My wife and I will be traveling this summer on Amtrak's Northern Rail Experience package. We upgraded to first class and are both looking forward to the trip. However, much of this is quite new to us and I have some questions: What is considered an appropriate tip for the sleeping car attendant and when do we present it to him? Since meals are part of the first class package, how do we calculate tips for the dining car staff?
You should be given a menu when you eat in the diner (assuming that you are on a scheduled train), and you will able to calculate the cost of each meal, since each item has its price by it.
As to sleeper attendants, I hesitate to suggest an amount.
Johnny
For me I do 20% tip on the meals if the service was great. So for Amtrak Dining Car Service you will probably be hard pressed to tip above 15% (wait to see the service before you comment on that remark). Amtrak Sleeping Car attendents, you have to evaluate how much they served you. If it is just making up a bed and breaking it down again. I do $10 a night per bed. I reduce that amount if I get snapped at after boarding the train by the sleeping car attendent or if I find myself making the beds because the sleeping car attendent is missing in action (Pssst: hate to lower your expectations but I mostly do it myself).
Our former poster Sam1 was a hoot on this subject. She was so tight, moths flew out of her purse. She wanted service just short of the intimate kind before she paid off.
At dinner, it depends, at bottom, on how much wine I've drunk. If the server is at all amiable, he or she gets 20-25 percent. (The night I spilled a bottle on the table, it was more.) Deggesty is right: The tip should be based on the dollar value of the meal and drinks on the menu. Yes, if you're in the sleeping car, you've already paid for the meal. But not for the tip.
In the sleeping car, I do $20 per night. It seems a reasonable amount for someone who has been looking out for my interests for up to 24 hours.
I'm far from rich, but when I'm on vacation, my budget includes generous treatment of my servers.
Paul: Tip the sleeping-car attendant when you detrain.
dakotafredOur former poster Sam1 was a hoot on this subject. She was so tight, moths flew out of her purse. She wanted service just short of the intimate kind before she paid off.
And some folks complain about insults? Here's a heads up. I am pretty sure sam1 (who was and is male) is back and posting occasionally.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
It's easier for me to be a generous tipper in the dining car because the meals are, well, free (I know, I know). At breakfast I generally tip $4, at lunch $5 or $6, and at dinner around $7 to $10. I like CMStPnP's suggestion of tipping my Porter (I love that word!) $10 per bed per night. Heck, even the maid in my hotel gets $5 per night, and she's not lugging my bags and fetching me ice for my afternoon happy hour.
Over the years I have traveled aboard the Lake Shore Limited often enough that I have gotten to know a few car attendants almost like friends; others I see from time to time. Same thing in the dining car: I recognize these people and they recognize me. So how could I stiff them or chisel them on tips and still get decent service this time or next? Besides,what sort of gentleman does that?
Right on nkp, tipping in the dining car and sleeper is standard operating procedures. The lounge car not so much since all they do is hand you your stuff.
The lounge car attendant does far more than just hand you your drink. Appropriate tips are appreciated by anybody who gives you good service.
I've commented on this kind of topic before. Some know that I am retired from Amtrak Onboard service, so I guess I have a dog in this fight, or used to.
I don't feel inclined to comment further, except to say that these jobs, and the working conditions, are not quite so cushy as some imagine.
Tom
Wow, now I feel cheap.
In the dining car I tip 20% on the menu, regardless of how I pay for the meal. But the car porter? Well, I always tip, but I used to hand him a $5. When I ride a sleeper, I pick it up at 11PM, my bed is already made. I ask him to knock on my door at 6:30AM when the diner opens. And i ask him to assist this old man with luggage on and off the car. I appreciate that he makes a pot of coffee and puts out juices in the morning center of the car, but I rarely partake of those. I have yet to find one who was not friendly and willing to help, though I am sure there are a surly one or two somewhere. I am on the train 13 hours (unless the particular trip turns into an "adventure".) and the porter has maybe 15-20 minutes invested in me.
My experience with the servers in the dining car have all been positive. But then I tend to be smiling and engaging with servers, I respect that they work hard and often get little respect from the public. In any restaurant - whether on wheels or on terra firma - ye reap as ye sow when it comes to servers.
Enzoamps Wow, now I feel cheap.
That's the whole point of these discussions. A new Amtrak rider asks about tipping expectations and forum members weigh in on regarding how much they tip.
