Autotrain now "Mass Transit"

[CHamilton]

At the NARP meeting, we were told by Tom Hall, the chief of customer service, that the POS system is operational on the Surfliners and is being completed in the NEC this week. He said that the delay was due to having to rewrite the software to be PCI-compliant (for taking credit cards) after the TJ Maxx data breach last year.

He also asked sleeping car passengers to make sure to get the steak, since the value of each sleeper meal is transferred to the food & beverage account!

 

[dlagrua]

In 1934 when the Burlington Northern was pressed for cash they put a 4 car streamliner train on the Pioneer Zephyr route that had a small but fully equipped kitchen at the end of the coach. This was the same train that made the record breaking run from Denver to the Chicago Worlds Fair in only 13 hrs and 5 minutes. Seats in coach had a double wide fold down table. It was about 1/2 the size of the dining car tables of today but it was sufficient for two. When you placed an order for food the server would fold the table down and serve you at your seat. When the meal was complete the server would clear the table, clean it and fold it back up. Hence the train ran from Chicago to Denver with coaches that had dining car capability. You can still go aboard that train and see what is was like at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Maybe Amtrak wants to consider that system as well?

 

[AmtrakBlue]

He also asked sleeping car passengers to make sure to get the steak, since the value of each sleeper meal is transferred to the food & beverage account!

Glad I could help. Though, skipping a couple of lunches to make room for the steak probably negated it.

 

[FormerOBS]

Meal coupons on Auto Train have been used since Amtrak started the service. Different colors and different wording, depending on whether the meal is to be served in the sleeper diner or the coach diner, and depending on which seating the passenger is scheduled for. Until recently, a coach meal was a bit lower value, and the color of the ticket told whether the passenger was to dine in the coach diner or sleeper diner. Now that the meals are nearly the same in the two diners, the distinction between coach and sleeper is more a matter of balancing the numbers, so that one diner is not overwhelmed with passengers while the other goes empty.

Yes, there was continuous service in the old days. Also, in the old days the B&O Railroad (among others) had a crew of about a dozen staff to serve a 36-seat diner. So much for the old days.

Continuous service on an extremely busy train like A-T (i.e., no scheduled meal times) means that some crew members are always bussing tables while others are always seating new arrivals, others always taking orders, others always serving meals, etc. It's been tried, but it hasn't worked very well in practice. There aren't enough people available to cover all that needs to be done at a given time. One problem is the space available. When you're bussing the tables near the pantry area, you're in the way of other staffers who are trying to get access to the passengers at the ends of the cars. We've found that a FULL SUPERLINER DINER can be operated most efficiently by setting a time, getting everybody served in that time, clearing and cleaning the car, and then starting the next seating on time.

I realize there are those who will say "that's the way we've always done it" is not necessarily a good reason to keep doing it that way. It's possible that a better way could be found. But many of these alternatives have been tried. In some cases, some of these alternate approaches can be successful when the passenger counts are low. But when the counts are high, the present system works better than any other system.

Tom

 

[neroden]

At the NARP meeting, we were told by Tom Hall, the chief of customer service, that the POS system is operational on the Surfliners and is being completed in the NEC this week. He said that the delay was due to having to rewrite the software to be PCI-compliant (for taking credit cards) after the TJ Maxx data breach last year.

Yeah, but that's probably only cafe cars, right?
Or is the POS software ready for the dining cars already? Did you ask?

He also asked sleeping car passengers to make sure to get the steak, since the value of each sleeper meal is transferred to the food & beverage account!

I don't like steak. I will order the $3 salad, though!

 

[neroden]

Continuous service on an extremely busy train like A-T (i.e., no scheduled meal times) means that some crew members are always bussing tables while others are always seating new arrivals, others always taking orders, others always serving meals, etc. It's been tried, but it hasn't worked very well in practice. There aren't enough people available to cover all that needs to be done at a given time. One problem is the space available. When you're bussing the tables near the pantry area, you're in the way of other staffers who are trying to get access to the passengers at the ends of the cars. We've found that a FULL SUPERLINER DINER can be operated most efficiently by setting a time, getting everybody served in that time, clearing and cleaning the car, and then starting the next seating on time.

