schlimmhenry6marketing does. Is the train a slouch all stops coach only train or a limited with sleepers for businessmen or whatever. Design your dining car and menu to fit the clientele you are selling the train to. henry: What century is this? The first principle of marketing is reality. Businessmen have not been riding LD trains in any numbers for 50 years. They do ride Acela, which is doing just fine, for transportation, not "dinner in the diner."
henry6marketing does. Is the train a slouch all stops coach only train or a limited with sleepers for businessmen or whatever. Design your dining car and menu to fit the clientele you are selling the train to.
henry: What century is this? The first principle of marketing is reality. Businessmen have not been riding LD trains in any numbers for 50 years. They do ride Acela, which is doing just fine, for transportation, not "dinner in the diner."
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tAren't long distance trains primarily used for liesure travel? But still, what works for Acela mealwise should work nationally. Why not?
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henry6Sam1 schlimm henry6 Therefore dining car fare need not be Delmonico's on wheels. But nor can or nor should be Micky D's. My "etc." was to include the likes of Red Lobster and other chains...even regional chains to add spice to the fare. And I'm not sure Cracker Barrel is the choice either. I am just throwing out a concept which would have to be market defined, researched and tested then redefined and refined to work. I do think it has to be better than normal fare, but not gourmet or fine dining by any means. Whatever the dining niche ends up being, it should cover the costs of providing. Amtrak's charter is to provide transport, not be the restaurant on wheels.. Which raises another interesting albeit not controversial point! If the charter is to provide public rail transport, does the charter include high priced business class travel that most of the taxpayers cannot afford and is paid for frequently if not mostly by people traveling on expense accounts? Or in private rooms that only an average of 14.6 per cent of long distance passengers or 2.2 per cent of system passengers choose? Presumably their choice is driven in part by several variables, including the ability to pay. Numbers are from the 2009 - 2013 Amtrak Monthly Operating Reports. The charter has nothing to do with it, marketing does. Is the train a slouch all stops coach only train or a limited with sleepers for businessmen or whatever. Design your dining car and menu to fit the clientele you are selling the train to. The problem is that Amtrak has to market to Congress and not riders, customers. But some trains can serve subs and potato chips or hamburgers on plastic plates and sloshed down with a Bud or a Coke while others should have steak and on ceramic plates, salad, choice of potato and with a glass of wine. Not everything has to be white collar fare nor blue collar fare but designed for the train and its service. However, whichever is presented has to be just a little bit better, a little more special, more appealing because of the cost involved but not made more costly.
Sam1 schlimm henry6 Therefore dining car fare need not be Delmonico's on wheels. But nor can or nor should be Micky D's. My "etc." was to include the likes of Red Lobster and other chains...even regional chains to add spice to the fare. And I'm not sure Cracker Barrel is the choice either. I am just throwing out a concept which would have to be market defined, researched and tested then redefined and refined to work. I do think it has to be better than normal fare, but not gourmet or fine dining by any means. Whatever the dining niche ends up being, it should cover the costs of providing. Amtrak's charter is to provide transport, not be the restaurant on wheels.. Which raises another interesting albeit not controversial point! If the charter is to provide public rail transport, does the charter include high priced business class travel that most of the taxpayers cannot afford and is paid for frequently if not mostly by people traveling on expense accounts? Or in private rooms that only an average of 14.6 per cent of long distance passengers or 2.2 per cent of system passengers choose? Presumably their choice is driven in part by several variables, including the ability to pay. Numbers are from the 2009 - 2013 Amtrak Monthly Operating Reports.
schlimm henry6 Therefore dining car fare need not be Delmonico's on wheels. But nor can or nor should be Micky D's. My "etc." was to include the likes of Red Lobster and other chains...even regional chains to add spice to the fare. And I'm not sure Cracker Barrel is the choice either. I am just throwing out a concept which would have to be market defined, researched and tested then redefined and refined to work. I do think it has to be better than normal fare, but not gourmet or fine dining by any means. Whatever the dining niche ends up being, it should cover the costs of providing. Amtrak's charter is to provide transport, not be the restaurant on wheels..
henry6 Therefore dining car fare need not be Delmonico's on wheels. But nor can or nor should be Micky D's. My "etc." was to include the likes of Red Lobster and other chains...even regional chains to add spice to the fare. And I'm not sure Cracker Barrel is the choice either. I am just throwing out a concept which would have to be market defined, researched and tested then redefined and refined to work. I do think it has to be better than normal fare, but not gourmet or fine dining by any means.
