Thanks for the quick response. Breakfast will be the tough one. I'll be in "vacation" mode and not wanting to move around too early, but my son will probably get up early. What time is breakfast? I'll try to remember to brigng some kind of travel alarm clock or set my cell phone alarm or something so that we get up on time to shower and eat. I plan on bringing a small cooler into the sleeper, and I don't want my son living on snack from the snack bar. I'm sure alot of others will have the same idea.

Typically breakfast is from 6:30 AM to 10:00 AM, but the later you go the more likely that you might find the diner full and be placed on a waiting list.

As for the cooler, just be aware that unless you've booked a bedroom or are traveling in one of the single lever Viewliner sleepers, you'll probably be sleeping with the cooler. In a Superliner roomette, used on all trains west of the Mississipi and the Capitol Limited, once the beds are down you'll have enough floor space left to stand in. Nothing more than that. There will be no room for the cooler on the floor, unless you don't plan to stand up while changing.

Just have the sleeper car attendant give you a wake up knock and don't worry about the alarm.

OK - I'm a bit of a doubting Thomas, and I suppose I'll just have to see a menu with the asterisk to be sure. The sample menus online only asterisk the fact that the FDA says you'll die from food poisoning unless you order your [put name of meat here] isn't well done.

How on Earth could they foresee the need to have shanks onboard? If they need to have shanks onboard, then they oughtta put enough flat irons on. Never been to a Waffle House that ran out of T-Bones....

If, in fact, the problem is with the supplier, then FIND A NEW SUPPLIER!

I'd like to see some more evidence that this is actually happening, and I'd love to see some emails FLY to Amtrak!

I think the UK Trading Standards or anything in the US would turn the other cheek on this since as someone pointed out, it is marked on the menu that they have the right to substitute.

I've been reading this thread and worrying - I've had the Flat iron Steak many times and throughly enjoyed it.

On May 18, train 30 I had a Flat Iron Steak that was just great - the next night I suggest it to someone else. HOWEVER on May 24, train 98 I had a Flat Iron Steak that tasted lousy - not bad but not the fine steaky taste I expected. It was tender but the texture was just wrong. I asked the LSA about it and she said that they had been getting the same meat for the last year and a half - but I have no reason to trust her. There was no asterisk on the menu relating to substitution of a different cut. The next morning, at breakfast I shared the table with a lady who asked me if I had had a steak for dinner - seems she was also disappointed with hers and she had been looking forward to ti as she was returning from a visit with her vegetarian daughter.

Chicken for dinner tonight!

They wouldn't have them onboard just in case.

If a dining car doesn't have the Flat Iron Steak on board, then it was the supplier who made the substitute.

Why the supplier didn't have the right thing is a whole other question. But Amtrak doesn't haul around substitues just in case.

You can ask the sleeping car attendant to wake you up as well, though having your own alarm clock as a backup is not a bad idea. If you are going to have the cell phone with you anyway, it's probably best to just use its alarm in order to minimize the amount of stuff you have to bring.



My experience has been that when I'm in a sleeping car, simply eating the food that's available in the dining car ``for free'' is plenty.

Some trains begin breakfast early. I was on the Capitol Limited one week ago from WAS to CHI. Breakfast was to have started at 6:30am. I walked to the diner at 6:25am to find it nearly full. I saw a man that I had eaten dinner with the previous evening and there was a free space at his table. He told me that the train was running early, so the diner opened at 6:00am. I was lucky because shortly after I arrived there was a line from both the sleepers and coach cars.

I'd suggest you tell the car attendant to wake you 30 minutes before breakfast begins.

Not quiet free considering the price of the sleeper or bedroom. Just might need to be a bit flexible and try to enjoy it. Your other choice is to go to the snack car and pay for something else.

The problem is you can't substitute shank meat for steak and call it "steak" because it is against USDA and FDA regulations. See above posts from my experience in a packing house.

And I wasn't arguing that. I honestly have no idea what can or can't be done. I just wanted to point out that it's the supplier that's making the substitution, not Amtrak.

Do they though? If they are offering X on the menu and they don't have X, then what they should do is tell the customer they don't have X but have Y instead. If Y is a much lessor quality than X then it certainly shouldn't be sold at the same price.

I'm still wondering about the validity of an asterisk. IF what seems to so far be an urban legend is true, then we agree that Amtrak's supplier relationship is questionable. Asterisk or not, I cannot believe that AMTRAK would substitute (because they weren't provided with enough real steak) shank AND CHARGE THE SAME PRICE.

