As much as I have enjoyed the dining car experience over years of train travel I sense the experience is now running on borrowed time. High salaries, waste, and theft have all contributed to continuing losses.
Prepared food doesn't have to taste terrible (as was my experience on the northbound City of New Orleans). Good, healthy prepared meals are a BIG business today. Just drop by Whole Foods, Kroger, Safeway, etc, or any number of independent food preparer establishments (Hello Fresh, Snap Kitchen) and see the many people who take these meals home to heat and eat. Good food and very convenient.
What if AMTRAK converted part of a diner (maybe the downstairs kitchen area) into a series of high-end (yes, they are out there) vending machines with many good, healthy, food choices that would regularly change? One employee could oversee the operation and also service the tables, thus, less overhead. Machines could be restocked at the end point before turning back to the originating city. Machines could also offer various kinds of drinks and desserts (some frozen).
These meals could be of better quality and priced less than the high-prices currently charged in the diner. I have heard many sleeper passengers say that if the meals weren't included in the price of their ticket they would bring food aboard rather than pay the high prices charged for the mediocre food now served.
It may be out-of-the-box thinking but it's an option. I could be mistaken but I recall vending machine/cafe cars on some trains in Europe.
How successful were the automat cars that the SP had on some trains, such as the Sunset Limited?
Johnny
Anderson's version of Amtrak cannot comprehend 'High End' anything - especially meals and service to passengers.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Many moons ago Amtrak attempted to contract out the food service on Empire Service trains to Subway restaurants. It ended very, very badly.
Editor Emeritus, This Week at Amtrak
D.Carleton Many moons ago Amtrak attempted to contract out the food service on Empire Service trains to Subway restaurants. It ended very, very badly.
I understand that it went very badly because Amtrak's unions threw a hissy fit and helped kill the experiment before it even had an opportunity to prove itself.
If Amtrak's high-end customers want a high-end dining experience on a long-distance train, getting it is relatively easy. All they need to do is signal management that they are prepared to cover the full cost of their high-end meal and not look to the taxpayers to subsidize it.
Amtrak's looses annually tens of millions of dollars on its food and beverage services. As several independent audits have shown, more than 95 percent of the losses are attributable to the long-distance trains.
Rio Grande Valley, CFI,CFII
Deggesty How successful were the automat cars that the SP had on some trains, such as the Sunset Limited?
PJS1 D.Carleton Many moons ago Amtrak attempted to contract out the food service on Empire Service trains to Subway restaurants. It ended very, very badly. I understand that it went very badly because Amtrak's unions threw a hissy fit and helped kill the experiment before it even had an opportunity to prove itself.
I am certain that in your area of employment if some one is out to eliminate your job area you won't just accept it without question. You would throw all the Hissy you could manage to retain your employment. That is human nature.
Money and jobs scratch all backs. You have to give something to get something - it was true for the hunter gathers and it is true today.
BaltACD I understand that it went very badly because Amtrak's unions threw a hissy fit and helped kill the experiment before it even had an opportunity to prove itself. I am certain that in your area of employment if some one is out to eliminate your job area you won't just accept it without question. You would throw all the Hissy you could manage to retain your employment. That is human nature.
It depends on how jobs are eliminated and workers are reassigned or let go.
I worked for a Fortune 200 Corporation. Because of a changing market, we had to reorganize the company. Big time! Management offered early retirement and voluntary separation packages to every employee. Of the 18,500 folks employed by the company, approximately 2,300 took the early retirement option and 2,450 took the voluntary separation package.
Throughout my career I knew that I could lose my job anytime by just saying the wrong thing or getting crosswise with my boss. It went with the territory. I did not worry about it. I was not threatened by change; I knew I could get another job quickly.
I don't know how Amtrak handled the push back on the out sourcing of food service. Based on what I read, it did not even get a reasonable opportunity to test the concept.
Nothing was said about any of Amtrak's food and beverage employees losing their job. Amtrak has enough wiggle room in the size of its labor force that it probably could have found another job for any displaced employee.
It is human nature to resist change. But sometimes people and organizations do it without thinking through the consequences, which can be more harmful in the long run than helping to manage it constructively.
PJS1It is human nature to resist change. But sometimes people and organizations do it without thinking through the consequences, which can be more harmful in the long run than helping to manage it constructively.
When you are fighting for your life you can only think about the present - it is the survival instinct in the human animal. https://www.pbs.org/program/amazing-human-body/ If you don't survive in the present, the future has no meaning.
PJS1 Amtrak's looses annually tens of millions of dollars on its food and beverage services. As several independent audits have shown, more than 95 percent of the losses are attributable to the long-distance trains.
