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Does bad dining car experience mean Amtrak is dying?

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So far this year I have taken four trips from Taylor to Dallas and two trips from Temple to San Diego on the Texas Eagle. I have eaten in the dinning care on all of these trips, although not necessarily every meal. My experiences in the dinning cars have been good.   The announcements regarding how to proceed to the dinning car, as well as the lounge car, and what to expect have been clear. Once in the dinning car all the wait staff have been cheerful, helpful, and reasonably efficient. Moreover, for the most part, the lounge car attendants have been cheerful and helpful. On my latest trip from LAX to Temple, which was completed this morning, I was impressed by the spirit and helpfulness of the lead dinning car wait person.  She was upbeat, enthusiastic, and helpful. Equally important, the wait staff were efficient and effective; they filled out my meal card without a problem, took care of my beverage requests promptly, and served the food quickly.  On Number 2, at least last night, the diner was full, so they were challenged by the workload. The quality of the food, however, is another issue.  Denny's - not exactly an up market restaurant - offers much better quality food at considerably less cost. Last night two of my table mates had the steak, which goes for $26 or $27.  I asked how they liked it. They said that it was very good.  My dish had chicken, which had I dropped it on the edge of the table, would probably have broken the table, as well as collard greens and rice. The greens were terrible; the rice was passable.   Food service is not an Amtrak core competency.  They should outsource it to a contract vendor, as per numerous prior posts on this subject.  They probably could get a better result, although whether they could reduce the subsidies is problematic.
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