If they want to run out of Flat Iron, fine. But offer the shank for 1/2 price or something. That is Amtrak's call, not any two-bit supplier's. Asterisks are not the caveat to allow anything. You cannot put an asterisk on something to say you're not liable and expect not to be held liable if it is your fault. They are a contingency at best and immoral marketing at worst. Who's to say that on any given day, there is NO flat iron steak delivered and therefore ALL steak served for three days is shank? You talk about cost cutting measures, there you go! Advertise Filet Mignon and then wrap a piece of bacon around a rib eye and say "Sorry, we're out. That'll be $34."

Again, I smell an urban legend at best and a Tony Soprano at worst...

We don't know what price Amtrak charged.

I was on the Eagle in March, and I snagged a menu. I just looked at it now, and here is what it says on the bottom on the entree page; not with an '*', but actually with a '+' mark next to it:
'In peak travel season, a braised beef entree may be substituted for flat iron steak'

There is NO mention anywhere of it being beef shanks, but, it doesn't specifically mention WHAT braised beef entree it is.....

If I did it right, here is a picture of the menu; sorry, you'll have to blow it up about 1000%; it is in the lower right hand corner. [/URL][/img]

If the picture doesn't work right, here's the link: Texas Eagle Menu. I have the other side of the menu posted there also, if anyone wants to see the entire thing.

True. I'm under the assumption that the OP mentioned that the steak tasted different and the only the asterisk clued him into the switcharoo - not the bill (sleeper or not), nor the SA seemed to make any mention.

Someone mentioned lowering the price and do you really seeing them do that? Wouldn't that open them up to every one who paid for a sleeper and ordered the Flat Iron but was served possibly a Flank or Shank to request a refund of the difference since they assumed the cost of their ticket entitled them to a Flat Iron Steak? Can you even imagine the mess that would cause? Not going to happen!

How many times have you ordered a steak at the steak house restaurant of your choice that you had ordered many times before and this one time it was not as good as it usually is? Does that mean they were giving you a different cut of meat? Probably not.

They might have been served something else or might of been a bad Flat Iron. Do we know for sure?
It has been mentioned several times already the proper thing for the server to do is inform you when you order what they are serving if it is different than what is on the menu. Then if you choose the steak you at least would be getting what you ordered.

There we go:

It reads that a "braised beef" dish may be substituted. Braising is usually the method of cooking shank meat and in the converse the most often braised beef portions are flank, brisket, and shank (the last of which is not a steak)--braising allows the fatty tissue to break down over time and, in truth, can be better after spending hours in warming trays than other dishes because it gives it more time to cook and break down. it does not claim to be a steak. Furthermore that is the same dish they offer on the diner-lites which have no grill to cook flat irons...

If you got braised beef on your plate, you would know. There is NO way to confuse a flat iron steak and braised beef shank... They don't look similar at all, they don't taste similar, and they are prepared totally differently.

People can stop saying that they got a substitution because they thought something was wrong when they bit into their steak... they just got a bad steak. Braised beef cannot be confused, it is just impossible.

Ok, here's some extremely current info, since I'm posting from the Silver Star in northern Florida, having just eaten the Flatiron Steak

First, there's no asterisk, star, or footnote on the current menu about beef entrée substitutions. Single asterisk is about alcohol and appetizer not being included for sleeper class passengers. Double asterisk is the FDA warning about rare steak. I can't speak for menus before Friday, or in the near future, but right now there's no such note.

Second, my server (an excellent 20-year veteran adept at carefully serving coffee over some of CSX's worst track) said steaks would be changing in June. They'll still be Flatiron, same caterer, but Amtrak has requested that the caterer do some pre-cooking to the steaks. This is temporary, just for the summer. The reason is that most people order steaks medium to well, and cooking them all that way takes a lot of time; they don't feel like they can handle that amount of cooking time per steak with only one chef during peak season. Steaks will still be "cooked to order" on board; but unfortunately, for lovers of rare steak, this means we may be out of luck for a few months. Nobody else should notice a difference. Again, this is a temporary measure for peak season, starting within the next month and probably lasting three or four months, according to my server.

Third, I had the steak tonight, prepared rare, and it was quite good. I think the other entrées are better nowadays, but I was very satisfied with my steak. It's no Peter Luger, Chicago Chop House, Amarillo Big Texan, etc, but that's fine by me--diner 8551 has better ambience, friendlier staff, and nicer scenery The corn and pepper vegetable medley was what shocked me--I'm used to the vegetables being dreadful, and these were tasty. And the baked potato was fluffy. It's nice that they're putting some care into the entire meal now.

What bloody idiots. Anybody who orders a flat iron above medium is insane and doesn't know how to eat meat. Furthermore almost every cut of beef is best served medium rare. Flat irons are specifically best rare to medium rare because they are thin cuts that don't take a lot of time to cook in the first place!