CSSHEGEWISCH Dining car service has always been operated at a loss, at least as far back as the 1920's, probably earlier. The railroads were willing to eat the loss since they felt it was a necessary adjunct to a passenger train.
BaltACDI am certain that in your area of employment if some one is out to eliminate your job area you won't just accept it without question. You would throw all the Hissy you could manage to retain your employment. That is human nature.
runnerdude48 BaltACD I am certain that in your area of employment if some one is out to eliminate your job area you won't just accept it without question. You would throw all the Hissy you could manage to retain your employment. That is human nature. What good did throwing a hissy fit do for the union? Food service on NYC- Albany trains was discontinued altogether and the union employees lost their jobs anyway and, passengers now don't have the option of buying food on the trains. Lose - lose all around due to union greed. Well, maybe Amtrak didn't lose because now they don't have to absorb the losses on food service for these trains.
BaltACD I am certain that in your area of employment if some one is out to eliminate your job area you won't just accept it without question. You would throw all the Hissy you could manage to retain your employment. That is human nature.
What good did throwing a hissy fit do for the union? Food service on NYC- Albany trains was discontinued altogether and the union employees lost their jobs anyway and, passengers now don't have the option of buying food on the trains. Lose - lose all around due to union greed. Well, maybe Amtrak didn't lose because now they don't have to absorb the losses on food service for these trains.
Greed goes one way - up the corporate ladder, always has, always will.
When I read the title of this topic, I thought it would be about bringing in some super-chef to do high-end dining. Or maybe a kiosk car, where there'd be several small operations.
Looks like I got that wrong.
Ed
As I have remarked on another thread or two, my trip to the East Coast recently taught me that what Amtrak now offers on the Capitol and Lake Shore is not as good as the box meals that I bought while traveling by train in the sixties. At that time, I never bought a breakfast, but the lunches and suppers that I did buy were superior to the box meals now offered--small portions of a variety of items, half-ripe melon and mango which require good teeth to eat--all served cold.
It was a great pleasure to eat in the diner on the Zephyr after eating on the two other trains.
I don't want to discourage the brainstorming here but I'm going to comment based on my past experience in the fast casual dining experience world....
RailSpike As much as I have enjoyed the dining car experience over years of train travel I sense the experience is now running on borrowed time. High salaries, waste, and theft have all contributed to continuing losses.
Agree 100%.
RailSpike Prepared food doesn't have to taste terrible (as was my experience on the northbound City of New Orleans). Good, healthy prepared meals are a BIG business today. Just drop by Whole Foods, Kroger, Safeway, etc, or any number of independent food preparer establishments (Hello Fresh, Snap Kitchen) and see the many people who take these meals home to heat and eat. Good food and very convenient.
Actually, I think those alternatives taste horrible as well. I will say this though the freshness or perception in freshness is all in how the food is prepped. I could make a salad that would keep 1-2 days in the frig based on how my parents taught me to make it. The same salad would last 2 days longer if I prepped it correctly using a sharp knife and ice water. Two more days of freshness where it could sit in the frig without customers precieving it was old. The problem you run into with some Kroger, Safeway and other outlets is they buy their food from a wholesaler and then it is shipped via warehouse to their warehouse for distribution to the super market. That added transit time reduces the freshness by at least a week. Amtrak if it doesn't already should buy direct from the wholesaler and prep ASAP afterwards or it's contractor should. I would not try to remarket a Kroger or Safeway prepared meal on an Amtrak train because it would be at least one to 1.5 weeks old on the first day it appears as an Amtrak offering.......that is just a turn off to me and you can taste it in the food as well.
RailSpike What if AMTRAK converted part of a diner (maybe the downstairs kitchen area) into a series of high-end (yes, they are out there) vending machines with many good, healthy, food choices that would regularly change? One employee could oversee the operation and also service the tables, thus, less overhead. Machines could be restocked at the end point before turning back to the originating city. Machines could also offer various kinds of drinks and desserts (some frozen). These meals could be of better quality and priced less than the high-prices currently charged in the diner. I have heard many sleeper passengers say that if the meals weren't included in the price of their ticket they would bring food aboard rather than pay the high prices charged for the mediocre food now served.
Their best hope here is to follow the Airline tray meal option and convert the dining car to use the high powered reheating ovens the airlines use in flight, then they could share in the economies of scale by borrowing from the airline industry caterers. Minor issue here is only major airports have those caterers so they might have to build a logistical meal supply out in the boonies or learn how to supply enough meals to an Amtrak train so there is little waste but still enough selection for passengers. Remember on an airline there really is not that much selection, typically you only get two choices of meals if that. Amtrak would have to buy more than they serve of the airine meals to offer a selection and therin lies the pitfall for this option. Each tray meal is pretty expensive and if you have a lot of waste it will eat you alive expense wise. I am also not sure how long those airline meals will keep after they are delivered and my guess is not very long (maybe a day or two). Remember the airlines use almost all of what was catered and what they return back to the caterer unused for credit if anything is probably recycled to another carrier for use on another trip. You can do that when the trip cycles are in hours and very frequent. Hard to do it with once a day service and keep those meals fresh at the same time.
