Passenger Trains > Latest Food Service Plans

So lets see if I got this right:

- For sleeper class passengers, the Lake Shore and Capitol Limited have the “contemporary” dining alternative, what passengers have ALWAYS wanted, and get to choose a box for dinner (come to the counter and get your box - rings of grade school antics, not a professional service organization), while a buffet breakfast of sorts is laid out in the morning. If you want to get what you want - you better eat early, because there’s only so much room for “the boxes” on the train and Amtrak’s not carrying anything more than what they can. Frankly, if food service is dumbed down this far for sleeping car passengers, just ask me at the time I buy my ticket, “the box” I want. Getting first class airline food has more dignity to it. 

- Coach passengers on the Lake Shore and Capitol Limited are limited to the cafe menu for food, as there’s just no additional room to haul “the box” meals around in (ah - maybe a use has been found for the baggage car eh?). Pretty good logistical planning on Amtrak’s part - gotta hand them that one - only offer “the box” to sleeper car passengers because there’s no room to add any more for coach passengers and then there’s more variety to account for!

- The cafe car is not carrying enough food to meet demand - as was evident on a trip I was on and another that a friend of was on. The Capitol Limited’s Sightseer Lounge now seems to be getting more traffic with coach passengers having to suffice with food from the downstairs. So now when Amtrak yanks the Sightseer Lounge off the Capitol Limited, that will seem like another downgrade. Lake Shore Limited - anyone’s guess as to what’s going to happen there. But it’s been proven that a cafe and diner combo doesn’t work on this train, so they should stick with the two cars - Viewliner II Diner serving “the box” and Amfleet cafe/lounge serving the remainder of the train. But don’t have one class cross the line of the other!

- Can only speak for the Southwest Chief, but the dining crew has been reduced to a cook, an LSA, and a server. The sleeper car attendants try to assist. TOTAL reduction of onboard labor (more crew rooms to sell if you ask me should the chance arise) - but its now come at a cost because on a recent trip, Amtrak couldn’t serve all passengers it needed to for lunch on day 2 and dinner on day 2. And again, if you didn’t have that first seating, you could be SOL on dessert or even entree. Not sure what really happens if the train gets LATE or delayed. Guess they still have the stew for emergencies.  

- The western long hauls and those trains still with a diner operation appear to have gotten a message that sleeper passengers have priority over coach passengers in the diner, and if there is not enough meals or “time” to serve both, then sleeper car passengers still have the priority. Priority is fine, since meal is part of sleeper price, but when coach passengers are lined up ready to come in and only HALF of the diner is being used, because of the REDUCED staff situation, this seems to be going against basic service and will certainly increase the F&B losses, not decrease them. Amtrak needs to maximize revenue from All F&B resources. Running out of food, or not serving passengers who want to get served in the diner seems to run counter to trying to overcome F&B losses. 

- Diners used to run past 1:30 pm for lunch and 7:30 pm for dinner. Why are times being limited? The last meal before final terminal stop gets really shafted, and has for years. Only one hour for serving breakfast before arrival into LA westbound on the Southwest Chief (same for lunch on westbound and eastbound CA Zephyr coming in to Sacramento/Mississippi River).  

- All long distance trains with a dining car operation get to have the same menu. As a stand alone - not a bad menu, but for multiple nights even the steak and hamburger gets old real quick. It’s been proven before when Amtrak went down this path, that a single menu for the entire system will lead to decreased sales. Often a north/south train got a different menu from a east-west train, or one menu westbound, and one menu eastbound. The passenger be damned!

Is Amtrak serious about trying to beat the F&B losses? Cause I don’t see how the above plan is ever going to get the company to its goal of break-even. These tactics just chase the diner right.out of the diner, and sure the cafe car sells out, but what’s all the missed revenue opportunity when they ran out of food six hours before final destination. 

Let us not forget the Viewliner II Diners sitting in Hialeah - awaiting for some revelation so they can be deployed. Those expensive assets just get to be part of the depreciation expense with no revenue against them at all.

Basic [transportation] economics........... Not really!

From my experience Amtrak has trouble getting employees to show up to work. I have been on several trains over the past few years where a server, LSA or assistant conductor marks off and they don't have anybody to cover the vacancy.

You can't cancel the train because one person marks off...

Amtrak's goal for LD is to both liquidate assets and sabotage revenue to cause that business line to fail, then blame the ridership drops on Baby Boomers headed to Assisted Living.

You really should be writing this up, though less wordy with tighter language, for your Congressional delegation and demand removal of Amtrak's top management, and urge passage of Airnet-21 to remove the NEC from Amtrak, which would blow up their fraudulent cost  accounting. 

This blows the theory out of the water that coach passengers don't want to eat in the diner, which is the lie that Amtrak, and its assigned social media mole, Another_View, keeps telling us. 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/19 04:38 by joemvcnj.

