BaltACD Paul of Covington Or we can do what was done in Honduras back in the '40's. At most stops the train was surrounded by vendors selling all kinds of eats and drinks, and you conducted business through the open windows. And Amtrak windows open?
Paul of Covington Or we can do what was done in Honduras back in the '40's. At most stops the train was surrounded by vendors selling all kinds of eats and drinks, and you conducted business through the open windows.
Or we can do what was done in Honduras back in the '40's. At most stops the train was surrounded by vendors selling all kinds of eats and drinks, and you conducted business through the open windows.
And Amtrak windows open?
They do if you apply the corollary to Oinie's Law ('If you push on anything hard enough, it will fall over')
It is closing them again after the purchase that poses the concern.
schlimmNot sure if that was sarcasm, but 30 minute stops? Modern railroads should be able to have a dwell time 10 minutes or less, generally 2-3 minutes. Might as well bring back the meal stop to use the station's Fred Harvey restaurant.
Half serious if dining car service gets really bad or not existent and Amtrak has 20-30 min stops throughout their schedules on LD trains. One of them at St. Louis I think runs for a bit they stick to 20 min in St. louis, Dallas they say 20 min but it usually runs over because the passengers meandering about. So at least I could get a decent breakfest in St. Louis if I time the order via GRUB HUB application and let them know in the comments it is time sensitive. They tell you in the GRUB HUB app what the approx delivery time is and they will wait up to 10 min for you. The risk of course is if the delivery person is late, they miss the train. Typically Amtrak is pretty reliable 40-60 min out from the station, rare to be delayed that close in my past experience with the St Louis stop........Chicago and DC always seem to have waiting delays inbound.
Yeah miss the open windows on the old German 2nd Class Cars, those were fun you could get half a body out that window....lol. Especially fun for the trains to and from Oktoberfest when they would race side by side in the same direction leaving the station or on approach. You can also hear the drunken singing on the other train.................not so fun when someone throws up out the window though.
CMStPnPHalf serious if dining car service gets really bad or not existent and Amtrak has 20-30 min stops throughout their schedules on LD trains...
The actual length of stop need not be any longer than that required to identify and transport the food aboard -- it's fun to consider a return to Fred Harvey eateries, but nobody is going to voluntarily go to sit-down or even cafeteria-line ordering in a credible train-stop interval, even one as long as the nighttime City of New Orleans stop in Memphis (where the locomotive often gets a drink of its own).
One approach that I would try would be to have either a known station official or a known and lockable location for meal 'deposit', to which the conductors or attendants have specific keys. Ordering 'windows' now become shifted very slightly forward, so they arrive a few minutes ahead of the 'tracked' train time if they are not going to meet it directly. I expect the "box" would be loaded at platform level and then be raised on scissor or 'manlift' jacks as needed for rapid gang loading. Put cameras in the box if there is any question about how the food looked, what its temperature was, etc. when dropped off, and have temperature-controlled sections for different categories of product.
You'd need an Uber-like ordering app, running on the onboard wireless or via public cell where available, or on internal devices or kiosks on the train. All the back-end code necessary to implement this sort of thing already exists, and even Bangalore programmers could adapt what needs to be adjusted. It's interesting to contemplate the profitability of such a thing extended to other forms of supply, for example to intercity or local buses or other mass transit. I have been developing a 'lite' version of it for a local application.
I suggested a while back, only partly tongue-in-cheek, that the old mail-crane method would work nicely for enroute provisioning. Any special permanent packaging like pizza 'hot boxes' could be designed or protected to be dropped off at some fixed zone for recovery, if it were inconvenient to have it returned to be dropped near or at specific stations. For many forms of food this would permit relatively quick access to many kinds of specialty or restricted-diet meal with very little effective prep requirement, holding time, or chance of wasted or lost food cost, while not restricting formal pickup areas to be at or close to established Amtrak stations. The method might also be adapted to commissary replenishment of quite a few things that would otherwise 'run short' or run out during travel between fixed commissary locations...
^^^ I'll give it a try the next time I ride the Texas Eagle and let you know how it turns out. I am sure the Sleeping Car Attendant would get a good chuckle out of it if it works........at least it would be somewhat entertaining.
In South Africa...
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
face it . There are not enough locations on LD routes to support a restaurant for non rail patrons near any station that would be served by only 2 trains a day. Fred Harvey times are long gone.
The rental of Amtrak dining cars would seem that there is not a good financial arrangement that would not harm one or both partys financially. Remember congress Amtrak haters are always in the wings/
The published figure of operating a passenger car of ~ $4.00 / mile means that for the Meteor's 1400 miles the rental would be $4200 for a 28 hour time. or 3 meals.
So if I get 100 passengers to eat 3 meals at $10 , 15 , & 20 my revenue will be $1500. 200 passengers ( fat chance ) $3000.00 so how do we rectify that ?
blue streak 1blue streak 1 wrote the following post 1 hours ago: face it . There are not enough locations on LD routes to support a restaurant for non rail patrons near any station that would be served by only 2 trains a day. Fred Harvey times are long gone.
I guess I should have used a sarcasm emoji or put it in brackets. Since Fred Harvey has been gone since 1968, it seemed obvious. Guess not.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
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