Cardinal out of Chicago

[dogbert617]

Re: Cardinal food service/dining car

Like I've heard from others, it hasn't had a proper dining car for years. The Heritage dining cars have largely been retired at this point, and Amtrak supposedly has ordered new replacement dining cars. Whenever those enter service, I suspect the issue of a limited dining menu on the Cardinal (vs. Capitol Limited, Silver Meteor, etc having a full menu) will be resolved. Like the poster above me said, sadly certain anti-Amtrak Congressmen forced Amtrak to do some cuts to dining and food service on some trains.

Even the Amtrak corridor trains weren't totally immune to this issue, since Gov. Scott Walker forced the Hiawatha trains to no longer have a cafe car on it. Luckily those trains are only a short 11/2 hours(approx.) from Chicago to Milwaukee, so it wasn't as bad of an adjustment as I feared. It was a surprise to me the first time I noticed no cafe car on that train, though. But I've adjusted fine to this since, though.

Hiwathas haven't had cafe cars for many years, long preceding Walker's term. Until a few years ago, they had a guy who would walk the train with drinks and snacks, but that was discontinued. It's only a 90-minute run. Food service isn't necessary.

As far as dining cars returning to the Cardinal and Silver Star or being added to long distance daytime train, well, time will tell. I wouldn't be optimistic.

Yeah, honestly I don't find it a big deal not having a cafe car for just a 90 minute trip. I'd find it annoying OTOH, to not have a cafe car on the longer Midwest corridors(i.e. Illini/Saluki, IL Zephyr/C. Sandburg, MO River Runner, any of the Michigan trains).

As for not having traditional dining service on Cardinal or other long distance trains that lost that service (i.e. Silver Star), I was hoping that since anti-Amtrak Congressman Rep. Mica of Florida(Orlando area) was defeated in 2016, that some long distance lines might have a chance of getting a full service dining car again. Never mind that I know there's no guarantee it'll come back, since there are other anti-Amtrak Congressmen still in office. Not to forget other US Senators, that probably are also anti-Amtrak.

 

[PVD]

I'm not sure "supposedly" applies to the dining car order since some are already in service, and 2 were delivered last week and are being prepped for service.