John Mica wins one

A hurrah for the Republican congressman from suburban Orlando and frequent Amtrak critic. Maybe I need to revise my opinion of the man (for what I said about Mica in July, go here). Amtrak has pledged to end its food service losses, which amounted to $74 million in fiscal 2013, within the next five years. And you can thank Mica for prodding Amtrak toward this announcement.

Mica, chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure until this term, has been on Amtrak’s case for a couple of years to reduce its food service losses. He’s held hearings and, frankly, been downright ugly and obnoxious about it. I attributed his behavior to grandstanding for the folks back in his district (he was seriously challenged for the Republican nomination by a tea party candidate in 2012). And frankly, I thought the food service loss was a cost of doing business and that the economics of it couldn’t be improved much more.

It turns out, according to Amtrak president Joe Boardman, that the dining cars on long-distance trains account for virtually all of that $74 million loss. The cafe cars used on short-distance trains virtually break even. So if you can eliminate that loss, you have lowered the deficits of the long distance trains by $74 million. What’s not to like about that?

Left unsaid is how that loss will be erased. Yes, the press release listed a few initiatives, but the only one that impresses me as having much potential is for cashless sales in the dining and cafe cars; I’ve heard that when airlines went to payment for food and beverage by credit or debit card only, receipts went up typically by 15 percent. Figure that one out.

More likely, Amtrak will have to rethink its whole dining car service. The model it already has for this is the meal service in the Acela first class cars. The first class passenger has a choice of four entrees at each meal. All are precooked and reheated in the galley of the car—no cooks, no spoilage. Turn up your nose at it, but the meals (if a bit on the skimpy side) taste fine to me and not like they’d just been microwaved to death. These dishes on the Acela, by the way, are referred to by Mica as gourmet dining.— Fred W. Frailey