Silver Star Downgrade and Diner Discussion

bdawe wrote:Just because VIA does anything in particular is not a testimony to that thing's cost-effectiveness

Agreed. I think we found upthread that VIA was spending something like $4 for every $1 it collected in fares on its transcon trains. They run some parts of VIA like they were a national park--not necessarily a bad thing, but certainly a thing that's hard find lessons in for Amtrak.

The answer to in-route restocking is the way that the airlines do it.

Aramak or any other 3rd party is used to this. Basically you have everything ready to go on roll-in racks. Roll out the empty ones, roll in the new ones. It's pretty standardized.

And in fact, my understanding is the new diners are designed with this sort of thing already in mind.
You worry about any leftovers once the rolled-off rack is brought back to the commissary.

On CAF's website there is a picture of the diner kitchen interior which looks suspiciously similar to an airline galley.

Considering (US) airlines operate with the bare legal minimum of on board staff (flight attendants) and I don't see the pilots coming out to deal with food restocking, they've probably gotten this part down to a science by now. At the very least, the problem of loading/unloading could be solved by having additional part-time staff based at the restocking station do that part, so that the OBS who are already busy at service stops don't have yet another thing to deal with.

I probably wasn't clear. You don't hire additional Amtrak staff, part-time or otherwise. Aramak does the loading/unloading, much as they do so on the airlines now.

You get the trains to the right place at the right time, Aramark would gladly get the food on board... If only Amtrak could deliver passengers consistently "Just In Time," this wouldn't be a problem.

Greg Moore wrote:I probably wasn't clear. You don't hire additional Amtrak staff, part-time or otherwise. Aramak does the loading/unloading, much as they do so on the airlines now.

May run into union problems , like the subway deal on the Albany trains.
I think Aramak delivers to the station or crew base , not onto the actual train.

Believe Aramark sets up what goes onboard the Diner,Lounge,and food service cars,the Amtrak OBS crews load the materials on board
then serve and account for what's sold,spoiled,and used.
Believe Aramark donates unused food to local food pantries or Shelter services at the Commissary cities.

Greg Moore wrote:I probably wasn't clear. You don't hire additional Amtrak staff, part-time or otherwise. Aramak does the loading/unloading, much as they do so on the airlines now.

Really????????????????????????????????

Let's use the Texas Eagle as an example,
Where it is during meal times:
Southbound:
6 pm > just left Carlinville at 5:49 11 minutes prior, it probably left Chicago 4 hours prior with dinner meals aboard.
6 am > just left Texarkana at 5:58 2 minutes prior, is 2 minutes enough time to unbox the meals, and does Aramark have facilities in Texarkana? Most likely they will in Little Rock, who is going to be available to store the breakfast meals aboard the train at 3:10 am, because the diner staff will be sound asleep that early?
Noon > just left Dallas at 11:50 10 minutes prior, is 10 minutes enough time to unbox the meals?
6 pm just left Taylor at 5:36 24 minutes prior, i would think 24 minutes is sufficient time to unbox the meals, but does Aramark have facilities in Taylor? Most likely they do in Ft. Worth which they leave almost 4 hours earlier, who is going to be available to store dinner meals in Ft. Worth on the train while the staff aboard is busy serving lunch?
Northbound:
Noon > Just left McGregor at 11:51, it probably left San Antonio with lunches stored aboard 5 hours earlier
6 pm > Left Mineola at 5:15 45 minutes prior, I would think 35 minutes is sufficient time to unbox the meals, but does Aramark have facilities in Minola? Most likely they do in Dallas, which they leave just prior to Noon 6 hours earlier. Who is going to be available to store dinner meals in Dallas while the staff aboard is busy serving lunch?
6 am >Left Arcadia at 4:19 1 hour and 51 minutes prior which should be plenty of time to unbox the meals, but does Aramark have facilities in Arcadia? Most likely they will in Little Rock, who is going to be available to store the breakfast meals aboard the train at 11:39 pm, because the diner staff will be sound asleep that late?
Noon > I'm not even sure they serve lunch on the Eagle heading north, because it has left Pontiac at 11:39 am 21 minutes prior. It's schedule to arrive in Chicago at 1:52 pm if it's on time, and the staff will wish to close the diner down early to clean and close the books. Does Pontiac have Aramark facilities? Most likely Bloomington-Normal will, which they left at 11:08 am 52 minutes prior to noon.