Whatever the dining niche ends up being, it should cover the costs of providing. Amtrak's charter is to provide transport, not be the restaurant on wheels..
Which raises another interesting albeit not controversial point!
If the charter is to provide public rail transport, does the charter include high priced business class travel that most of the taxpayers cannot afford and is paid for frequently if not mostly by people traveling on expense accounts? Or in private rooms that only an average of 14.6 per cent of long distance passengers or 2.2 per cent of system passengers choose? Presumably their choice is driven in part by several variables, including the ability to pay. Numbers are from the 2009 - 2013 Amtrak Monthly Operating Reports.
The charter (legislation) has everything to do with it. If the market had been allowed to work, most passenger rail, especially the long distance trains, would have faded from the scene in 1971 if not before.
Sam1schlimm henry6 Therefore dining car fare need not be Delmonico's on wheels. But nor can or nor should be Micky D's. My "etc." was to include the likes of Red Lobster and other chains...even regional chains to add spice to the fare. And I'm not sure Cracker Barrel is the choice either. I am just throwing out a concept which would have to be market defined, researched and tested then redefined and refined to work. I do think it has to be better than normal fare, but not gourmet or fine dining by any means. Whatever the dining niche ends up being, it should cover the costs of providing. Amtrak's charter is to provide transport, not be the restaurant on wheels.. Which raises another interesting albeit not controversial point! If the charter is to provide public rail transport, does the charter include high priced business class travel that most of the taxpayers cannot afford and is paid for frequently if not mostly by people traveling on expense accounts? Or in private rooms that only an average of 14.6 per cent of long distance passengers or 2.2 per cent of system passengers choose? Presumably their choice is driven in part by several variables, including the ability to pay. Numbers are from the 2009 - 2013 Amtrak Monthly Operating Reports.
oltmannd Overmod Applebees, T.G. Fridays, Ruby Tuesdays, etc. are known menus and qualities. So is Red Lobster Red Lobster is part of Darden. So let Darden do it and you have food possibilities from Longhorn, Bonefish, Season's 52, Capitol Grill and Olive Garden, as well. Getting Darden on board and giving them some profit incentive would likely be good all around. Amtrak would be small incremental business for them. You don't want the standard salad that comes with your meal? $4 gets you a premium salad. You want a bigger fillet? Okay, $5 more. You want creme brulee instead of pie and ice cream....etc.
Overmod Applebees, T.G. Fridays, Ruby Tuesdays, etc. are known menus and qualities. So is Red Lobster
Applebees, T.G. Fridays, Ruby Tuesdays, etc. are known menus and qualities.
So is Red Lobster
Red Lobster is part of Darden. So let Darden do it and you have food possibilities from Longhorn, Bonefish, Season's 52, Capitol Grill and Olive Garden, as well.
Getting Darden on board and giving them some profit incentive would likely be good all around. Amtrak would be small incremental business for them.
You don't want the standard salad that comes with your meal? $4 gets you a premium salad. You want a bigger fillet? Okay, $5 more. You want creme brulee instead of pie and ice cream....etc.
According to a Wall Street Journal article that appeared last week, I believe, Darden has put Red Lobster up for sale.
henry6 /quote] But railroads have long been in the dining car business. Unless all who ever worked in the service are dead or otherwise not available. To say Amtrak doesn't know about dining cars is a wrong statement to say the least.
/quote] But railroads have long been in the dining car business. Unless all who ever worked in the service are dead or otherwise not available. To say Amtrak doesn't know about dining cars is a wrong statement to say the least.
That statement only exists in your head, I never made it.
There are a great many restaurants and a great many styles of operating them. I don't know that any one is correct. While I am not inclined to tell any restauranteur how to run his business neither will I come back to a restaurant where I am hustled out the door.
