Better food on non-LD trains - is it doable?

So it sounds like some cafe improvements could easily be done for the 'shorter rides' like NYP to DC. That would help. Bigger selection would as well. But what about much longer rides like NYP to Montreal (once that reopens)? You need a kids menu, and availability of 'real' meals. Dining cars would make sense on a train like that, IMHO.

>>The 3 crew members share duties , ( train manager (conductor) and 2 attendants) so there is someone avaliable to do this without shutting the cafe.<<

The unions would never let you get away with that in the US!

Okay, gird your loins, because I'm going to suggest... Flex Dining.

Hear me out. Do this on the Pennsylvanian or similar day-trip, 8-ish hour travel time services. The same for the Night Owl series (65/66/67). Trips that wouldn't merit a full diner but could use something other than 7-Eleven par.

You have a business class car or two, an extended cafe car (to hold flex meals) and the coach cars. As part of the regular cafe fare, you add the flex meals, and they're loaded on train for that trip.

For the Pennsy on train 43, it's lunch and dinner. For 42, it's breakfast and lunch. On the Night Owl (65/66/67), dinner and breakfast. Similar stylings for other day-trip trains.

You add a second staffer for this, but you also charge for the flex meals. If they're frozen, they'll keep forever. Folks can eat at the cafe tables or at their seats. Don't need to be fancy with the bowls.

David Benton wrote: ↑Thu Aug 19, 2021 4:34 pm Kiwirail have chest freezers in the baggage car , you'll often see attendant carry a box of food back to the cafe car. i would think there is less storage in the narrow gauge cafe car vs an amcafe, but they never seem to run out of food.
The 3 crew members share duties , ( train manager (conductor) and 2 attendants) so there is someone avaliable to do this without shutting the cafe.

Few, if any, Amtrak non-long distance regional trains have baggage cars. The freezers will have to be in the cafe/business class or cafe Amfleet cars. Huge freezers large enough to hold 100+ frozen dinners is probably possible with the all cafe Amfleet I's aboard, but might be difficult to accomplish with the cafe/business class cars.

Per http://on-track-on-line.com/amtk-roster ... #Amfleet-I
Club-Dinette 481XX 42
Full Dinette 433XX 46
The Amfleet I food service cars are almost evenly split in half between full dinette and club dinette.

The problem with using frozen dinners is not having them thaw while loading and unloading onto the trains.

lordsigma12345 wrote: ↑Tue Aug 17, 2021 6:05 am One improvement that could be made is to go back to at least pre Covid selections in the cafe. They offered some “fresh-er” options previously in the cafe cars such as pre/made cold sandwiches and salads that were cut when Covid came along. These have basically been removed everywhere except on the auto train coach cafe.

OK, I am glad someone else picked up on this! I miss the sandwiches and salads that were offered. The only thing I could eat off the current cafe menu for say dinner or lunch was a PLAIN cheese pizza. They used to have some really nice marketplace special sandwiches - ham, turkey, and even chicken based. Some of them were pretty fancy sandwiches too. The cafe food had actually gotten pretty descent I thought. Now it is absolutely in the crapper......

STrRedWolf wrote: ↑Sat Aug 21, 2021 2:05 pm Okay, gird your loins, because I'm going to suggest... Flex Dining.

Hear me out. Do this on the Pennsylvanian or similar day-trip, 8-ish hour travel time services. The same for the Night Owl series (65/66/67). Trips that wouldn't merit a full diner but could use something other than 7-Eleven par.

You have a business class car or two, an extended cafe car (to hold flex meals) and the coach cars. As part of the regular cafe fare, you add the flex meals, and they're loaded on train for that trip.

For the Pennsy on train 43, it's lunch and dinner. For 42, it's breakfast and lunch. On the Night Owl (65/66/67), dinner and breakfast. Similar stylings for other day-trip trains.

You add a second staffer for this, but you also charge for the flex meals. If they're frozen, they'll keep forever. Folks can eat at the cafe tables or at their seats. Don't need to be fancy with the bowls.

Amtrak was supposedly trying to modify - for a test basis - one of the new Viewliner Diner's - to make it so one person could be both an LSA for cafe food and flexible dining food. Or more plainly - an LSA that could serve both coach and sleeper food. Both classes then using the table seating in the Viewliner Diner. It was supposedly to add more versatility or flexibility to the Viewliner Diner so that if needed it could be the single food service car.

However, I think what you've suggested here would be a perfect solution for one of the long distance day trains, or longer distanced state support trains. There could still just be one LSA. I am just not sure if this experiment is still on the table and would it extend to the state supported or long distance day-trains. Yes, there are enough Viewliner Diners to out fit the overnight LD trains, and still have a few extra left over to put on say the Palmetto, Pennsylvanian, Adirondack, etc. The idea was to convert a few into this more "flexible" model - not all. But this has been a while ago now. Was still supposedly being worked on at the onset of COVID.......

David Gunn even made reference to this type of cafe/diner.....Flexible and attractive enough to handle cafe food as well as descent meals if something more substantial was desired.

I don't know what food was offered with Flex Dining, but the concept sounds good. As to David Gunn, I give extra weight to his ideas. While he would admit he didn't always get it right, he's one of the smartest people I've ever met (at the NYC Transit Museum many years ago) in transit and passenger rail.