I think this is called "virtue signalling." Instead of this one-upmanship going around of "how much I tip people" with the implied shaming that "you are cheap if you don't follow suit", how about directing people to independent sources and travel guides on how much to tip?
I also think this can be discouraging of persons considering Amtrak travel. "You mean I am expected to tip so many people? I think next time I will take a jet."
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Paul,
I take your point, but I think you're taking this a bit too far. Now it's my turn to do that!
In the first place, the OP doesn't seem to me, at least, to be a new Amtrak rider; he seems to be an experienced coach passenger who's upgrading to first class. It's not generally customary to tip in coach class and he knows it, but first class may have a different set of customs, and it does. Tipping is common in first class.
I love your term "virtue shaming," although I think that is a bit heavy-handed. In these forums we have all kinds of similar "shaming"; you just identified a new type. We have youth-shaming ("When I was a kid steam locomotives were new and burned wood, you only knew diesels"), knowledge-shaming ("Doesn't everyone know that before 1914 the XYZ&S RR only used model C stock cars on Thursdays and Saturdays?"), milage-shaming ("Oh yeah, I rode all the branch lines in North Dakota before they were abandoned"), locomotive-shaming ("Sure, the KxP1 had a bigger fire box than the type you like, and they were more handsome, too"), corporate-shaming ("The NYC under Perlman was much better run than the CP is under whats-his-name"), history-shaming ("mentioning Jim Crow in an article about Southern railroading was unnecessary"), political-shaming ("Your party would kill Amtrak" or "Your party would kill Class I railroads"), et cetera. To this list we'll now have a new addition.
We could try to defeat this form of virtue-shaming. I suggest saying, "Oh my! How crass of you to mention tipping or money at all! Have some couth!" or something similarly WASP-y.
To Enzoamps: Don't feel bad. It's a tip, not a requirement, and many people, even in first class, don't tip. Some because they don't know the custom on trains, some because they are cheap or not gentlemen, some because they received lousy service and are justly ticked off, some because they only have a $20 and nothing smaller, and so on. In my experience, the gratitude of the Porter for a $5 is the same as giving him or her a $10 or even a $20: it goes into the hand and then into the pocket in a trice.
I hate tipping, everywhere. But as long as it exists I want to know the rules and how much is customary, or how much others give. Then I'll take it from there.
Paul Milenkovic how about directing people to independent sources and travel guides on how much to tip?
Fine and good. Everyone should let his/her conscience be the guide. However, the sharing of recommendations/experiences by veteran travelers on here is not essentially different from a few sentences (if you can find any, have you?) about train tipping in a guidebook. If anything, it's likely much more thorough.
NKP guy Paul, I take your point, but I think you're taking this a bit too far. Now it's my turn to do that! In the first place, the OP doesn't seem to me, at least, to be a new Amtrak rider; he seems to be an experienced coach passenger who's upgrading to first class. It's not generally customary to tip in coach class and he knows it, but first class may have a different set of customs, and it does. Tipping is common in first class. I love your term "virtue shaming," although I think that is a bit heavy-handed.
I love your term "virtue shaming," although I think that is a bit heavy-handed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtue_signalling
It is "virtue signalling", not "virtue shaming", and I didn't invent the word -- see above. Essentially, it is calling attention to one's support for or personal participation in genuinely a virtuous activity (in this case, insuring adequate compensation for persons providing service), but done as a way to support one's social inclusion in a group
Shaming can be a byproduct of this signalling. I was replying to a post by a person who nevertheless tips Amtrak service personnel but was made to feel "cheap" by some of the posts offered here on the subject ("You tip five dollars -- I tip ten dollars at a minimum. Oh yeah, I tip twenty dollars!" -- virtue signalling in action).
Paul MilenkovicShaming can be a byproduct of this signalling. I was replying to a post by a person who nevertheless tips Amtrak service personnel but was made to feel "cheap" by some of the posts offered here on the subject ("You tip five dollars -- I tip ten dollars at a minimum. Oh yeah, I tip twenty dollars!" -- virtue signalling in action).
Except it didn't happen in that order. He posted after every one else did and said he felt cheap based on the previous posts.........nobody posted after him trying to outbid him and he didn't comment on any posts after his. People should speak freely here without a whole book of rules of PC on self imposed censorship.
