is no supervision out there and the crews are totally in charge. Whatever is convenient for them had better be convenient for you. If it is not, well, tough.

I suggest contacting Amtrak to let them know. A letter carries a lot of weight! And if we don't tell them, how will they know this happens.

THAT is absolutely ridiculous and quite frankly pisses me off that a lot of our OBS folks tend to be that way.

Some are. Some a great. Most are just fine. But it only takes one or two of these folks to make a major impression on people, and we usually remember and talk about the bad, not the good.

I would be furious if this had happened to me, and also would have eaten in my room.

No wonder food service loses so much money--when crew dictate how much work they will do and how much they will sell, it is hard to maximize revenue.



KV1guy Wrote:
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> THAT is absolutely ridiculous and quite frankly
> pisses me off that a lot of our OBS folks tend to
> be that way.

I hope you got her name. Of course it won't do much good. She is protected. People like this have no business working with the public. Sure the diners are understaffed. But that's not the passenger's problem. If she doesn't like the working conditions, she should look for work elsewhere....like say MacDonalds. Stuff like this takes away from all the good service out there. On very late #29 last week, they started taking lunch reservations as soon as breakfast was over. They weren't even suppose to service lunch but they did. The train got into Chicago a little after 3P so no one would have starved had they had to wait until arrival.

regalstream1516 Wrote:
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> From Chicago to Fort Worth in late June the Lead
> Service Attendant (LSA) came through my sleeper to
> ASSIGN me a time to eat. I had no choice. The
> time assigned was 5:45P. I learned that this was
> due to the fact that the only times she was
> offering for dinner were 5:15P, 5:45P, and 6:30P.
> The 6:30P slot was filled. Coach travelers could
> eat in the lounge. When I questioned this plan I
> got an abrupt answer about how crowded the train
> was. The chef was walking the train with the LSA,
> and when she stepped away from my room I heard her
> say... "80 meals is enough for me to do out here
> by myself, and I don't care what the f..k anyone
> says." I ordered dinner in my room, and it was
> very good.
> At breakfast I entered the diner at 6:35A, just
> as they filled to capacity after opening at 6:30A.
> At 7:00A, the LSA made an announcement that the
> dining car was full, and a wait list was being
> started. "If you wish to have breakfast, please
> send one member of your party to the diner to have
> your name added to the list. I will keep the list
> open for 10 minutes." At 7:10A she announced that
> the list was closed. Numerous persons entered the
> diner on through 8:30A, all turned away, including
> sleeping car passengers.
> The same format was used at lunch. She opened
> at 11:45A, the car filled immediately, then she
> started the list, and kept it open for 10
> minutes.
> I had the same LSA and chef in February, with
> the same operation. Again, food preparation was
> good, based on the limitations of the on-board
> preparation. But the crew was through serving
> breakfast by a little after 8:00A, and lunch
> lasted no time at all.
> I am afraid that my experience, while not
> happening every day, is happening often.


You gave an excellent, lengthy description of your experience, but no indication of the actual date the train departed, so it will not be possible for anyone to follow up and becomes simply a non-specific allegation.
As a result, the proper crew will likely not be held accountable.

A large part of the problem is the ridiculous Cross Country Cafe with its limited seating; I have had a similar thing happen on the City of New Orleans, which also has one.

Yes, it has been my experience that there are many good, of not great Amtrak OBS employees. But the bad ones tend to find each other and bid on jobs where they can work with 'like kind'. The chef also told my younger sleeping car attendant, who was excellent by the way, that "we will grow you up with Amtrak". In other words, stick with us, and we will ruin your spirit to be like ours! This same chef, who had such a bad attitude, did great with her food. She also was a funny, entertaining, and quick witted personality. But these people seem to hate Amtrak. There seems to be no supervision, no motivation, and no accountability for these OBS people. Most work hard, and it is tough work dealing with Amtrak's limitations and short-comings. The public can be hard too when the train is 3 hours late! But it is not the passengers fault, and the Amtrak management needs to address this. Our train was standing-room only. Some 250 people on board at any given time. If half of those folks desired to eat in the diner, then the 80 meal max left most of them out of business.

7:10 is way too early to cut off breakfast. If I was a sleeping car passenger, I would have made a scene if I was denied breakfast. That is absurd.

Please do everyone a favor and after adding specific information (dates, etc), report this in writing to Amtrak.

If I were in coach, I would have demanded a refund from Boardman. The timetable did NOT say the diner is off limits to coach passengers, nor that Breakfast must be eaten by 7am.

If your Congressman is anti-Amtrak Congressman, threaten Amtrak to inform him as well.
Amtrak mgmt only knows how to respond to a political damage, not customer service.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/04/12 10:06 by joemvcnj.

The service/support staff on AMTRAK are not railroad inclined,; and have not been for years. The people that they have hired recently, to my impression, would not even make it at an McDonalds. I'm sorry, but, in this job market, AMTRAK Human Resources needs to a better review on it applicants and the current staff. Maybe job performance reviews based on customer grading should be enforced.

