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Anderson

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I'll post everything I can once I get to the diner proper (I got served in my room this evening since the train fell behind on its way into Deland), but there are a few changes:
(1) There's a chocolate truffle for dessert in place of the bundt cake. It looks good.

(2) Salads are no longer gratis for coach passengers, but they are a lot bigger (about 2-2.5x as large).

Will let you know more as I am able to.
 
Looking forward to your report! The Chocolate Bundt Cake on the Zephyr and Sunset/Eagle was delicious ( they ran out quickly) as was the Chocolate Mousse on the Eagle!

As for the salad, if it's twice as large with the same sad ingredents, I doubt there will be many takers @ $3 a pop and lots of leftovers will hit the trash! Coach passengers also pay for their drinks and any deserts which makes for a pricey dinner in the diner!
 
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Coffee, tea or milk was included in the price of the meal for coach passengers, Soft drinks were always extra.Can't see many people paying $3 for that salad. It may be bigger,but it's the same blah salad.The food on Amtrak is pricey enough. The side salad should still be included.
 
Based on what I heard at NARP this weekend, the logic has nothing to do with the actual sale of the salads. It has to do with the accounting of the salads for sleeper passengers. To put it another way, let us assume there are 60 salads distributed to sleeper passengers on a run of the Silver Meteor. If the salads are "included", the diner gets no credit for them. If they are listed at, for example, $3 then $180 gets transferred to the diner from the sleeper. I wish I was making this up.

Per my SCA, the main changes have been:
(1) A dessert cycling (bundt cake out, chocolate truffle in...and the truffle is good, too), which they seem to do every 6 months or so. Haven't checked to see what they're cycling about that, but I'll have an upset friend if the orange sorbet is dropped.

(2) A reduction in options on the kids menu to about two items. One is the Mac and Cheese; not sure what the other is.

(3) The salad affair.
 
A Hot Dog ( Surprisingly good, Hebrew National on a Pretzel Bun) is the other Kiddie item, but several of us ate them on the way home on the Zephyr for Lunch or Dinner! Can't speak to the Mac n Cheese, its not something I eat!

As for the accounting re the salads, it's Smoke and Mirror flim flam similar to Congressional Accounting! Can't anyone in Washington just do old fashioned, straight forward cost accounting?
 
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Anderson said:
Based on what I heard at NARP this weekend, the logic has nothing to do with the actual sale of the salads. It has to do with the accounting of the salads for sleeper passengers. To put it another way, let us assume there are 60 salads distributed to sleeper passengers on a run of the Silver Meteor. If the salads are "included", the diner gets no credit for them. If they are listed at, for example, $3 then $180 gets transferred to the diner from the sleeper. I wish I was making this up.
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I really hope that Congress and the OIG make Amtrak break out how much diner revenue is just this allocation game and how much is actual new cash revenue when Amtrak tries to go on about improvements to long distance F&B recovery. Quite tempted to email some of the reps about it actually.
 
benale said:
Coffee, tea or milk was included in the price of the meal for coach passengers, Soft drinks were always extra.Can't see many people paying $3 for that salad. It may be bigger,but it's the same blah salad.The food on Amtrak is pricey enough. The side salad should still be included.
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That salad has gotten so bad, I don't know why they bother with it at all.
 
If this sort of accounting is what it takes to appease Mica (eyeroll), whatever. Perhaps now that the salad has a price tag they'll bother to make it slightly better.

What I'm worried about is that the transfer of allocations from the sleeper to the diner will make the sleepers appear unprofitable, when they're actually profitable. It's very important that the sleepers show their profits enough to pay for ordering more Viewliner sleepers.

On the other hand, if the sleepers are gushing so much cash that they can "cover" the diner and *still* show enough profit to order more sleepers, then fine, whatever. And heck, they may be doing so; I have been saying that the Viewliner sleepers make a lot of money.

For reference, just to remind people that dining cars are required for coach passengers too: I just made a train reservation in coach from PHL to SYR; and I specifically picked the LSL over an earlier Empire Service train because it has a dining car. The earlier Empire Service train which was an option would have me on the rails across both lunch and dinner time with nothing but a cafe car -- which is not OK, especially since cafe cars tend to run out of stuff.
 
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neroden said:
For reference, just to remind people that dining cars are required for coach passengers too: I just made a train reservation in coach from PHL to SYR; and I specifically picked the LSL over an earlier Empire Service train because it has a dining car. The earlier Empire Service train which was an option would have me on the rails across both lunch and dinner time with nothing but a cafe car -- which is not OK, especially since cafe cars tend to run out of stuff.
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Your personal tastes in food (edit: which is my understanding of why a cafe car isn't ok) do not make diners a requirement for coach passengers (as, as always, the Palmetto and lengthy corridor runs prove). If the cafe cars tend to run out of stuff, that's an indication for better stocking in some fashion.
 
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jimhudson said:
A Hot Dog ( Surprisingly good, Hebrew National on a Pretzel Bun) is the other Kiddie item, but several of us ate them on the way home on the Zephyr for Lunch or Dinner! Can't speak to the Mac n Cheese, its not something I eat!