Also agree with schlimm, good luck finding this info in travel guidebooks (I had to ask my grandparents and adjust for inflation) and if I were the OP I would probably do an averaging of what people posted here I wouldn't try to outdo anyone......which is also a little silly. And some will read the thread and continue not to tip at all (as pointed out somewhat sarcastically in the first few posts....heh-heh). So I don't see the thread as driving people to other modes of transport or shaming anyone.
Today Amtrak pays a liveable salary so that tipping is really optional.......not sure that was always the case in the days of privately run passenger service. I think in the past only Pullman paid it's folks well. The point is........not tipping at all is not going to send anyone to the soup line.
We might be over-producing this thing. In the dining car, a good test would be, how would you tip in some other upscale restaurant?
Some would dispute that Amtrak is upscale. Really? How many stationary restaurants depend on unique atmosphere for their cachet? If Amtrak doesn't provide a unique atmosphere, let's hear where you eat that does. And are your servers on wheels?
Doesn't matter whether you're coach or sleeper ... you've presented yourself to the restaurant for service, which carries the assumption that you've got the price, with tip.
This isn't snobbism but plain old accepted social practice -- manners, of which we're in danger of running short.
schlimm dakotafred Our former poster Sam1 was a hoot on this subject. She was so tight, moths flew out of her purse. She wanted service just short of the intimate kind before she paid off. Here's a heads up. I am pretty sure sam1 (who was and is male) is back and posting occasionally.
dakotafred Our former poster Sam1 was a hoot on this subject. She was so tight, moths flew out of her purse. She wanted service just short of the intimate kind before she paid off.
Here's a heads up. I am pretty sure sam1 (who was and is male) is back and posting occasionally.
dakotafred We might be over-producing this thing. In the dining car, a good test would be, how would you tip in some other upscale restaurant? Some would dispute that Amtrak is upscale. Really? How many stationary restaurants depend on unique atmosphere for their cachet? If Amtrak doesn't provide a unique atmosphere, let's hear where you eat that does. And are your servers on wheels? Doesn't matter whether you're coach or sleeper ... you've presented yourself to the restaurant for service, which carries the assumption that you've got the price, with tip. This isn't snobbism but plain old accepted social practice -- manners, of which we're in danger of running short.
Before my first trip which entailed eating in a diner (at fifteen years of age), I knew that when you enter a diner, you wait until you are told where to sit (and it is a matter of courtesy to let the steward or head attendant know how many are in your party), and you do not complain if strangers are seated at the same table with you.
I do not recall when I began noticing passengers who seemingly were unaware of these customs, but it has not been many years since I first noticed such behaviour.
Usually, I have enjoyed conversing with the people who are seated with me (including some in the Amtrak organization), though there have been some who totally ignored me (and my wife when she was with me).
dakotafred schlimm dakotafred Our former poster Sam1 was a hoot on this subject. She was so tight, moths flew out of her purse. She wanted service just short of the intimate kind before she paid off. Here's a heads up. I am pretty sure sam1 (who was and is male) is back and posting occasionally. Oh, yeah? As you are fond of asking -- where? I, on the other hand, in the absence of better evidence, think Sam1 (who was and was female) has graduated to that Big Blog in the Sky.
As an old codger, my memory may not be as good as it was once was, but as I recall, sam1 quit after being subjected to some verbal abuse from one or more posters.
I disagree with Fred's characterization of him; sam1 was an accountant with a practical view of things.
There were a post or two that gave me the impression that they were from a female, but I also seem to remember that he explained that the name sam1 was for his cat Samantha.
_____________
"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
Paul of Covington As an old codger, my memory may not be as good as it was once was, but as I recall, sam1 quit after being subjected to some verbal abuse from one or more posters.
Yeah, it looks like Sam1 deleted his/her account.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.
[quote user="Deggesty"]Before my first trip which entailed eating in a diner (at fifteen years of age), I knew that when you enter a diner, you wait until you are told where to sit (and it is a matter of courtesy to let the steward or head attendant know how many are in your party), and you do not complain if strangers are seated at the same table with you.
I do not recall when I began noticing passengers who seemingly were unaware of these customs, but it has not been many years since I first noticed such behaviour.[quote]The few times I have ventured to the dining car I have noticed that there is no sign to say "Please wait to be seated" so people that arrive when a server is not there to greet/guide them will just grab the first open table. A notice like this is common enough in restaurants, why Amtrak doesn't do it is beyond me.