So why not create another job?

Thanks Wayman. I had about talked myself out of ordering the Flat Iron Steak because I do order my steak well done. I will give it a try and yes ALC_Rail_Writer I will order it well done. After all isn't it a choice? Maybe not yours but still a choice I and some more might make. To each their own!

Or should we say, "re-create" it... Damn SDS, we're supposed to be creating jobs this would be a nice way to get a hundred more people employed.

Really? Most of the people I hang with go from rare to medium rare. A well-doner is rare in my circles.

Doesn't sound "cooked to order" if they're medium to well done.

Thanks for that info.

If they were going to do this substitution, I cannot image them just doing it and not telling you.

It wouldn't be... they should consider taking on board raw steaks to make rare and medium-rare as well.

Agreed.

the problem is congress cut food costs so that meant 1 extra chief had to go. why can't the caterer supply there own chiefs for Amtrak that way Amtrak doesn't have to pay the chiefs the caterer does. money saved right there means better food.

If you're talking about SDS then then you must also realize that the current Congress has a position towards job creation that opposes SDS-- that being, "we're giving money to people to create jobs."

I know many die-hard steak eaters would like at least a little pink to red in their meat, but the next time I order a flat-iron steak, I'm going to order it medium.

I had the steak on Zephyr last summer. I ordered medium rare, but what I got was more rare and very juicy. I think I would like my steak to be a little more done than that.

but i don't see full dining service returning to amtrak so what jobs are they making uh none. i don't hear of amtrak hiring extra cooks for all long distance trains etc.

I talked to Lou yesterday about his impression of Boardman. FYI: Lou was on Beech Grove all these last few weeks while Boardman was abroad and he told me "Boardman is a good man, he's going to bring back everything that they've been taking away from us. He said 'When I was in charge of the FRA I just made the rules, my opinion didn't matter... now I am in a place where my opinion matters,' he's a very good guy."

I trust Lou.

These things take time, KissAlive. Stop being so... American. Rome wasn't built in a day. It took the Clinton and Bush administration and a crooked politician named Warrington 8 years to bring Amtrak to this level of disgrace. Its going to take more than a wave of Joe Boardman's wand to bring it all back. I believe Joe wants to and will do his damnedest to do this.

You can't expect General Motors to suddenly start churning out the products everyone wants and instantly convince people they build them right. You can't expect Amtrak to remedy 38 years of chronic underfunding and downright abuse in the 4 months Boardman and Obama/Biden have been running the place.

Give it time, KA. We've been seeing incredible leaps and bounds in the past 4 months. But what's more, we have hope that Amtrak is going to be around in 10 years. Last year at this time, none of us were sure. We believe Sightseers will exist on every overnight Superliner train save the City of New Orleans. We didn't believe that a year ago. We were afraid they were going to be converted into coaches and "Lounge-Diners".

We thought SDS, in all of its no-fresh-cooking glory was here to stay, and the Diner-Lite/CCC implantation was practically a done deal. The CCC program is SCRAPPED, the lounge-diner prototype is cancelled, and we are, for the first time, preparing to order single level diners.

We were worried McCain would get in- he's a damned good American and it took a man as good as Obama to beat him, I don't think Clinton could have- and that Amtrak's death would be a certainty. Another 8 years of this underfunding and it would be gone. But he wasn't- instead we got the relatively pro-rail Obama in office, underpinned by Amtrak's greatest congressional supporter- Joe Biden.

Now, I'm a born cynic. I don't deny it. But hell guys, listen up! Boardman tells his employees that they need to stop thinking on a survival mentality. Well, I'm telling you we need to stop feeling like we're defending Amtrak and the hoards are at the door!

THE NEW AMTRAK REAUTHORIZATION NO LONGER REQUIRES THEM TO MAKE A PROFIT!

For as long as the current administration is respected, Amtrak has a good future. Lets top secretly suspecting that everyone and their brother, including Amtrak management, is out to kill the company!

Agreed GML. This won't come overnight but it may come in a few years. In the words of Lou:

"I hope he [Boardman] sticks around for awhile."

Only Stimulus money is supposed to be used to create new jobs and Amtrak wasn't given any stimulus money to improve food service. They were given stimulus money to fix cars and stations.

Agreed, however, it would seem that SDS has created a situation where jobs are eliminated and the current Congress is all about creating new jobs. And with Boardman, I think Congress will win something over. As GML said, it wasn't built in a day-- but I see hope for the future, at least the near future. We'll have some great years, then some where they wain, and some where they wax... we're in a waxing period and I am satisfied.

