Dining Car Service on the Hiawatha (compare with Amtrak)

[CMStPnP]

So this kind of goes back and touches a little on our Amtrak Dining Car discussion thread earlier

Found this on the internet.    First the circa 1961 menu of the Olypian Hiawatha Dinner Menu

http://streamlinermemories.info/Milw/OlyHi1961Menu.pdf

Then the lunch menu from the Afternoon Hiawatha:

http://streamlinermemories.info/Milw/HiawathaMenu.pdf

What I find interesting to note here is that the side dishes are easy to make items and the side dishe offerings are common between entrees which I am sure is due to the limited space to prep in the dinning car.     I've prepared most of these side dishes myself in my own kitchen they are fast to put together from the ingredients and they also keep well if they need to be stored and reheated (or stored in the cooler) for another meal (although I am not sure the railroad would do that).      So really only the entrees themselves appear to be different but I have to comment that they also appear to be relatively simple to make despite their fancy sounding names.

Notice the sandwiches on the Afternoon Hiawatha, not a lot of skill involved in prepping those, IMO.

Very interesting look back at history though.

[CMStPnP]

BTW, it would be really neat if someone on the forum could advance the 1961 dinning car prices using COLA to see what they would cost today in 2014........to also compare prices with Amtrak offerings.   That would be interesting and it would be my bet that the 1961 offerings are more expensive in todays terms than what is found on an Amtrak menu.

Well on second thought I thought I would look myself, check out what the Dinner prices would be today on the Olympian Hiawatha using this inflation calculator..........Remember to enter the year 1961 for the Olympian Hiawatha and 1965 for the Afternoon Hiawatha.

http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

Yup, seems to me more expensive than what is charged today for the most part in a Amtrak dining car.    Interesting stuff wonder if that inflation calculator is off at all?

[pajrr]

Hi, one must realize how the whole railroad situation has changed in order to make sense out of your findings. If I want to go from NY to Chicago today, I get on Amtrak and go. At mealtime I expect a decent meal, good variety, a comfortable seat / room, etc. Back in 1961 if I wanted to go to Chicago from NY I could ride the New York Central, Pennsylvania, the Erie-Lackawanna. Offering me good and comfort had to be a real priority for the railroad or I would just ride the other guy next time. Erie-Lackawanna offered scenery, comfort, great food and because of a longer, non-competitive running time, was allowed to charge lower fares. The Pennsy and NYC were the big boys, excellent service, speed, etc. Food quality was a much more important part of the overall formula for getting and keeping ridership. Food came out of the marketing dept budget, like a commercial if you will, and no expense was spared. Look at today's Super Bowl ads for example. Companies spare no expense, spending a gazillion dollars for a 30 second commercial, in order to make you remember them. It was the same back then with food and service on passenger trains.

 

      The biggest difference, however, was that freight on the road (usually) more than made up for any losses suffered by the passenger arm of the company. Amtrak does not have that luxury. It has to rely on the Federal Government for money. So it doesn't surprise me at all that by comparison the food was much more expensive and luxurious back then. And as for your part of easy to prepare meals, I have a friend who owns a private dining car. Working in a swaying, bouncing hot crowded kitchen is no fun. The offerings, however can really be outstanding. A lot of food can be pre made or at least be ready to cook when the meal hour comes around. Usually while you finish lunch and have gone back to your seat or room, the crew is already starting on the dinner for that night. Whether Amtrak or private car, dining in a dining car with the world going by your window is still a unique, wonderful experience.

 

      

[ACY Tom]

Pajrr has nailed it. Freight revenue used to be a big factor in offsetting dining car losses in the pre-Amtrak days. Another helpful revenue source was the Postal contracts. Does anybody remember the massive train-off petitions issued by Santa Fe immediately after cancellation of the postal contracts? Amtrak can't rely on either of these sources of income, and must "eat" (pardon the pun) the losses.

[CMStPnP]

ACY

Pajrr has nailed it. Freight revenue used to be a big factor in offsetting dining car losses in the pre-Amtrak days. Another helpful revenue source was the Postal contracts. Does anybody remember the massive train-off petitions issued by Santa Fe immediately after cancellation of the postal contracts? Amtrak can't rely on either of these sources of income, and must "eat" (pardon the pun) the losses.

Just to be clear, when you say Freight Revenue do you mean the Railway Express Agency packages carried on passenger trains or are you talking about freight trains themselves?  

[BaltACD]

CMStPnP

ACY

Pajrr has nailed it. Freight revenue used to be a big factor in offsetting dining car losses in the pre-Amtrak days. Another helpful revenue source was the Postal contracts. Does anybody remember the massive train-off petitions issued by Santa Fe immediately after cancellation of the postal contracts? Amtrak can't rely on either of these sources of income, and must "eat" (pardon the pun) the losses.

Just to be clear, when you say Freight Revenue do you mean the Railway Express Agency packages carried on passenger trains or are you talking about freight trains themselves?  