I believe sam1 returned under another alias.
I agree that tipping is something that should be done when eating in the dining car or utilizing sleeper accommodation. However, and I hate to admit it, I'm finding it harder and harder to tip as the overall quality of service goes downhill. I have no issue tipping restaurant standards for a restaurant-quality experience. However, food that isn't freshly prepared, is served on picnic quality plates and is accompanied by often disinterested personnel is a huge disincentive to tipping a standard 15 - 20%. Too many of us continue to tip because we feel and know that it is the "right thing to do" rather than actually assess the quality of food and service.
schlimm I believe sam1 returned under another alias.
I think so too and it's best not to reveal the new account name because I believe that individual wants a fresh start. Also, if you happen to guess wrong it starts a whole new foo pah on the threads here.
Toronto Fan I agree that tipping is something that should be done when eating in the dining car or utilizing sleeper accommodation. However, and I hate to admit it, I'm finding it harder and harder to tip as the overall quality of service goes downhill. I have no issue tipping restaurant standards for a restaurant-quality experience. However, food that isn't freshly prepared, is served on picnic quality plates and is accompanied by often disinterested personnel is a huge disincentive to tipping a standard 15 - 20%. Too many of us continue to tip because we feel and know that it is the "right thing to do" rather than actually assess the quality of food and service.
One of the cardinal rules of the restaurant business which I enforced when I ran a fast casual restaurant. Employees of the restaurant, including the Chef should eat the food off the menu they are serving (no customizations) at least once a day. In fact in the General Manager course I went through they taught the GM they had to taste test / sample the food and rate it at least once a day and keep a log and report their findings back to HQ.
The only time I would get a complaint on a sandwich ever from a customer was when the Grill Chef forgot to season the steak with a salt/pepper mix or when an ingredient was left out that the client ordered. I never got any complaints about cold food, food that tasted like crap or that was not served properly.
I would bet THAT THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN on an Amtrak Dining car a whole lot. Because some of the time I have recieved watery mashed potatoes (are they instant potatos as I suspect?), or food was partially cold and not completely reheated. I do sometimes see the Servers eating in the Cafe Car part of the Dining Car but the food they are eating doesn't always look like what I was served and I am sure they are customizing the menu to match their tastes in some cases.
CMStPnPI think so too and it's best not to reveal the new account name because I believe that individual wants a fresh start. Also, if you happen to guess wrong it starts a whole new foo pah on the threads here.
sam2?
Maybe time again for some kind of tipper's annomyous cards ?
ACY The lounge car attendant does far more than just hand you your drink. Appropriate tips are appreciated by anybody who gives you good service. I've commented on this kind of topic before. Some know that I am retired from Amtrak Onboard service, so I guess I have a dog in this fight, or used to. I don't feel inclined to comment further, except to say that these jobs, and the working conditions, are not quite so cushy as some imagine. Tom, Now that its come out the average wage for on board hospitality personnel is $30 per hour [plus most get some overtime every month] and a total of $45 when fringe benefits are included, I'd say on board personnel are more than adequately compensated for any inconvenience. That information definitely has relieved any guilt on my part for not tipping at all if the service provided is poor--or worse.
Agree and as I get older I am less and less forgiving of folks over 25 that deliver sloppy service. Tipping is in fact a method of communication after all. It has never been mandatory.
My wife and I are sleeper car riders and are fortunate to take multiple trips every summer. I tip in the dining car as I would in a restaurant. Good service gets rewarded and poor service gets a token. If we have received poor service I don't want the server to think I forgot or just don't tip. Poor service always generates a letter from me to Amtrak with the train #, date and meal and an explanation.
The same goes for sleeper attendants. I do not have a set amt to tip and if I tip, I tip upon detraining. The only reason I would not tip the sleeper attendant is for poor service. First-class service should not mean: 1) you have to continually find the attendant, or 2) the attendant never even bothered to introduce themselves, or 3) the attendant acted like they were being bothered when you made a request. This behavior is always followed by a letter to Amtrak with train #, date and car # (and a name if he/she ever got close enough to read the nametag). On the other hand I am quick to write Amtrak for what I consider to be excellent service or want to commend an outstanding employee.
"The pen is mightier than the sword". Amtrak always responds to my commmunications.
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