I don't think that I've ever seen an Amtrak employee waxing a train.

And I certainly wouldn't want them waxing my steak.

On the other hand, it's ok with wax beans.

But seriously, Amtrak has already been rolling back to some extent the original SDS cuts. The food itself has taken a major step forward and to my knowledge the load factor formulas that determine when extra employees are added to the dining cars are added have been improved for the better. And of course we've already heard that Mr. Boardman wants the CCC gone from the Capitol and the Diner-Lite car downgraded to cafe car status for the ALB-CHI section of the LSL and promoted to it's dual role of cafe/dinner for the BOS-ALB section, which of course means the return of a dining car to the NY section and for the rest of the run to Chicago. And there are rumors that some of the other cuts to dining cars may also be gradually undone.

So hopefully things will indeed continue to improve and get better.

However, things are starting to change again. The powers in DC are beginning to realize that they can only spend so much money they don't have before even supporters of that policy begin to flinch.

Plus, it's not like you can just "build" a job and walk away. What happens when the stimulus bucks are used up? The employee's still looking to be paid.

Flat Iron Steak on the Empire Builder, Saturday, May 23rd. There was no mention on the Menu of the posibility of a change in the cut of meat.

Unfortunately, spending money they don't have is the only choice they do have. I am watching with horrified fascination the slow motion train wreck that is their handling of Detroit. Watch this. GM is going to be forced into bankruptcy. Within days, the lack of orders from GM from parts suppliers is going to force THEM into bankruptcy. When they stop operating, Ford's supply chain will be disrupted and Ford will have to give up their brave stance. And over the course of the next month, the million or so jobs directly dependent on the big three, as well as another million or so in surrounding towns will close their doors as factories close.

The bankruptcy of Chrysler, the weaker and more pathetic company will end with FIAT. GM and Ford will go into liquidation. You think the October crash was bad? Boy, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

This isn't ideology speaking. I'm no lover of car companies or cars. This is economic sense. Even the morons running Britain weren't stupid enough to let the entire British car industry go bankrupt and shut down overnight. Yes, it cost a fortune, and yes it took 30 years before the last vestige of British Leyland, MG Rover, closed its doors. But atleast Britain didn't face the kind of economic meltdown this is going to cause us. Mark my words, Volkris, the worst is yet to come.

Forget about the steak, is that a real china plate I see?

the eb has never gone away from real plates and silverware.

I don't think that plate was "China," but, rather, a look-like made of a plastic product. It wasn't disposable, or paper, but not China to the best of my knowledge.

Maybe it was Ammac! That would be Melmac specfically made for Amtrak and given the moniker Ammac. Anyway, who cares so long as the Amgrub is Amgoooood!

The FI steak I had the first night was about half that size but it was the real thing. That plate looks like the disposable Plastic plate but with real silverware wraped in a blue cloth napkin that was there when seated. The Fla post pretty much proves that all menus are not the same. The TE had a "Cross Country Cafe" with the three panel menu that had Breakfast on the left panel , diner on the right panel and "All Day Long" in the middle. I don't understand the "all day thing" as they ran specific dinning hours. They seated at both ends of the CCC and seemed to have an ample staff. For the most part, food was good and service very good. The Substitute "whatever" looked like yours but with more rounded edges, not as square as yours. Like I said, it was a very good trip less that substitute. Maybe we are beating a "dead horse" here...Wait a minute.. that taste is familiar! Jim

Yarrow is correct, both the EB and the Auto Train never gave up real glassware. So all plates, glasses, and mugs are still glass on those two trains.

I think you mean that the EB and AT plates and mugs are ceramic (not glass), but yes (The wine stemware and regular juice/soda/water glasses are glass, of course.) As for people looking at the above photo and saying "that looks just like my plastic plate" (on another train like the Capitol or Silvers, etc), yes, the pattern is exactly the same, the white plate with blue ring and Amtrak logo. So it's hard to tell in that photo that the plate is actually ceramic, but in this case it is.

I was surprised this week on the Silver Star to have real glass stemware for the wine. Maybe those have always been there and I just don't always order the wine or pay attention? But I thought for a while there was "plastic stemware" for wine. There are still plastic glasses for juice and water and plastic coffee cups, of course.

So, on LD trains that are not the EB or AT, do they carry enough silverware and wine glasses that they don't need to run the dishwasher, or do they do one overnight load of just those items?

What ever the steak in the picture is it looks good. I don't even see any blood running out on the plate. Which probably means it is not rare. Which is a "good thing" as far as I am concerned.

Might look good, but I bet it don't taste of anything apart from overcooked!