1 LSA and 1 server on CA Zephyr 2 weeks ago resulting in waitlists of over 40 people for lunch 15 mins after diner announced opening, 15 minutes later they stopped taking names and closed waitress. Over the entire trip the one side of diner that was being used was always packed.

On my most recent Amtrak trip (Cardinal WAS-CHI, Southwest Chief CHI-LAX, Pacific Surfliner LAX-SAN) in late March, food service was excellent: all items were available as shown on the menu at all meals (with the exception of no omelets going into LAX in the shorter breakfast period on arrival), items tasty, personnel were attentive. 

Yes, areas of the diner were empty at times, with dining times spread out in 30 minute intervals, but allowed for timely table re-setting, food prep and delivery, and unrushed dining. Reservations were handed out to sleeper passengers first, then coach, for lunch and dinner, but a last call for anyone without a reservation was always made. 

Over the several days the possibility of unwanted repetition was eliminated by the depth of the menu ... the excellent steamed mussels at lunch are just one example of alternatives to burgers. 

It was my understanding that the original plan in Contemporary Dining was that one would, in fact, make a choice of meal in the ticketing process, so the right stocks could be on board.  I hope that will be coming soon. 

And to all the on-board service personnel working with smaller crews and other limitations, my thanks for making my travel experience so pleasant. 


 

The coming summer season will surey give us a hint of the direction and next moves by Amtrak leadership.  Frankly, I'm waiting for a coach passenger to alert the main stream media or file a lawsuit for not allowing coach passengers into the LSL/CL diners and not having ample food available in the cafe lounge.  One dissatisfied customer with the right media and/or legal connections could really muck up Amtrak's dining car austerity scheme and rather quickly.


 

So they no longer have "last call" when anyone who hasn't eaten yet can go to the diner?  

I don't think I've ever been on a full service dining car equipped train where someone was refused service; they may have to eat late, but still get to eat.

Andy

That's how I have always known it, but evidently things are changing for the worse, not when you would have the entire wait list showing up for "last call". They'd rather not serve meals allegedly to save a server's position, but also to aggravate people and eventually lower ticket revenue to fit their agenda. 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/19 06:00 by joemvcnj.

To take it a step further last summer just after the second server position was cut my family was initially refused seating in the dining car as sleeper passengers. We got on in Galesburg and they said all seating times were filled but we could eat in our room. This was 530pm is so not late at all. I went down to the diner and luckily I knew the LSA from previous trips. He apologized and said he’d work something out. An hour later he called us down and seated the 5 of us, in-laws, my wife and daughter on the unused side of the diner.  Service was slow as they were slammed but at the same time nice that we had the entire half of the diner to ourselves.

Usually the sleeper attendant makes the dinner reservations before we get on so it’s not an issue. Now that I think about it, almost the exact same thing happend this past Dec 23rd getting on in Galeburg to LA as well. Our sleeper attendant did make us reservations for 630pm but our ticket only showed 2 of us, since our daughter was 14 months she wasn’t ticketed per se. I went down to diner to try to change it to 3 and no luck, eat in room was only option. What blows me away was even summer and prime holiday periods there’s a skeletal crew in diner nowadays. The crews work super hard but by no fault of theirs service has gone down hill. From my previous post the CA Zephyr trip with 40 on the waitlist was mid week as off season as it could be,  Feb 9th.

Some trains need full staffing year round or in the Zephyrs case have a waiter just rotate Emeryville to Denver overnight in Denver and back to the west coast to supplement the standard dining crew. As the schedule is now that would be a 13 hour layover. From my experiences usually the diner is manageable CHI to DEN but DEN to EMY it’s a mad house through the Rockies and again between Reno and EMY. I’m sure other routes could have similar change out cities. 

AndyBrown Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So they no longer have "last call" when anyone who
> hasn't eaten yet can go to the diner?  
>
> I don't think I've ever been on a full service
> dining car equipped train where someone was
> refused service; they may have to eat late, but
> still get to eat.
>
> Andy



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/19 06:34 by Flyer92122.

I rode train 29(04) from WAS to CHI.  The food was much better than my last trip twenty months ago.
Photographed ready to depart WAS

---

In the middle of the last decade, like 2005 or 2006, the Empire Builder was "relaunched". That meant retrained OBS crews, only Superliner II or recently overhauled Superliner-I were to be assigned, Corelle in the diner along with a better menu, and upper level lounge attendant east of Whitefish. Upon completion, they had an across the board 10% fare increase AND they increased patronage, including filling the St Paul cut coach with just endpoint Chicago passengers. Winter consist cut was only of the 2nd Seattle sleeper. 