Freight trains themselves.  The carriers viewed passenger operations in their heyday as a marketing tool to their freight customers 'movers & shakers' that used railroad passenger operations as their means of transportation in conducting business.  The thought being, feed the President or Traffic Manager of a big shipper a good meal every time he traveled and you had a leg up on sustaining and improving business with that shipper.  In the heyday, railroads were the way business travelers traveled.  Dining car meals were the ultimate marketing tool.

[schlimm]

BaltACD

In the heyday, railroads were the way business travelers traveled.  Dining car meals were the ultimate marketing tool.

Very true.   I recall my father saying that in the 40's and early 50's when he traveled for business,  he preferred the B&O from Chicago to NYC, even though longer, because the ride was smoother than the Pennsy and food better than the Central.

[ACY Tom]

Thanks, Balt. Very well stated. Through the fifties, railroads kept their top trains and never threatened to drop them because those routes covered the commercial corridors that the movers and shakers travelled. Back then, train-off petitions generally involved secondary trains and secondary routes that didn't attract such travelers. Once the commercial travelers deserted the trains in favor of airlines and highways, the "headliner" trains were no longer relevant to the railroads' top freight customers, so they were more liability than asset. A lot of people forget that some very well-run railroads, such as U.P., Santa Fe, etc. operated some very good trains at a severe loss for many years. If it had been possible to do it profitably, don't you think they would? Joe Dokes and his family might have had a very nice trip on the train, but if Joe wasn't in a position to return some freight profit back to the railroad, the railroad would see no advantage in subsidizing Joe's vacation. Amtrak is expected to live up to that historical benchmark, but does not have the funding sources to do so.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Operating those premier trains was not cheap.  I can remember looking through various Moody's Transportation Manual's for the late 1960's.  As an example, Santa Fe's passenger operating ratio jumped from about 125% in 1965 to just over 200% in 1970.  In that period, Santa Fe lost its mail contracts, REA all but folded, and lots of secondary passenger trains were discontinued.

[aricat]

I rode the Afternoon Hi several times in the 1960's and found the food to be adequate if unspectacular. The Milwaukee had to cut costs in the 1960's to keep the diners in service. The meals were not as fancy as the Burlington nor as expensive either. The Morning Hi which I rode just prior to Amtrak in April of 1971 had resorted to paper plates already. The food and the service was still very good from the Milwaukee dining car staff in spite of their employment status being very murky after May 1st. I usually had a chef's salad for lunch on the Afternoon Hi in the late 1960's; the price was $2.65 and was always very good.

After Amtrak took over they sometimes used ex-SCL diners on the North Coast Hiawatha and they had a terrible ride on rough Milwaukee Road track; eating in those diners was an experience never to be forgotten. The BN diners rode much better.

[BARFlyer]

Even though the railroads that once did Both Freight and passenger service, do NOT do it now, its interesting to note that:

1. UPS is THE single Largest user of Intermodal rail service in the US ( as of 2013)

2. FEXED has jumped into it , and

3. The USPS does a bunch now with Intermodal Rail. ( around 50 million, but billions on highway expenses)

 Even though all 3 use each other now for partial shipping, they are all sending "Mail by Rail".

[ACY Tom]

If the profits enjoyed by those companies could be diverted to help offset the cost of operating Amtrak, we would then approach the situation we had in the 1940's-1950's, when railroads used some of that income to defray the cost of operating their passenger trains. Of course, they had income from mail and freight as well, all of which went into the pot. As has been pointed out, Amtrak does not have any of that income, which is why, in a nutshell, it is naïve and probably idiotic to expect Amtrak to operate without a subsidy.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

In the pre-Amtrak era, passenger trains were still subsidized.  The only difference was that the ICC and various state commissions expected the railroads to unwillingly subsidize the passenger service from their freight earnings.

[CMStPnP]

CSSHEGEWISCH

In the pre-Amtrak era, passenger trains were still subsidized.  The only difference was that the ICC and various state commissions expected the railroads to unwillingly subsidize the passenger service from their freight earnings.

You know I would modify the above last sentence to state "unwillingly subsidize the passenger service after losing both the U.S. Mail Contract and the LCL Frieght Contracts (Railway express agency)".      As I will agree they were more than happy to cross subsidize them before losing both of those to the competition.     Drop off of passengers played a role as well as I don't think you could haul a passenger train empty with just a mail contract and the Railway Express Agency.

Interesting thing about REA was it was created by the Federal Government and UPS pretty much ran it out of business with it's more flexible delivery model (common_carrier, door to door):

BTW, interesting thing about Fred Harvey restaurants.    Do you guys know that the tollway oasis around Chicago used to be run by Fred Harvey, they were the operators before Howard Johnson took over?      Also the successor to Fred Harvey company still exists and runs El Tovar Hotel at the Grand Canyon as well as a number of our National Park Hotel concessions?

[schlimm]

CMStPnP

Interesting thing about REA was it was created by the Federal Government and UPS pretty much ran it out of business with it's more flexible delivery model (common_carrier, door to door):

While American Railway Express was a USRA creation in 1917 to merger the various express agencies, in turn it was taken over by Railway Express Agency in 1929, and was wholly owned by the 86 private railroads in proportion to express traffic carried.  More likely, REA was done in by the Interstates, which allowed UPS to compete for longer distance business.