I've seen a couple of procedures (the famous Amtrak inconsistency). The *fastest* one I've seen seemed to involve seating half the diner while the other half was finishing up, serving the first half while the second half was being cleared and re-set, then seating the second half... you get the picture. Yes, one attendant was bussing/cleaning/setting while another attendant was serving; the key was to keep them out of each other's way by bussing one half while the other half was being seated.

Also, the first person at the "seating" was eating by the time the last person at the "seating" was seated. This is essentially continuous seating, but with reservations and a *very careful* table allocation. The efficiency seems to come almost entirely from the order of table allocation.

In some cases, some of these alternate approaches can be successful when the passenger counts are low. But when the counts are high, the present system works better than any other system.

I simply don't believe that this is as good as it gets. Because the present system as used *most* of the time (when table allocation is not as careful as the above description) is failing badly on high passenger counts. Seatings are not being completed on time, passengers are complaining about being rushed, and people are getting denied meals. On the Viewliner trains, an extra table car would make most of the difference. On the Superliner trains, the delays seem often to be due to poor table allocation procedure, causing people to get in each other's way.

The really efficient operations seemed to have a sort of "rolling wave" of seat/eat/clear/set from one end of the car to the other.

 

[FormerOBS]

Hmmmmmmm.

Not exactly. If somebody was bussing at one end of the diner, then the staff at the other end were not just serving. They were seating, taking orders, serving beverages, serving meals, refilling beverages, partial clearing, serving dessert, serving coffee, etc. There aren't that many staff members there to do all that. The guy who is bussing probably needs to get his butt over to where the action is.

The correct order of activities is not seat/eat/clear/set.

The correct order of activities is seat, take orders, serve beverages, serve meals, let the passenger eat while being sure he has what he needs, refill beverages, partial clear, serve dessert, serve coffee, say goodnight to the passenger (trying not to rush him), clear, reset, make sure everything is ready for the next passengers, repeat.

Please remember the procedures are something like the RR rulebook. They say the rulebook was written in blood, because every rule is there because somebody got hurt --- or worse --- as a result of doing things some other way. Service practices in a dining car are established because years of experience have shown that they work. Many of these alternate ways have been tried unsuccessfully, and experienced staffers know that. Very often, they have endured some of these experiments, and as a result they know something about what works.

By the way, nothing here has allowed any opportunity for the crew to have a meal.

Tom

 

[Bob Dylan]

Excellent posts from someone who's actually done the job for many years Tom! With most LD routes now cut back to an LSA, one Waitperson and one Chef, some SCAs ( the good ones) are helping out in the Diners!

My understanding is that new hires are cross trained so as to be able to work any OBS job except LSA!

The Auto train is a special case in that all passengers eat two meals and the passenger load is usually high with limited time to serve! I was impressed how the three food service workers on the Texas Eagle ( none named Polly)on my recent trip home from the Gathering were able to serve four good meals in a timely manner in a CCC on a SOLD OUT Train!

 

[neroden]

Thanks for the more detailed description.

My main point was that in the most efficient procedure I've seen, there was a rolling wave of service. The "seating" was more like a reservation time, and less like a "seating", with the inherent assumption that some people would show up a bit early and some a bit late. (There's apparently one LSA on the CZ who insists on seating everyone before serving anyone -- a proper "seating" -- with disastrous results.)

I believe there were 3 people dealing with tables (I don't know how many in the kitchen), two on the "serving" end and one on the "bussing/cleaning" end, in a rotating pattern which I didn't quite figure out (nobody was stuck with bussing for the entire meal).

How many are needed with the Auto Train dining car + table car? Presumably the same procedure is used. The question is, does the staff requirement go up linearly with the number of tables being served, or not? Even if the number of waiters goes up linearly, the number of kitchen employees probably doesn't, which would mean that high volumes are more efficient.

I did some research on the appropriate numbers of tables per server at "land" restaurants, and there are wildly fluctuating views; the typical number seems to be 4 to 6, but it depends heavily on the style of service. The Viewliner Diner has 12 tables (so 2-3 servers). The Superliner Diner has 18 (so 3-4). The staffing levels seem to match the "on land" staffing levels, closer to the 6-table end.