No need to go to the extremes that VIA Rail has done to the Canadian over the years, which is now an elite touring service, not a transportation service, and still has a farebox recovery that is about on par or somewhat below the Empire Builder's 52.6%, which ranks 3rd from the top of all 16 LD trains, behind Autotrain and Palmetto, even with inflated and inaccurate fully allocated costs.  

THAT is how to improve financial performance, with little increase in costs. But race-to-the-bottom corporate theocrat Anderson and Korridor Kid Gardner are too thick to understand that, or long distance ground public transpiration at all. Their mentality is more along the lines of Greyhound, and they are failing.  



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/19 10:31 by joemvcnj.

Flyer you hit it on the spot.  A swing waiter   OAK-Denver.

The two scenic portions of the Zephyr has a lot of coach passengers,  using the train as a scenic excursion, May be their only time on a train from on their Bucket List.

They want the experience of eating in the diner to go along with it.  Amtrak you are missing the best promotion, of a reason to return for another train ride.

The same issue applies on the northbound Coast Starlight,  lots of new folks to see the scenic coast and have lunch on board. 

NYC4096 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Frankly, I'm waiting for a coach
> passenger to alert the main stream media or file a
> lawsuit for not allowing coach passengers into the
> LSL/CL diners and not having ample food available
> in the cafe lounge.

Would any particular legal principle be violated by a coach passenger receiving only the services included in his or her fare, or would such a lawsuit be simply for PR purposes?

NYC4096 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The coming summer season will surey give us a hint
> of the direction and next moves by Amtrak
> leadership.  Frankly, I'm waiting for a coach
> passenger to alert the main stream media or file a
> lawsuit for not allowing coach passengers into the
> LSL/CL diners and not having ample food available
> in the cafe lounge.  One dissatisfied customer
> with the right media and/or legal connections
> could really muck up Amtrak's dining car austerity
> scheme and rather quickly.
>
>
>  

Really not much of a leg to stand on for a lawsuit of that nature

Posted from iPhone

We rode the City of New Orleans to Chicago on Wednesday.  The diner was set up as half the car with the other half being the lounge.  Both were lightly patronized.  One waiter in the diner and one guy downstairs in the kitchen.  The lounge attendant did help some in the diner.

Normal Amtrak dinner menu, but breakfast had only two options - continental breakfast or French toast.  Food okay, could be worse but plenty of room for improvement.  When paying sleeper prices you hope for something better.

Gerry

When paying cash as a coach passenger you should really hope for something better!
With drink and tip: breakfast $20 plus 
                              Lunch $25 and up 
                              Dinner $30 and up 

The surf and turf would be $50 plus easily with just a drink and no desert or salad. Then again if a coach passenger could afford that they would be riding in a sleeper and not coach:) We need an in diner blue plate special similar to the meal at your seat that I havent seen offered in a while. 

SPB Wrote: 
------------------------------------------------------- 

> When paying sleeper prices 
> you hope for something better. 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/05/19 12:12 by Flyer92122.

AndyBrown Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So they no longer have "last call" when anyone who
> hasn't eaten yet can go to the diner?  
>
> I don't think I've ever been on a full service
> dining car equipped train where someone was
> refused service; they may have to eat late, but
> still get to eat.
>
> Andy

Effectively, there could easily be no “last call” for some of the busier meals. For example, once the reservations are filled, they are filled and they don’t look to do any extra with coach seating. It’s like everyone got the memo - serve sleeping car passengers at all costs, fill in remainder of reservation list with coach. I guess the theory is that coach passengers can always go to the cafe to buy a pizza or sandwich. But if Amtrak is trying to break even with F&B sales, this is not going to make it happen, only make it worse. And there’s no way that this dining staff of one person down in the kitchen, one LSA, and one server is going to work for a train like the Coast Starlight that has three sleepers and three coaches, two of which are pretty booked solid this time of season. Hence why the Parlor Car helped, as it served dinner and lunch to help out the diner. But current management didn’t see this value it seems. 

First time I’ve seen a diner work for employees rather than for the patrons. And I am not blaming the employees, they are only taking their orders from above. 

A good crowd will hardly ever complain as long as they are fed well and drinks are kept flowing.....

Do what the PA Turnpike does, Take bids on the food service and get out of the food business.

Ed

misty1 Wrote:
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> Do what the PA Turnpike does, Take bids on the
> food service and get out of the food business.

What do you do when you get no bids? If there is no possibility to make money nobody will bid.

DevalDragon Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> misty1 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Do what the PA Turnpike does, Take bids on the
> > food service and get out of the food business.
>
> What do you do when you get no bids? If there is
> no possibility to make money nobody will bid.




There's that "it can't be done" attitude that got us where we are today.

In planning, there's the acronym BANANA: "Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone".

As both President Bushs famously repeated, over & over, "Stay The Course!"