All the responses so far have been helpful and interesting. This last one about manager accountability says a lot about why the OBS people often have so little respect for the company they work for, if not hate it all together. This is why I have little motivation to write Amtrak. Amtrak management seems oblivious, aloof, and focused on their own agenda. However, this one LSA/Chef team pulled the same stunt when I had them last February, when the train was not full, and there were no staffing issues. Perhaps we have a bad chemistry. Either way, it is hurting the passenger rail cause.

Until or unless the passenger involved is willing to divulge the actual date of their travel, nothing productive can be done. Hearing about substandard service is extremely frustrating to those who work against great odds to provide good service with insufficient manpower and marginal (i.e.- crosscountry cafe) equipment. It is also extremely frustrating to see an entire train or an entire group of people such as "OBS employees in general" branded as inept, incompetent or uncaring, just because of the inexcusable actions of a few. Provide the date details, to Amtrak even if not to this board, or else its really not worth your time to write up the complaint or our time to read it. Any train rider over the last 40 years will have their own stock of personal and anecdotal horror stories. If they have ridden much, they will also have other memories of exceptional service provided by caring and friendly employees.

When anyone writes up a particularly bad experience, for this board or anywhere else, if its bad enough to write a complaint, it should be bad enough to give the exact dates of travel so that some effort can be made to rectify the situation.

Since the Eagle's diner crew is based in Chicago, the Zephyr (and CofNOL ?) are fair game as well for this character.
If she has seniority, why does she choose a train with a crappy diner, and why has management not caught up to her ?

I can't think of a fast-food restaurant, or even a low-end outfit like Denny's or Friendly's that would tolerate this, and they make much less money, exempt from min wage laws, depend on tips for a living, sad but true.
It is also clearly not a workload issue since this has happened before with a lighter load. The Cardinal has to work with an inadequate, one-and-only feature car for 4 coaches and a sleeper, and we have heard no tales of this.

So true! I have actually had great service on the lowly Cardinal.

joemvcnj Wrote:
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> Since the Eagle's diner crew is based in Chicago,
> the Zephyr (and CofNOL ?) are fair game as well
> for this character.
> If she has seniority, why does she choose a train
> with a crappy diner, and why has management not
> caught up to her ?
>
> I can't think of a fast-food restaurant, or even a
> low-end outfit like Denny's or Friendly's that
> would tolerate this, and they make much less
> money, exempt from min wage laws, depend on tips
> for a living, sad but true.
> It is also clearly not a workload issue since this
> has happened before with a lighter load. The
> Cardinal has to work with an inadequate,
> one-and-only feature car for 4 coaches and a
> sleeper, and we have heard no tales of this.

Write a letter. All you need is the train number and the date---they have records and can find out who it was.

Please don't let this go--that person needs to be fired or at least spend some days on the beach. F'ing ridiculous.

BTW, I have seen Amtrak's manual for the dining car. She is going against all of the rules!

regalstream1516 Wrote:
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However, this one
> LSA/Chef team pulled the same stunt when I had
> them last February, when the train was not full,
> and there were no staffing issues. Perhaps we
> have a bad chemistry. Either way, it is hurting
> the passenger rail cause.

My son and I had what sounds like the same crew once. We missed breakfast because of it. Most LSA's on the Texas Eagle are very nice in my experience however this crew is not nice at all. And certainly not customer oriented. Again, I cannot be sure it was the same crew but it sure sounds like it.

Keith Hunter
FOREST CITY, IA

Please write the letter to Amtrak management regarding your experiences with this crew. In addition, you also could mention that you have already let others know of your experiences and thus convey that their reply will be seen by more than just you.

I also would like to point out that many of us experienced riders bring snacks and/or water along in case of a late arrival, not wanting to get up early after getting onboard late the night before, or running out of food in the dining car. On my last two trips, I have brought nearly everything along that I need to eat because of Amtrak's inability or resistance to serving those of us who are gluten-free. Several years ago, their vegan option consisted of two different frozen meals that they would alternate the whole CA Zephyr trip for me. Yikes!! At first, it was a pain in the you know what to have to do this. But upon seeing what is available in the dining car quality wise, food choices, and other problems mentioned here, I decided to bring my own food. It was a bit of pain at first, because of the planning and shopping. But now, I am really enjoying being able to eat what I want when I am hungry and not fitting into someone's else schedule. Plus I know the food is not overpriced or overcooked as I so often experienced in the dining car.

I sometimes wonder if Amtrak management is trying to push us all in this direction, and thus be able to drop the dining car and its staff from their budgets.

Every new hire at Amtrak that is going to be in OBS should be sent to Via Rail Canada for three months of training then put on temporary hire for one year before becoming a full time OBS on Amtrak. I personally can never remember having a bad incident on Via rail or the two roads that formed Via Rail CN and CP. I also have never had a bad ride crew wise on any pre-amtrak train and I am old enough to have ridden the best before they became Amtrak.

Yeah, if I had been a sleeping car passenger and had any of my INCLUDED meals DENIED, they would have had the police meeting the train to take me off of it. What a load of BS. It's a damn shame the OBS people aren't held to the same standard as the train and engine crew. If they NEGLECTED to do their job properly they would be reprimanded for their rule violations. The fact that these guys have obviously been at this for a while is downright unacceptable.

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