Crew opportunity to have a meal? Yeah, there's an issue there, and it would have to be planned out. If open all day, crew would presumably have to eat separately rather than as a group. One would *expect* to have *some* very low demand times where not everyone would need to be working at once. It would probably require enough volume to have enough kitchen staff for them to take turns (so, certainly at least 2). You shouldn't need the 12 employees which the B&O had to serve 38 seats; if you had 3 in the kitchen, that would be a conservative 1 per table. But there's probably some minimum number to make the dining car operate efficiently at volume.

Now, suppose Amtrak tried at-seat service. Typically, with at-seat service, they serve nearly everyone practically at once (though in a "wave" again). The kitchen would be the same. The big question is how many attendants would be needed to handle the delivery and bussing. I suppose we could get some estimate from Acela's service, but I'm going to try it a different way.

If there is any reason why a server could serve more people at one time with at-seat service than with table service, I'd love to know it. So suppose there is no such reason. Convert the Amfleet II capacity of 59 to tables, treating 4 people as a table and operating on the 6-table rule. If everyone in six full coaches wanted food service, you'd need nearly 15 servers; if half did, you'd need 8; if a quarter did, you'd need 4. Currently, on full trains, Amtrak has 2 coach attendants for every 3 cars. So on a typical six-coach train, you'd replace however many dining car servers + 2 coach attendants with 4-15 coach attendants.

On low volumes, the at-seat service should be better. On high volumes, the dining car should be better. The advantage of the dining car on high volumes is that people space out their meal times (some people *like* to eat at 5 PM or at 8:30 PM), which is not straightfoward to do with typical at-seat service patterns. But I suppose if you can arrange to have the meals spread out more for the at-seat service, then it would be superior.

Conclusion: I just realized that the primary economies of scale in food service relate to having people eat at different times of day. Basically, to the extent you can maximize that, you maximize your resource efficiency.

 

[rrdude]

Tom's spot on with his analysis. Only two ways to speed up service in the diner, and one involves adding staff, which we know, "That dog won't hunt". (That was for Jim)

Other way is to deploy "order at the table" POS system. Either with, or without the server taking the order. (don't think Amtrak will ever deploy tabletop kiosks to order, like Applebees and other chains have)

But servers taking orders on iPad minis or some other non iOS tablet, are a no brainer. My company was the innovator of this idea years ago, but we were way to early to the dance. Once the iPad Touch, now iPhone, and iPads went mainstream, (primarily due to lower costs, and the general acceptance of texting) all the other POS vendors are scrambling over each other to port, or rewrite their s/w to enable such.

I can't tell you how many White-Papers I've read and/or contributed to on this topic. It's here, and here to stay. There will be variations of course, our next go-round involves "Order Ahead". (not just us, the whole industry) Going out for lunch or dinner?

Pick up your phone, navigate to the restaurant's web site, and place your order. Ready when you get there. Identical in concept to online ordering, (it is, actually) just that you will be consuming your meal at the restaurant..... and paying in advance!

 

[The Whistler]

Expect no change in the menu or meal service on the Autotrain until:

1. enough people complain to management by calling or writing a letter

2. a sufficient amount of the passengers, like myself, leave for more comfortable alternative transportation. I know of two that just bolted but insignificant....so far!

If the bulk of the passenger/car traffic remain and no one complains,, then Amtrak will be free to just take their money and treat them like animals.

 

[jis]

Animals eh? I am yet to see an animal sit at a table in Diner to eat food.

 

[rrdude]

Animals eh? I am yet to see an animal sit at a table in Diner to eat food.

You haven't been seated next to me, in a diner yet JIS. Oh wait, yes you were, on the CAP, in one of those horrible Mafia booths.

 

[neroden]

I can't tell you how many White-Papers I've read and/or contributed to on this topic. It's here, and here to stay. There will be variations of course, our next go-round involves "Order Ahead". (not just us, the whole industry) Going out for lunch or dinner?

Pick up your phone, navigate to the restaurant's web site, and place your order. Ready when you get there. Identical in concept to online ordering, (it is, actually) just that you will be consuming your meal at the restaurant..... and paying in advance!