RailSpike It may be out-of-the-box thinking but it's an option. I could be mistaken but I recall vending machine/cafe cars on some trains in Europe.
I think the vending machine option in the United States for a healthy meal service is not an option for Amtrak. For one the machines would need to be tended to daily, second, most of the food would probably spoil before it was sold. Third, they have to keep the vending machines very clean and last but not least.....passengers that are traveling first class are going to have a much higher expectation for a meal than a vending machine.
DeggestyAs I have remarked on another thread or two, my trip to the East Coast recently taught me that what Amtrak now offers on the Capitol and Lake Shore is not as good as the box meals that I bought while traveling by train in the sixties.
I would be willing to bet that the railroads in the 1960's obtained their box lunches from railroad or formerly railroad owned hotels whereas Amtrak attempts the purchase from a vendor that exclusively deals in box meals. All the large Canadian Pacific Hotels in Canada (now Fairmont brand hotels) offered box meals to their guests on hikes, to tour busses, to walk-ins. Willing to bet they did the same for CPR trains if needed in a pinch. They still offer the box lunches under the Fairmont name.........at least the former CPR Hotels in the Rockies do.
The Fairmont Hotel Boxed lunch from the Fairmont Lake Louise or the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel are awesome, served as lunch on the Rocky Mountaineer Motor Coach option through the Ice Fields parkway.
CSSHEGEWISCHDining car service has always been operated at a loss, at least as far back as the 1920's, probably earlier. The railroads were willing to eat the loss since they felt it was a necessary adjunct to a passenger train.
Probably true but then adjusted for inflation they charged a higher price per meal than Amtrak does today for a good portion of their meal offerings AND their losses were not as great as Amtrak losses.
Also, I will add.......just because a service performed in the past with old methods and old technology lost money. Does not necessarily mean that the same service with a much updated management approach cannot break even or at least manage a slim profit. Drop the dining car and serve at your seat is a good idea as it eliminates the dining car expenses BUT then you are faced with the issue of where to prepare hot meals and store unprepped food.
Amtrak carries a lot of underutilized space on a lot of underutilized cars consider......
Baggage Car - one level
Lounge Car - two levels
Dining Car - two levels
Additionally to the above, they place the cars in the train where the space will be wasted even more. Hey why not place food storage in the baggage cars and couple the lounge car behind it? Why not have a baggage / kitchen combo car with it's own auxillary power source apart from the locomotive? Couple the Lounge behind that then the coaches and last the sleepers. Eliminate the dining car completely. Keep the deliver meals to your sleeping car compartment for those that do not want to traverse via coach
Or better yet, why not have the baggage car midtrain with the ability to traverse through the car for passengers and crew and still have it combo baggage/kitchen car???? Then you have the flexibility to couple the Lounge car before or after the baggage car and/or sleepers where you want.
Or even better yet, have a true Superliner bi-level car with the upper floor being kitchen and the lower floor being baggage. Again you can drop the dining car and use the tables in the lounge Or the sleeping car passengers can have the meals delivered to their seats.
All of these are options Amtrak could experiment with if they were not so focused on doing things from the past.
Also, does Amtrak really need to have two locomotives on a passenger train..........ever? Why not build a higher horsepower or higher adhesion locomotive for routes with steep grades and move to a model of one loco per train? Of course it would mean that locomotive would need to be reliable and that would also involve a change in the old railroad mindset.
From my experience, you would lose your bet. The box meals that I bought were provided in places such as Hendersonville, N.C., Dothan and Piedmont?, Ala., and Abbeville or Greenwood in S.C. I do not know if the restaurant in the station in Dothan had any real connection with the ACL or was simply a tenant.
Other railroads may have had an arrangement such as you suggest.
CMStPnPMinor issue here is only major airports have those caterers so they might have to build a logistical meal supply out in the boonies or learn how to supply enough meals to an Amtrak train so there is little waste but still enough selection for passengers.
Suspect that a combination of good prep rules and good training (perhaps a mixture of central-facility and on-site) would result in a great many restaurants or catering services (including those in places like Kroger) being able to provide good quality at the necessary timing and scale. Much of that would hinge on enforcing quality procedures without exception to ensure the providers 'get it'. It is not rocket science to teach that you don't use a metal knife to cut salad greens, for example, but it does have to be taught to most people who are only ordinarily trained, and it does have to be done consistently with no little mistakes when a new hire "forgets".