CMStPnPoltmannd Darden is an expert at selling meals for profit. I am not , but neither is Amtrak. Why not let the experts do what they are expert at? Is that such an unreasonable thing? Darden has kitchens everywhere and national supply network. Let them figure the best place to cook what and what should be on the menu and how to price it I kind of agree with you. Amtraks issue is not being able to think outside of the box and relying on the way they always have done it in the past. Pretty much a railroad industry issue. Railroad Industry has always been slow to innovate and reluctant to change. Amtrak just inherited the attitude, IMO. One reason why I was a fan of the Milwaukee Road, they seemed to innovate more than other Midwestern roads. In the end it did not help them to survive BUT look at where we would be without the Milwaukee Road Chief Engineer helping the CP build West or where we would be without the Milwaukee Roads pioneering use of Formica on the Hiawatha (with wood grain patterns no less). Or for that matter their pioneering use of regenerative braking on lines West.
oltmannd Darden is an expert at selling meals for profit. I am not , but neither is Amtrak. Why not let the experts do what they are expert at? Is that such an unreasonable thing? Darden has kitchens everywhere and national supply network. Let them figure the best place to cook what and what should be on the menu and how to price it
Darden is an expert at selling meals for profit. I am not , but neither is Amtrak. Why not let the experts do what they are expert at? Is that such an unreasonable thing?
Darden has kitchens everywhere and national supply network. Let them figure the best place to cook what and what should be on the menu and how to price it
I kind of agree with you. Amtraks issue is not being able to think outside of the box and relying on the way they always have done it in the past. Pretty much a railroad industry issue. Railroad Industry has always been slow to innovate and reluctant to change. Amtrak just inherited the attitude, IMO.
One reason why I was a fan of the Milwaukee Road, they seemed to innovate more than other Midwestern roads. In the end it did not help them to survive BUT look at where we would be without the Milwaukee Road Chief Engineer helping the CP build West or where we would be without the Milwaukee Roads pioneering use of Formica on the Hiawatha (with wood grain patterns no less). Or for that matter their pioneering use of regenerative braking on lines West.
Darden just sold off Red Lobster.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
CMStPnP ACYI don't want to single out any one person here, but I suggest some folks who have such prescient ideas should submit resumes & hire out as Amtrak chefs. Salary of an Amtrak Chef: http://www.careerbliss.com/amtrak/salaries/chef
ACYI don't want to single out any one person here, but I suggest some folks who have such prescient ideas should submit resumes & hire out as Amtrak chefs.
Salary of an Amtrak Chef:
http://www.careerbliss.com/amtrak/salaries/chef
How does CareerBliss get its information? How do they verify it? Unless they have an Amtrak employee pump them the information, presumably they are relying on self-reporting or the union contacts.
The numbers square with what I have heard from another source. In both cases, i.e. salary for Amtrak chefs and average Amtrak salaries; however, the stand alone salary numbers overlook the benefits portion of the employee's compensation packages, which can add as much as 30 to 40 per cent more to compensation costs.
I ride the Texas Eagle to Dallas or San Antonio at least once a month. As a result I have gotten to know two of the dinning car waiters, not to mention the conductors, reasonably well. All of them have told me that the benefits are a critical part of their decision to work for Amtrak. They have excellent health insurance, as well as retirement and other benefits. Presumably the chefs enjoy similar benefits.
http://www.careerbliss.com/amtrak/salaries/chef/
CMStPnPRailroad kitchens for example do not have the unlimited square footage and varied utilities to prepare the wide selection of food your asking for above.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
oltmannd Red Lobster is part of Darden. So let Darden do it and you have food possibilities from Longhorn, Bonefish, Season's 52, Capitol Grill and Olive Garden, as well. Getting Darden on board and giving them some profit incentive would likely be good all around. Amtrak would be small incremental business for them. You don't want the standard salad that comes with your meal? $4 gets you a premium salad. You want a bigger fillet? Okay, $5 more. You want creme brulee instead of pie and ice cream....etc.
Sooo, one area I agree with ACD on is Railroad Dining is different from Restaurant Dining in how they prepare the food. Railroad kitchens for example do not have the unlimited square footage and varied utilities to prepare the wide selection of food your asking for above.