Consider the implications for Amtrak! Heck, even making meal *reservations* before boarding would be an efficiency coup for Amtrak. Imagine if the LSA didn't have to take reservations at all, because they were all preloaded in the computer hours before the mealtime...

 

[VentureForth]

It'd give the pax something to do while waiting to depart...

 

[SteveSFL]

(There's apparently one LSA on the CZ who insists on seating everyone before serving anyone -- a proper "seating" -- with disastrous results.)

My first real long distance trip was last October when I did CHI-LAX-EMY on SWC and CS. Then EMY-DEN on CZ. On the SWC there were about 6 choices for dinner reservation times and dinner went very smoothly.

On the CZ, I think there were two (maybe three) times. When our reservation for dinner was called on the CZ, we walked in with everyone else and the tables were already set with the salads on the table. They sat everyone down, filling just about the entire car dining car (we were on the half with 10 tables). Then they started taking orders one table at a time. But after taking each table's order, they would go and get that table's drinks before taking the next table's order.

We were about the 8th table to be attended in our half of the car, having sat there for almost 30 minutes staring at warm, limp lettuce (and two tomatoes, of course) in a bowl, waiting for something to wash it down with.

When the LSA finally did arrive to take our order, he started with the somewhat elderly German couple across from us. The LSA asked for the husband's order, but the man said to the LSA, "The lady is first, please," and deferred to his wife. The LSA gruffly said to the husband, "We take the orders in a certain order and you are first."

The husband said "THE LADY IS FIRST!", and with that, the LSA proceeded to take the wife's order first.

We left a very small tip that night, and only because we were afraid that a foreign substance might end up in our pancakes the next morning if we left no tip.

By the way, I guess since this thread is actually about the Auto Train, i should mention that I am going to be riding on the auto train for the first time in about three weeks: I am picking up a friend's car and taking it south. I was in DC last weekend and decided to drive over to Lorton just to check out the station. If the demographics on my trip are the same as what I saw in the waiting area, I should be the youngest one on the train (no offense intended -- I actually find that older folks on the train have a lot better stories to share and are usually a lot more well behaved, too).

 

[OBS]

This time of year, going south on A/T, if you are under 60, you will probably be the only one...LOL

 

[David Lavender]

Another item unreported until now. Breakfast cereal served on the A/T is now the cheap generic "no name" brown box kind. No more Kelloggs, Post or even a fruit. That's not only bad business it is an insult to a passenger paying a $1100 one way fare. I tell you if they keep this up people will eventually bail.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Another item unreported until now. Breakfast cereal served on the A/T is now the cheap generic "no name" brown box kind. No more Kelloggs, Post or even a fruit. That's not only bad business it is an insult to a passenger paying a $1100 one way fare. I tell you if they keep this up people will eventually bail.

Perfect example of what nickel and diming does to what used to be Amtrak's Premier Train!
I'd be PO'd too if I paid $1100 for a Sleeper and got a Generic Meal that is exactly the same as the Coach riders paying much less!

Wonder if Beech Grove serves this Menu to the Suits? Let them eat cake indeed!

 

[FormerOBS]

Steve:

I know a lot of this has been sounding like nothing but doom & gloom. Don't be discouraged. The crews are still the same old veterans who have been providing high quality service for years. They will do all they can to make sure you have a good trip. But it cannot be denied that certain changes have made it more of a challenge for them, so please bear with them.

Someone mentioned scheduling meals before boarding. Here's the drill on the Auto Train: The station personnel and the Chief get together in the morning and determine how many passengers will be in the coaches, and how many in the sleepers. They decide how many dinner seatings will be needed to accommodate everybody. Usually that means three or four seatings in each diner. This is decided before the first passenger checks in. Appropriate numbers of individual meal coupons for each seating are counted out. As passengers are checked in, they are offered a choice of seatings. When the last coupon for a particular seating is issued by the ticket agents, that seating is declared full and no more tickets for that seating are issued. When the passengers have all been boarded, the final numbers are given to the LSA. The loudest complaints come from those who arrive late and are the last to check in. They are often angry when they discover that all the early seatings are full and they have to wait till the last seating. The system generally works fine unless there is a miscount. Then it gets "interesting".

