Amtrak Diner and Food Service Discussion

From Hampton Inn NE Indianapolis--

Let us not loose sight that for FY18, Amtrak "got a pretty good haul"; $1.9B. I think you'll find is the largest haul they have ever gotten - current or inflation adjusted notwithstanding.

But that haul was not granted by We The People so as to have nostalgice services that few of the few that use Amtrak actually ride. It was granted for infrastructure improvements to be made where most of whom ride Amtrak as "Eh to Bee" transportation actually ride.

While I highly doubt if all the trains identified as Long Distance if eliminated would yield the $700M they are purported to lose as "cash in the cookie jar" ( my guess; $400M), and much of the "cash out of the cookie jar" is attributable to F&B, then these service adjustments, which based on their Silver Star experiment, results in less $$$ out of the cookie jar, then those who ride the LD's largely for the pleasure of riding them, must find other pastimes if the pleasure comes from the likes of full service Dining and Pacific Parlour type enhancements.

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Food for thought . On diner equipped trains the sleeper passengers supposedly pay for their meals by the extra charges on their fares . Can we assume that not all sleeper passengers eat all the meals that they are entitled to ? So those unused meals can be bought by the coach passengers there by selling the meals twice ? Now with the new set up does that mean the unused sleeper meals will be thrown away increasing spoilage and reducing that revenue ?

We do need to find out if a sleeper passenger does not eat a meal if the meal charge is still subtracted from the sleeper charge ? If not that could change some metrics and may be one reason for food losses ?

When you order your meal in the dining car, you need to put your car number and room number on the order form. It seems like a way to charge your meal to your room. If you don't eat I would guess there is no charge. Don't know.

Jeff Smith wrote:$8.95 for Salisbury Steak? I can buy a Michelina's for a buck!

If you figure out how to do so on the train and then heat it up, I'm interested.

How the heck do you keep that grocery store meal frozen till you nuke it on the train if they even(or not) let you use the microwave in the Diner
of the cafe?

bostontrainguy wrote: When you order your meal in the dining car, you need to put your car number and room number on the order form. It seems like a way to charge your meal to your room. If you don't eat I would guess there is no charge. Don't know.

The car number and room number are used to assure that the passenger is a sleeper passenger. Payment for all sleeper passenger meals in included in the ticket price.

I know that chuchubob. The question is if the "F&B Department" gets paid by the "Sleeper Department" if no food is actually consumed.

I always assumed the car and room and signature was to make sure you were really in a sleeper: a challenge to prevent casual impersonation by coach pax, and an accounting check for the crew to justify having given away the food without charging money for it (preventing crew from selling products privately).

The idea that one account would pay money into another account based on whether an individual passenger ate or not is interesting. I suppose it could even be that the one account would pay more or less depending on the price of the meal chosen. But I suspect that what happens is that the one account pays a fixed amount to the other account, something calculated based on the average consumption by sleeper passengers over time. I doubt they exactly sell any meal twice: whatever the one account pays to the other probably takes the people who skip a meal into account. But I am just guessing based on what makes sense to me. And, I guess, based on the fact that they dont exactly reserve the dining car meals for sleeping car pax. It is just first come first served, and sometimes a coach passenger is the first to order, and sometimes I have been in sleeper when something ran out. Now with the new packaged meals that could change.

ryanov wrote:

Jeff Smith wrote:$8.95 for Salisbury Steak? I can buy a Michelina's for a buck!

If you figure out how to do so on the train and then heat it up, I'm interested.

Um, obviously tongue in cheek, not to mention old:

by Jeff Smith
Tue Apr 26, 2016 2:44 pm

This is really reminiscent of what the airlines did within the past 5-10 years since the 2008 recession. Cut domestic coach meals pretty much completely including transatlantic flights and flights to Hawaii. Cut free alcohol, where it even existed. Cut premium meals on shorter domestic flights, Reduced premium meal hours with flights only getting light cold meals. Pulled ovens out of (or didn't require them) in the larger two class regional jets more prevalent across all airlines resulting in only cold meals for flights that are up to 4 hours.

Slowly but surely they started to add some of this back...coach meals and free alcohol on transcons and transatlantic flights. Who knows if they realized it really didn't help their bottom line or whether they thought people would think it was a great customer service win as though these were never offered previously.