Long ago I bought the book "Dinner in the Diner" about railroad dining car recipes. They tend to compliment each other (in order to reuse as much as they can) vs offering selections radically different from each other (such as your proposing above). So say for example on one RR Dining car they would have baked Ham, on the same menu they might offer split pea soup with Ham in order to reuse the Ham Bone., Then perhaps cubed Ham on some of the salads or possibly a Ham and Swiss sandwich. Just seemed the dining car was setup that way so that one ingredient could be used in multiple dishes and used in it's entireity with as little waste as possible. That was the old days of Dining Cars.
These days they would have to use prepackaged food vs preparing from scratch as I do not believe a Superliner Kitchen has all the prep utilities to prepare from scratch a wide varietty of recipes. I do not know for sure but my guess is Amtrak took some shortcuts with the Superliner orders to speed up the prep of dishes vs an old Railroad Diner. In fact I would be surprised if the Superliner Diner had much of what was in an older dining car. I would love to see what kind of equipment was in a Superliner Diner to get a grasp on what they could serve without a lot of modification or money spent on upgrade of the Superliner Diner.
What I would do if I were the Amtrak Food Service head is get rid of the Commissaries. Get SYSCO or some other firm to supply either prepackaged food or fresh ingredients to each train at traintime and prepare the food or reheat it on the train. All you really need on a dining car is a convection oven to prep some fairly decent dishes that are cheap to prepare and serve. I have my doubts though you can prep all that the Darden group of restaurants prepares in their respective kitchens. I think in the case of each Darden chain they have a different kitchen setup and different prep procedures.
daveklepperHaving a second party adds costs
daveklepperand there are union problems as well.
Again I vote for adopting the Acela approach nationwide. Having a second party adds costs, and there are union problems as well.
Riding in a train is no longer the elitist way of traveling as it was before, say, 1950...it is much more "plebeian" than before, much like our society leveling off in wealth and heritage. The broader or mass of the population who can afford travel is nuveau, more used to the mass offerings of society than the special offerings of the more wealthy and ahead of our lesser roots. Therefore dining car fare need not be Delmonico's on wheels. But nor can or nor should be Micky D's. My "etc." was to include the likes of Red Lobster and other chains...even regional chains to add spice to the fare. And I'm not sure Cracker Barrel is the choice either. I am just throwing out a concept which would have to be market defined, researched and tested then redefined and refined to work. I do think it has to be better than normal fare, but not gourmet or fine dining by any means.
henry6 Back in the day when only the more affluent and business people travelled by train you needed a higher standard of dining experience in both food and atmosphere. But with today, except for select "tourist routes" such fare is not needed. While gourmet fare and fine dining are no longer needed, there still has to be an extra effort to present a meal worthy of the event of dining aboard a train but to a less opulent clientele and one not on an expense account. So lets get rid of the need for fancy dining and get to the need of feeding the customers aboard today's trains.
Back in the day when only the more affluent and business people travelled by train you needed a higher standard of dining experience in both food and atmosphere. But with today, except for select "tourist routes" such fare is not needed. While gourmet fare and fine dining are no longer needed, there still has to be an extra effort to present a meal worthy of the event of dining aboard a train but to a less opulent clientele and one not on an expense account. So lets get rid of the need for fancy dining and get to the need of feeding the customers aboard today's trains.
I don't think I could disagree more. But that doesn't mean the subject doe not deserve discussion.
The EXPERIENCE of dinner on the train is one of the most significant aspects -- and it would suffer if not given the current level of personal attention. To the extent a Ziosk system does not assist in providing that experience, it is misapplied.
They do mention one feature that may ... or may not ... be of value: the little light on the top that signals for the "wait staff". (My version had colors for different kinds of staff, and a blink code for different reasons, to save the staff time and confusion during the rush). Presumably, though, this would produce the same sort of dread that mine did in testing.
It would be very nice to have this system in a less-than-full-dining car setup, particularly one where some of the food itself has been 'outsourced'. But I really don't see branded Applebee's or Ruby Tuesday's replacing dining-car fare. I don't eat at those sorts of places because I want proper food in proper restaurant portions. That's not to say they can't be options for the dining clientele -- they should. But the actual service, and perhaps no small part of the prep, would still remain the responsibility of the staff. You aren't going to bring Applebee's staff onto the train along with the meals, serve them, buss the plates and silverware, and get off presumably to deadhead back. So there's much less of a 'big savings' from this sort of service.