 

[neroden]

It sounds like Auto Train dining operations are smoother and more carefully thought out than on a lot of the other trains.

 

[FormerOBS]

You get a good system by analyzing the situation, trying several approaches, adopting the approach that works best, and adapting as necessary to the inevitable changes. It's like the lady said about romance: "You gotta kiss a lot of frogs before you finally find your Prince Charming". The A-T system works, and that's what counts.

 

[Bus Nut]

The panel of chefs Amtrak assembled created some really tasty dishes and the deserts were improving too! When pot roast replaced the steaks on some routes, the specials went away and standard national menus came into being, the slippery slope started!

The nickel and dimeing is frosting on the cake, I'm still anxious to see what real "savings" they bring to Amtrak!

I kind of agree with you here although after reading the entire old dead-horse-beating-AT thread it seems like they wouldn't survive dinner on AT with that extra coach without the 'easier' (=faster, reduced labor) menu, whether the customers like it or not!

I think Amtrak diner food for me hit a high point a couple of years ago and now seems a bit in decline. I was sad to see that Amtrak, under some really gross political pressure, completely reversed their policy of trying to freshen up the food to going in a blander, more depressing direction. Btw, one thing that gets me is that on the non-AT LD trains the overall dinner might be fine but they screw it up by offering those odd and unpleasant deserts. I don't see how they are saving money cutting cheesecakes into weird shapes and a few cents for better presentation (doily, nice plastic plate, powder sugar) would improve customer satisfaction as plenty of research shows that customers seem to remember how something ended better than how it began. That "blood orange" gelato stuff is beyond gross, also. Make it go away.

I will say that some of the complaints about downgrades here are very particular to foamers and overblown. Whoever linked to that Yelp thread is a genius. The other AT thread and Yelp provided me with plenty of (unintentional) yuks. It seems that to the non-Amtrak-rider the food and service are just fine! The sleeper accommodations, OTOH--! Now there are some tears!

Any business survives long term by bringing in new customers. The new customers' expectations are going to be shaped by their prior experiences, which aren't yours. Sometimes a little perspective is needed.

 

[Bus Nut]

It's actually not that rare to have hot food served at your seat. I was on a train in Germany once where I made use of this option. The attendant came through the train and asked if anybody wanted to order something (but not many people showed any interest). I did. When my food arrived it was on a proper earthenware plate with proper metal cutlery and my wine was served in a proper glass. All this was duly collected again at the end of the meal.

European countries subsidize their passenger services more aggressively than the US does. And I've found that European rail passengers are not really that into the train food amenities (even though the quality is pretty good) and even tend to look down their nose at people who buy stuff on the train as suckers. So if you are a USian tourist who likes buying stuff on the train because "hey! I'm buying stuff on a train!" you get great service, not rushed or anything.

Americans just seem to eat more than Europeans, period, especially in public places. Although Europeans, when they do go out to dinner (less frequently than Americans) can really get down on 3000-5000kCal regional food gorgefests at times. (Think spaetzl or potatoes au gratin, like about 5 servings of it plus 2-3 other courses. I don't know how they do it.)

I'm not saying train service in Europe is nirvana, though. They've also had the pinch of budget cutbacks, and there isn't a lot of 'slack' or excess capacity. If air service gets disrupted the trains sell out and basically the whole system starts cracking up.

I guess the same stuff would happen in the US but outside the NEC there really isn't a train so people end up sleeping in airports. I had a ticket out of BWI station once when an ice storm started up and air travelers started flooding in on the vans, hitting up that lone Quiktrak machine until it broke and crying that the approaching train was already sold out.

Felt pretty smug, I did.

 

[Bus Nut]

Consider the implications for Amtrak! Heck, even making meal *reservations* before boarding would be an efficiency coup for Amtrak. Imagine if the LSA didn't have to take reservations at all, because they were all preloaded in the computer hours before the mealtime...

I'd settle for reserved seats on reserved trains or at least the option to get reserved seating at an upcharge. That idiotic line in Portland, OR is really too much and the soon-to-be-mothballed Acela I hardware had electronic reservation cards built in that will never be used.

Too much can go wrong (late/early train just for starters) with meals to do them super-far-in-advance.