Airline food isn't anything to write home about, but airlines have also made progress in both complimentary and buy on board meals. A move in this direction for Amtrak will certainly be a change from a bygone era, but I assume it will be better than nothing.

At his open content TRAINS blog, Fred Frailey has brought support to any of us holding that "Cleaning Pressing Alterations" credential around here have been suggesting for years:

Amtrak should start by doing what the airlines have done, which is go cashless on board. This has been recommended for years, but the company won’t do it. I’ve been told that airlines experienced a 15 percent spike in airborne revenue when they went this route; employees aren’t tempted for money to stick to their fingers.

Amtrak, what's holding you up?

nova08 wrote:This is really reminiscent of what the airlines did within the past 5-10 years since the 2008 recession. Cut domestic coach meals pretty much completely including transatlantic flights and flights to Hawaii. Cut free alcohol, where it even existed. Cut premium meals on shorter domestic flights, Reduced premium meal hours with flights only getting light cold meals. Pulled ovens out of (or didn't require them) in the larger two class regional jets more prevalent across all airlines resulting in only cold meals for flights that are up to 4 hours.

Slowly but surely they started to add some of this back...coach meals and free alcohol on transcons and transatlantic flights. Who knows if they realized it really didn't help their bottom line or whether they thought people would think it was a great customer service win as though these were never offered previously.

Airline food isn't anything to write home about, but airlines have also made progress in both complimentary and buy on board meals. A move in this direction for Amtrak will certainly be a change from a bygone era, but I assume it will be better than nothing.

Airlines have reduced service for coach passengers, but first and business class have seen significant improvements.

I can fly between NY and DC in a near lie-flat seat, in a semi-private cabin, lying on my back on a very comfortable stretched-out seat, and drinking unlimited free wine and eating free snacks. Can't get better than that.

Airlines are getting a much bigger fare premium multiple vs coach, and devote only ~2x to 3x the floorplate, which leaves lots of $ to lavish on food and drink and still come out ahead.

A-Ii coach / V-2 sleeper = 84/30 +> nearly 3x the floorplate per sleeper seat or about 5x the floorplate per saleable room. Amtrak's Sleeper class cutomers are already getting a much bigger multiple of floorspace for a much smaller average fare premium (and making themselves relatively fewer in number).

So they pay too little, take too much space, and are too few in number as it is (compared to what airlines have pulled off, partly because businesses pay the premium for faster, less stressed air travel but not LD travel), with no margin for Amtrak to spend on food (unless you raise price and "un-Star" them, risking lower ridership).

By my count, Viewliners can fit approximately 32 people. That's about 2x the number who fit in a long distance coach car. The total sleeping car fare is likely more than 2x the coach fare, at least on the Crescent.

Airlines don't necessarily get any fare premium for first class, and when they do, it's often modest. Most domestic first class passengers are in first class due to frequent flyer upgrades. Otherwise, the upgrade difference isn't necessarily a whole lot. My regular 600-mile commute on American Airlines is often $129 more in first class than coach (less than 2x the coach fare). I have paid the same for a 1300-mile trip (or sometimes $100 more) in first class as a coach ticket would have cost on the same flight. The bigger differences between first class and coach are on international trips.

Gilbert B Norman wrote:At his open content TRAINS blog, Fred Frailey has brought support to any of us holding that "Cleaning Pressing Alterations" credential around here have been suggesting for years:

Amtrak should start by doing what the airlines have done, which is go cashless on board. This has been recommended for years, but the company won’t do it. I’ve been told that airlines experienced a 15 percent spike in airborne revenue when they went this route; employees aren’t tempted for money to stick to their fingers.

Amtrak, what's holding you up?

It's a largely irrelevant change in the scheme of cost savings and Amtrak is a national system with lots of different users. While people don't show up to airports and buy tickets, they do shoe up and buy train tickets. Amtrak, in some parts of the country, carried people who refuse to use credit and have lots of cash (amish). I haven't ridden everywhere in the system but I can see why Amtrak should not be cashless, at least not completely. Going cashless for food isn't a good idea. U like an airline for whom there is no dedicated on board personnel, Amtrak needs people to spend money however they want. It is far more effective to eliminate several onboard food service positions