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Amtrak Diner and Food Service Discussion

Discussion related to Amtrak also known as the National Railroad Passenger Corp.

Moderators: GirlOnTheTrain, mtuandrew, Tadman

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Re: Amtrak Diner and Food Service Discussion

 #1572877  by jonnhrr
 
Looking at the new long distance train menu, not bad. Glad to see they now serve a decent Chardonnay (Kendall Jackson) instead of the dreaded Barefoot, which hardly makes good mouthwash.

Re: Amtrak Diner and Food Service Discussion

 #1572899  by lordsigma12345
 
Amtrak was quoted in the WaPo article that they currently have no intention of returning to traditional dining car service on any other routes. It sounds like they are open to evaluating and making some adjustments to what's offered in the East but they do appear to want to stick to the current OBS staffing level on all other routes and not go back to full diner crews system wide. I bet they'll mostly stick to the same setup though given that they recently extended the flexible dining meals to the Acela first class product as well.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/transpor ... r-service/

Re: Amtrak Diner and Food Service Discussion

 #1572942  by Maverickstation1
 
BitterOldRRExec wrote: ↑Fri Jun 04, 2021 8:50 am
R36 Combine Coach wrote: ↑Tue Jun 01, 2021 4:30 pm Auto Train always offered complementary diner service even for coach passengers, a rare exception.
BUT, only buffet and not "traditional diner" service for those down the back.

DISCRIMINATION!!!
Please, ever since Amtrak equipped the Auto Train with Superliner's both Coach and Sleeper pax were offered a sit down dinner in separate diners, with different rotating menus. This ended when the Flex Dining era commenced and coach passengers were relegated to whatever the cafe car offered.

The original Auto Train Corporation provided a mediocre, at best, buffet dinner for all passengers. In their final years ATC started to offer a table service menu to mixed reviews. There was a great story about the Auto Train in Trains Magazine about 15, or so years ago, and the author mentioned how the ATC would often change food vendors and this wrecked havoc on the digestive systems of their core senior citizen clientele. The original Auto Train Corporation service was popular, and initially profitable, but it was never known for it's food.

Ken

Re: Amtrak Diner and Food Service Discussion

 #1572945  by Rockingham Racer
 
Is there anything wrong with a coach passenger having the ability to reserve a seat and a meal in the dining car, and prepay exorbitantly [!] online when making the trip reservation? It seems that Amtrak is leaving money on the table.

Obviously, prepaying eliminates the need for monetary transactions in the dining car. There could be an option to order--or not--a split of wine and/or a cocktail, as well.

Re: Amtrak Diner and Food Service Discussion

 #1572949  by Gilbert B Norman
 
Maverickstation1 wrote: ↑Sat Jun 05, 2021 6:03 am The original Auto Train Corporation service was popular, and initially profitable, but it was never known for it's food.
Mr. Ken Maverick, as one, possibly the only one, around here who rode the private Auto Train (Dec '72), I wholly concur - it wasn't known for its food that was served college cafeteria style. The only difference is that employees carried your selection to the table (liability issues).

When Amtrak resumed the service during November '83 under WGC, that same Dining service was in place on the Silver Florida trains. It only figured that AT followed suit. My first trip I can recall with full-service was during Dec '92, which I think was its "ultimate". The Diner was for Sleepers an ex-MILW/CN/Princess Tours Super Dome. Princess spent a bundle refurbing the cars for a very short lived "luxocar" added to the single level Starlight. That "never did much" and was gone with, if not before, Superliners were assigned. Princess being Princess Cruises, the cars had a Gangplank added to them in place of the absent vestibules. Amtrak picked them up (4 cars) , they sat for a while, then made their AT debut. Dinner was an excellent prepared on board "Prime Rib" (highly doubt though, it was USDA Prime - that's not Amtrak).

Note: even though the linked site's owner, Dan Ainsworth, passed during '12, somebody funded perpetual standing of his DomeMain site @ Trainweb. The railfan community owes that party a debt of gratitude.

Re: Amtrak Diner and Food Service Discussion

 #1572983  by Ken W2KB
 
Rockingham Racer wrote: ↑Sat Jun 05, 2021 6:17 am Is there anything wrong with a coach passenger having the ability to reserve a seat and a meal in the dining car, and prepay exorbitantly [!] online when making the trip reservation? It seems that Amtrak is leaving money on the table.

Obviously, prepaying eliminates the need for monetary transactions in the dining car. There could be an option to order--or not--a split of wine and/or a cocktail, as well.
I have been a sleeping car passenger on many trips over the years, and there have been some occasions when after the employee visited each sleeping car compartment to take dinner reservations, all seatings were booked except for the last seating of the evening and it was announced that coach passengers could reserve those few open spots, first come first served. Additionally, some seats in the dining car were held open for passengers boarding further down the line. Were coach passengers able to book in advance, that would greatly inconvenience many sleeping car passengers with a specific time preference to eat dinner.

Re: Amtrak Diner and Food Service Discussion

 #1572999  by Rockingham Racer
 
That's great. I think the difference, though, is that menus used to have prices listed for each item. The upcoming ones do not AFAICT, so how does one decide how much the cost would be? Again, I think pre-paying would be the way to go. That, or put back the prices for each item, and use credit / debit cards only.

But that leads to another issue already discussed: what about people who use ONLY cash, such as the Amish?

Re: Amtrak Diner and Food Service Discussion

 #1573006  by Gilbert B Norman
 
Colonel, I don't drink beer - well at least since college and service.

But as I recall, the "drink on the cheap" was a six pack of a beer out of Detroit - Stroh's - that could be had for $2.99 in Champaign.

Don't know what a six pack of Ba Moui Ba ran. :P

Mr. Rockingham, you do raise an interesting point. Amish are loyal Amtrak customers; they give no one trouble over anything. To my knowledge, they don't fly; so their apparent no credit religious conviction is a non-issue.

But do their convictions include instruments such as a prepaid debit card? If such is against credit, i.e. borrowing, a prepaid instrument would not appear to violate such. A bank issued "debit card" that includes overdraft protection would. After all the "$50 latte" - drink and OD fee - would certainly appear to be against those convictions - including mine.

Re: Amtrak Diner and Food Service Discussion

 #1573009  by STrRedWolf
 
Rockingham Racer wrote: ↑Sun Jun 06, 2021 5:24 am That's great. I think the difference, though, is that menus used to have prices listed for each item. The upcoming ones do not AFAICT, so how does one decide how much the cost would be? Again, I think pre-paying would be the way to go. That, or put back the prices for each item, and use credit / debit cards only.

But that leads to another issue already discussed: what about people who use ONLY cash, such as the Amish?
Given that Amtrak serves Amish country (Lancaster, PA -- when taking to the train to Pittsburgh I was a bit amazed that a family actually came up on my train and attended Anthrocon, and was a bit of a regular for them)... and how currently most Amish can use credit cards (although they treat it as "must pay ASAP" -- there's a lot more to the Amish than normally thought)...

I think having the option for a pre-paid meal in coach would be interesting, but it would be the Flexible Dining meals only. I cannot see justifying the cost of excess regular meals for the coach long-haulers. But I also can't see eating cafe food all the time. The FD meals I think are a good middle ground.
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