STrRedWolf wrote: ↑Sat Aug 21, 2021 2:05 pm Okay, gird your loins, because I'm going to suggest... Flex Dining.

Hear me out. Do this on the Pennsylvanian or similar day-trip, 8-ish hour travel time services. The same for the Night Owl series (65/66/67). Trips that wouldn't merit a full diner but could use something other than 7-Eleven par.

You have a business class car or two, an extended cafe car (to hold flex meals) and the coach cars. As part of the regular cafe fare, you add the flex meals, and they're loaded on train for that trip.

For the Pennsy on train 43, it's lunch and dinner. For 42, it's breakfast and lunch. On the Night Owl (65/66/67), dinner and breakfast. Similar stylings for other day-trip trains.

You add a second staffer for this, but you also charge for the flex meals. If they're frozen, they'll keep forever. Folks can eat at the cafe tables or at their seats. Don't need to be fancy with the bowls.

42/43 really need better food. It’s a long train ride, and the cafe car doesn’t cut it. Having been on it thrice, I found myself arriving in Philadelphia wanting a cheesesteak.

Railjunkie wrote: ↑Mon Aug 16, 2021 10:52 am
Attendant one slits open the hotdog pack tosses into the microwave for a min or two tosses back into a brown carry out with your bag a chips and drink of choice.

Attendant two takes the time to remove the hot dog from the bun before microwaving, places the bun in the convection oven to give it a light toast. Places the hot dog back into the lightly toasted bun wraps in a napkin places it on a plate. Before everything goes into that brown box he takes the time to place a liner that looks like a picnic table cloth along with a couple of napkins your chips and drink.

I've never met attendant two, sorry to say. But I'm willing to tip 100% for this.

I would much prefer to see the non-LD trains go much, much faster so I can get to my destination before actually getting hungry. That means having these trains finish their journey in less than 4 hours.
By definition, non-LD trains travel less than 750 miles. Some math follows:
750 miles / 4 hours = an average speed of 188 mph.
Not possible in any dream or real world.

But few passengers actually ride non-LD trains 750 miles. Let's review Amtrak's NEC regional statistics - Amtrak's busiest by far railroad service.
https://railpassengers.org/site/assets/ ... 453/5a.pdf
0- 99 mi 33.9%
100- 199 mi 30.0%
200- 299 mi 33.8%
300- 399 mi 1.6%
400+ mi 0.7%
Less than 2% ride further than 300 miles.
More math follows:
300 miles / 4 hours = average speed of 75 mph
Very doable.
What about within 3 hours?
300 miles / 3 hours = average speed of 100 mph.
Doable with brand new very expensive to implement HSR trains.

All this talk about improving food services on non-LD trains seems to be aimed for the wrong results.
After all, there is a reason why airlines get away with lousy food selections on most of their domestic flights, i.e. they get you there before you get hungry.

electricron wrote: After all, there is a reason why airlines get away with lousy food selections on most of their domestic flights

I get that airline food has long been a running joke, but since the airlines shifted to the BOB model, the quality has really improved. When someone's paying $10+ for a snack box, there's an expectation that wasn't there when it was simply passed out for free.

Food on domestic flights was more of a distraction than a neccesity.

Sent from my SM-G981U using Tapatalk

Persons who travel often on Amtrak might plan to eat on the train to save time/. These passengers need some more considerations on food. That applies to travelers on LD trains that travel time just 2 - 5 hours.

Yeah, when I was doing more NYP-ALB runs, I often found the timing awkward, I could eat an early dinner, or a late dinner (or sometimes lunch), since I couldn't catch any food on the train which would have been my preference.

I also want to add that comparing trains to airplanes here isn't necessarily useful. For one thing, it sucks to get up and down during a flight, so you have to have them bring you your food, which is time consuming. And generally it's point to point, so they have more of a turnover between legs. One a plan, you can get food when you want, and someplace like the NEC, the turnover is more spreadout, so it makes more sense to have a centralized place for folks to come to get food.

hrsn wrote: ↑Sun Aug 22, 2021 8:04 am

Railjunkie wrote: ↑Mon Aug 16, 2021 10:52 am
Attendant one slits open the hotdog pack tosses into the microwave for a min or two tosses back into a brown carry out with your bag a chips and drink of choice.

Attendant two takes the time to remove the hot dog from the bun before microwaving, places the bun in the convection oven to give it a light toast. Places the hot dog back into the lightly toasted bun wraps in a napkin places it on a plate. Before everything goes into that brown box he takes the time to place a liner that looks like a picnic table cloth along with a couple of napkins your chips and drink.

I've never met attendant two, sorry to say. But I'm willing to tip 100% for this.

Last time I saw him it was pre covid and he was working NYP NFL. He always had a line out the door no one ever complained because no matter now big or small the order it all started with the carryout box the checkered paper liner and a couple of napkins and a smile. I have seen and worked with many LSAs when I was in uniform some meh some where excellent. Its all in how you present yourself behind the counter.

The ones I encountered on Acela about 2 years ago had the attitude - we'll start selling 'food' when we get around to it, like after our coffee, beginning of shift nap, and once we do, we'll take our sweet time slopping it out. Complete turn off. And unlike the rest of the crew, who were professional. Oh, and hanging on as best as we could if we hit that rough track north of DC while waiting to get food.