And the only cost-effective alternative involves bringing plated meals to the train and serving them up quasi-buffet-style, if you're not going to have train staff serve them (perhaps even plate and garnish them). (I won't go into what happens when Applebee's gets details of an order wrong and the client only finds out when the train has left the station...) There is a place, and grade of service, for that sort of thing. But it is really no different, service-wise, from getting a sack of burgers or stuff from Arby's, on a lower budget. (And yes, there very certainly can be fast-food from a drive-in on the menu, or orderable via Ziosk, for all those times the dining car is closed, or for patrons who like to eat that sort of food on trains by choice (I am one ;-} ).
So why not forgo the old railroad traditions and seek options from the concrete roads by contracting with one or more national chain and franchise restaurants to provide meals not too different than you'd find along the Interstates ...
I'm not sure I want that Cracker Barrel ambiance, or perhaps have rolls 'throwed' at me. I'll drive if I want the roadfood experience, although there may certainly be times I'd like to be able to order it and have it ready for me at mealtime. It just isn't an answer for full dining-car service...
and even go as far as I suggested earlier that these chains be able to call on sites along train's routes to supply freshly prepared (as much as they might be fresh) to be microwaved and served aboard.
Someone here commented on the fact that it's possible to serve 'really good' meals out of aircraft galleys if the budget is there. I'm not sure I like the idea, though, of what would be substantially reheated cuisine (how much of the Applebee's menu, for instance, actually has a long life between preparation and serving?) I can tell you for a fact that most Waffle House food won't 'travel' well, and would be expensive to package well enough to make it to the passenger, let alone give him or her the expected quality of meal. And that's considered near-bottom-end!
The moment you have to start doing careful prep on each plate brought in ... where's my big savings???
So is Red Lobster, or P.F. Chang's... both likely to be much more sensible alternatives for train-borne food. There are other forms of food that are notable for having a long 'ready life' (such as Oriental buffets). Those might be good choices for intermediate-price food service, or for the shorter long-distance runs that currently don't merit a full food service...
Why be over-specialized: have the chains determine their own 'Amtrak' menus... and have them assume some of the marginal cost of the operation. That is especially true regarding pricing of the 'plate-ready' version of the meals, where the presentation is value-added (and the subsequent responsibility of the train staff). This is all guaranteed 100% additional business volume for them, and it comes at known make-ready times that may not involve rushes.
Back in the day when only the more affluent and business people travelled by train you needed a higher standard of dining experience in both food and atmosphere. But with today, except for select "tourist routes" such fare is not needed. While gourmet fare and fine dining are no longer needed, there still has to be an extra effort to present a meal worthy of the event of dining aboard a train but to a less opulent clientele and one not on an expense account. So lets get rid of the need for fancy dining and get to the need of feeding the customers aboard today's trains. No, it can't be fast food from a drive in either. So why not forgo the old railroad traditions and seek options from the concrete roads by contracting with one or more national chain and franchise restaurants to provide meals not too different than you'd find along the Interstates and even go as far as I suggested earlier that these chains be able to call on sites along train's routes to supply freshly prepared (as much as they might be fresh) to be microwaved and served aboard. Applebees, T.G. Fridays, Ruby Tuesdays, etc. are known menus and qualities. Even if a meal costs a couple bucks more than alongside I80 it is still digestible economically and as a known commodity.
Overmod CMStPnPMeals in a Chicago suburban restaurant averages about 1.25 to 1.5 hours vs 40-45 minutes in Texas. Which do you think makes more money? So much for the 'magic 20' at the Waffle House! More seriously -- where is ACY in this thread? We need to hear from actual Amtrak personnel about how they think this system would benefit their ways of doing things.
CMStPnPMeals in a Chicago suburban restaurant averages about 1.25 to 1.5 hours vs 40-45 minutes in Texas. Which do you think makes more money?
So much for the 'magic 20' at the Waffle House!
More seriously -- where is ACY in this thread? We need to hear from actual Amtrak personnel about how they think this system would benefit their ways of doing things.
Hey, don't pick on Waffle House! I love Waffle House! I love anyplace where you have to show a pack of cigarettes to get in!
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