Vending machines: NC Piedmont trains have them.
Ever eaten at a Pret-a-Manger? Pre packaged food. Some requires heating. You pick your items, attendant does heating/prep. You take away or eat in. Would work just fine on a train.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
oltmanndVending machines: NC Piedmont trains have them. Ever eaten at a Pret-a-Manger? Pre packaged food. Some requires heating. You pick your items, attendant does heating/prep. You take away or eat in. Would work just fine on a train.
Not familiar with Pret-a-Manger practices, and I'm betting that the attendant on the NC Piedmont trains is not making Amtrak level wages and benefits (right?). I've never had issue with the microwaved cafe food on the Amtrak San Joaquin, but the Amtrak staffer seems underutilized most of the time.
I've seen Japanese vending machines that do All the reheating on demand (when you order by selecting and paying first), and they have pretty high standards even for this kind of food. Perhaps this would work?
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Machines on the Piedmonts- soda, inedible sandwiches, chips and candy. No Attendent.
MikeF90Not familiar with Pret-a-Manger practices ...
Not very likely that this particular operation would work effectively on an Amtrak train; see their implied prep standards to keep that product as fresh as Don indicates.. Not to reopen old wounds here, but I don't see most reported Amtrak attendants going to that kind of effort unless there is substantial additional compensation involved. And I suspect that a British organization is not going to smile on Amtrak crew union policies and expected responses to outside discipline ...
... and I'm betting that the attendant on the NC Piedmont trains is not making Amtrak level wages and benefits (right?).
How much do you want to bet? You'll lose, but you'd win if you had phrased that "I'm betting that Amtrak's wage and benefit expenses on attendants for the NC Piedmont trains are below typical Amtrak level." It's like dining-car expenses on Mica's experimental version of the Florida service... what's not there is generally cheaper (except in opportunity cost, which we're not considering) .
Something this brings up: Just how often would Amtrak have to arrange to stock or restock the machines to ensure reasonably fresh sandwiches at any time? And what are the full costs to do that, including whatever passes for a commissary, and the entire travel costs of whoever does the restocking?
And to think the United States invented Horn and Hardart!
That may be true, but Horn & Hardart establishments were not very mobile.
Purely anecdotal story for you. I recently rode a Deutsche Bahn Intercity train from Stralsund to Mainz (CMStPnP likely knows the route, Volker certainly does). It had only a Bord Bistro 1/2 car, which is a manned snack car offering beverages and snacks but also some hot foods. I spoke with the attendant, a very pleasant and efficient person. The hot foods are prepackaged, prepared dishes. They are heated in a steamer, similar to those used on most European railroads except for Poland and Russia, where foods are cooked in a kitchen. After heating, the foods are double-plated and served at table or delivered to first class passengers in adjoining cars. The food was very tasty and well-prepared (Currywurst and my wife had a Swabian dish, Maultaschen, a stuffed pasta. As others have pointed out, I so no good reason why Amtrak can't extend a similar service (as on Acela) to other trains.
charlie hebdoI recently rode a Deutsche Bahn Intercity train from Stralsund to Mainz (CMStPnP likely knows the route, Volker certainly does).
I've been to Mainz by train from my long ago Army station in the North (Osterholz-Sharmbeck on the Bremen to Bremerhaven line). No idea what route DB put me on to get me there. As you know sometimes they have 3-4 different rail passenger routes to the same destination.
As for steaming foods, glad you brought that up. Next time you go to Firehouse Subs (if you ever go there). They steam heat the subs in some really cool contraption that all but makes it really difficult for the employee to get burned...........which lowers their insurance costs / electrical costs I am sure, since they do not have ovens like other sub-shops. Whatever the contraption is, I am convinced steam heating of meals on a train is probably a lot safer and results in a better tasting product in the end.......probably. More than likely uses less electricity.
One other note is very modern microwaves now. Note the top of the line Kitchen-Aide model, can crisp what they cook........which I have not tried it yet nor bought such a microwave but it is genius to add that in.
CMStPnP've been to Mainz by train from my long ago Army station in the North (Osterholz-Sharmbeck on the Bremen to Bremerhaven line). No idea what route DB put me on to get me there.
Same route as mine, most likely: Stralsund - Hamburg - Bremen - Essen - Dusseldof - Cologne - Bonn - Mainz. The attendant said premade foods, usually steam heated, is the standard on European railways except in Russia and Poland. More and more IC trains are getting re-eqipped with new IC2 double deck equipment.
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