As for the accounting re the salads, it's Smoke and Mirror flim flam similar to Congressional Accounting! Can't anyone in Washington just do old fashioned, straight forward cost accounting?
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No, they can't, because then someone will criticize them for losing money on X aspect of their operation. Sorta like the dining service. The Mica stuff is a great example of this, actually.

As to making the sleepers appear to lose money, I think that is unlikely. On direct costs the eastern trains are likely to end up in the black in a few years, and the eastern trains' OBS losses are substantially smaller than the western trains' losses.
 
For lunch, they've swapped in a meatball sub as the special. Will let y'all know how it is this afternoon (I got it to go).
 
Paulus said:
RyanS said:
Paulus said:
Your personal tastes in food (edit: which is my understanding of why a cafe car isn't ok)
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It isn't personal taste, it's about being able to get a real meal and not just a snack when you're on a train across multiple meal periods.
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Which is perfectly doable with a cafe car.
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agreed. I've ridden the Carolinian many times its entire length... cafe' car is fine. Would a dining car of some sort be nice? Of course... but the Cafe Car does the trick.
 
The Heartland Flyer carries a Cafe Car (Lower Leverl of a modified Superliner Coach) and because of the state contracts for service, it offers an expanded Menu at less than National Cafe Car Menu prices. Depending on which way you are headed, chances are you will be on board for either Breakfast or Supper time and the offerings are fine to bodge together a light meal.

But anything longer and I would like to see a Diner.
 
Paulus said:
RyanS said:
Paulus said:
Your personal tastes in food (edit: which is my understanding of why a cafe car isn't ok)
Click to expand...
It isn't personal taste, it's about being able to get a real meal and not just a snack when you're on a train across multiple meal periods.
Click to expand...
Which is perfectly doable with a cafe car.
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Insufficient space to stock the quantity and diversity of the foods required.
 
RyanS said:
Paulus said:
RyanS said:
Paulus said:
Your personal tastes in food (edit: which is my understanding of why a cafe car isn't ok)
Click to expand...
It isn't personal taste, it's about being able to get a real meal and not just a snack when you're on a train across multiple meal periods.
Click to expand...
Which is perfectly doable with a cafe car.
Click to expand...
Insufficient space to stock the quantity and diversity of the foods required.
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I've been told in both the diner and the cafe car that they're out of a particular thing. On the other hand, I've taken several long distance trains overnight in coach and not had any troubles with running out of food. The last time I traveled I even had a very credible chicken sandwich in the cafe. I don't really have any complaints about the cafe while traveling in coach.
 
RyanS said:
Paulus said:
RyanS said:
Paulus said:
Your personal tastes in food (edit: which is my understanding of why a cafe car isn't ok)
Click to expand...
It isn't personal taste, it's about being able to get a real meal and not just a snack when you're on a train across multiple meal periods.
Click to expand...
Which is perfectly doable with a cafe car.
Click to expand...
Insufficient space to stock the quantity and diversity of the foods required.
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Which means examining whether the variety ought to be reduced (for low selling items), the quantities loaded changed, whether loading ought to be more frequent, or whether seating accommodation in the cafe ought to be reduced in favor of more storage area.
 
The variety ought to be increased, not decreased.

Sure, you can build a new style cafe car with the appropriate storage, but at that point you've basically reinvented the dining car.
 
RyanS said:
The variety ought to be increased, not decreased.

Sure, you can build a new style cafe car with the appropriate storage, but at that point you've basically reinvented the dining car.
Click to expand...
Why would we have to build it? If all we need is some more storage, that should be able to be retrofitted into the current cafe car, perhaps at the loss of some lounge space. Or have commisionaries available more places to refill low stock.

On trains that only run over a couple of meal periods, an enhanced cafe car may be able to fit the bill while reducing labor costs. Have a bit better variety and quality of food, sell it for a bit more, and you may be able to fulfill the need of a dining car at least on some trains. (Ones that go over three meal periods would almost certainly need something akin to the current dining car.)
 
We took the 97 last Tuesday to Florida and the salad was a handful of iceberg lettuce and one cherry tomato. On yesterday's 98, we had to request a salad but we were shocked when it came out...romaine lettuce, two pieces of onion, two carrots and three tomatoes with croutons in a bowl about twice the size of last week's salad. Substandard in a moderately priced restaurant, but light years ahead of previous Amtrak salad.

Also, last week they only had cheesecake, yesterday gelato, cheesecake or chocolate mousse.
 
If all Amtrak cafes were operated and stocked like the Cascades,Surfliners, Heartland Flyer and especially the Downeaster ( all State supported Trains) Coach would be a much more pleasant place to take a Medium to LD trip!!
 
jebr said:
Why would we have to build it? If all we need is some more storage, that should be able to be retrofitted into the current cafe car, perhaps at the loss of some lounge space.
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"build" in the sense or either a new car or rehab of an existing car. Either way, not workable with the existing cars in their existing layouts.

If you want to take the basic design of a current diner, fire all the staff, save for one or two workers in the food storage/prep area (a.k.a. "kitchen"), and call it an "enhanced cafe", that's fine for medium distance trains.

But the current cars, with their current configuration and staffing are unsuited to providing meals for trips that cross multiple meal periods.
 
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