Worse case scenario for where Aramark should have facilities to service the Eagle:
Chicago, Texarkana, Dallas, Taylor, San Antonio, Mineola, Arcadia, and Pontiac.
Better case scenario #1:
Chicago, Little Rock, Dallas, and San Antonio.
Better case scenario #2:
Chicago and San Antonio
Best case scenario:
Chicago

And this is just one train, imagine the number of facilities Aramark will have to need in small towns for every train.

Yes, really.

So we'll pick Texarkana. Some quick googling appears to show they serve at least one customer in Texarkana, so I think that answers your question.
If it takes more than 2 employees to go onboard, roll out the old, empty racks and roll in new ones, then I suspect Aramak is a bad stock investment.
I don't know why you're saying anything about unboxing meals. Why would they do that. They're simply restocking the train. Have you ever seen how fast a typical airliner is restocked between flights?
Take Southwest Airlines, they have one of the fastest turnarounds in the industry and routinely restock their planes and the food/drink restocking takes minutes, including driving up, raising the truck to the right level and not hitting the airplane. Again, we're talking standardized roll-on, roll-off racks. We're not talking unboxing, etc.

And why this ridiculous requirement to restock before every meal. Amtrak doesn't necessarily do that now. If anything, we're making things easier since there's more opportunities to restock en-route.

Aramark already HAS facilities like this in towns because they're preparing meals for many places other than just airlines.

Why not get rid of dining cars and instead offer sleeper-lounges?

While I've never taken the Silver Starve, on my latest Crescent trip, the dining car food was fine, but not amazing (served on thin plasticware), and the dining car itself didn't seem too different from the cafe car next door: vinyl seats, plastic tables and paper tablecloths. I even saw a customer in the cafe car who was eating the exact same meal that I had eaten in the dining car. So I don't see an inherent need for dining cars, from the customer's eyes, as long as the food available somewhere on the train is a full sit-down meal, made on board or catered from a supplier.

What I did miss on the Crescent was a true first-class experience. For $600 for 15 hours of travel, I got a small room that was showing its age, a bed with very thin blankets, lounge access at NY Penn Station, a decent dinner (which, again, was served on thin plasticware) and a few bottles of water, and other passengers wearing jogging suits and athletic shoes. That's it. There was nothing elegant or luxurious about it, unlike flying first class: no free-flowing wine, no white tablecloths, no china, no on-board entertainment (i.e., videos), etc.

I keep seeing photos of 1950s-era lounge cars, with sophisticated-looking people drinking elegant drinks and mingling while on board. Why can't Amtrak have a sleeper-lounge car--a 2017 version of Babbling Brook (the NY Central sleeper-lounge that is now in private hands) or Crescent Harbor (the Southern Railway sleeper-lounge)? Serve dinner (prepared elsewhere and catered) in there on real china, and let the space be elegant (i.e., no vinyl seats) and used by passengers as an exclusive first-class lounge outside of dining hours. With a sleeper-lounge instead of a full dining car, less space would be devoted to foodservice, and more space could be revenue space, so it'd be a win for Amtrak. For $600, why can't I have that?

SouthernRailway wrote:For $600, why can't I have that?

Well, because that's not how much it actually would cost them to deliver that kind of experience. $600 is well within "economy" class fares on a lot of airline routes. Start in the low to mid 4 four figures for a "first-class" experience and you're "on the money". Pullman Rail Journeys proved this once already.

Passengers who are able to book a sleeper car at the rates offerred by Amtrak on the Silver Star on very fortunate indeed to have such a nice accommodation at such a reasonable price. It isn't perfect but it sure beats "cattle class".

By my count:

2 glasses of wine: $6
Real china and a tablecloth: $3
Non-vinyl seats in lounge car: perhaps $2 per passenger, per trip
Better bedding: perhaps $5 per passenger, per trip
Video screens returned to Viewliner rooms, or Ipads: $4 per passenger, per trip
TOTAL: $20 additional cost

I think that Amtrak can afford that for a $600 ticket, particularly by ditching a dining car.

I wonder how many others are turned off by paying $600 and getting a trip that just feels cheap and do not return to Amtrak.

The costs are not in the individual items , its in labor costs to provide them .

It wouldn't take any additional labor to provide what I ask for, and it would actually take less if dining cars were replaced with sleeper-lounges serving catered meals.

SouthernRailway wrote: I wonder how many others are turned off by paying $600 and getting a trip that just feels cheap and do not return to Amtrak.

More importantly: How many people are turned off by paying $600 at the onset and never even book a trip?