Simplified Food Service.

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Thats a good article. It all makes sense and I hope everyone will give it a fair shot....Bill
 
It sounds like they'll be heating TV dinners in convection ovens... yuck! I'll pay $21 for a good steak dinner on the Zephyr but won't be shelling it out for a heated TV dinner. If they weren't planning to spend $$$millions$$$ on tearing apart and redesigning the Superliner dining cars and lounge cars I would say that this is just another phase, but it looks like it will be something we will have to suffer and live with when traveling on the trains.

I'll try a new concept and bring my own food once this crap food service begins on the west coast longhaul trains. Maybe then Amtrak will see the light and realize that reorganizing their onboard service personnel's roles to be more active and work different roles on the trains could have been more productive than cutting back on good food service that many look forward to when taking a longhaul trip on Amtrak. A small 20-seat dining room downstairs in the rebuilt lounge cars doesn't sound too appealing while rolling through the Rocky Mountains. Being upstairs with a beautiful view during each meal is definitely a big perk of traveling on the train.

Enough venting for now, I suppose... The whole thing is quite frustrating. :angry:
 
It looks like a really cool concept, and if the meals are good, go for it. Something people do need to realize though is that these meals, if done right, can be really good. Take a look at the airlines with their First Class meals that are prepared by Gate Gourmet, and heated on board the aircraft. The meals are very good, and are enjoyed highly by the passengers. Similar meals are also had (once again) by Acela passengers, and they've gotten good reviews. I personally feel its a worthy experiment and that this will help the bottom line, passengers will probably enjoy the flexibility, and the setting could be better for passengers.
 
Well it is a sad day indeed. However, as I said in an earlier post, the food really was very good on the CNO even though the "China" was plastic but attractive. I don't think any of it was nuked. Mind ya, I didn't go down for breakfast to try the western omlet. I still like to choose how my eggs are cooked. And although I'll miss the dining car, if they have space for a sit at table meal seperated from the hub ub of the new lounge/bar/cafe/etc, it just might not bee all that bad.
 
There's a vast difference between using a convection oven and nuking. So far, the reports from the CNO and Texas Eagle have the food tasting fine...do we want an Amtrak to survive with a little less than we had or bury our head in the sand and watch it go down the tubes?
 
Unfortunately, this is the "way" in a lot of restaurants, including the non-moving ones. I was eating a couple of years ago at an Olive Garden and ordered Stuffed Chicken Parmesean from the menu, but was told by the waiter that the item was not available. Fine, I thought the chef had made so many of the item that morning, and they had run out. However, the waiter explained that they had more frozen portions back in the kitchen, but that it would take a while to thaw and bake my entree. In other words, I was basicly ordering a TV dinner at a nationwide, chain restaurant; I could have purchased basicly the same product from the freezer section at my local grocery store. I'm not saying I like the development, but it would seem Amtrak is not the only food service provider serving preprepared meals.
 
battalion51 said:
It looks like a really cool concept, and if the meals are good, go for it. Something people do need to realize though is that these meals, if done right, can be really good. Take a look at the airlines with their First Class meals that are prepared by Gate Gourmet, and heated on board the aircraft. The meals are very good, and are enjoyed highly by the passengers. Similar meals are also had (once again) by Acela passengers, and they've gotten good reviews. I personally feel its a worthy experiment and that this will help the bottom line, passengers will probably enjoy the flexibility, and the setting could be better for passengers.
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Sean,

I have to agree with you, it looks very cool I am actually for one looking foward to it.
 
Looks promising as an initial concept, but they need to lose those "mini-stools" at the bar. The Acelas have those and hardly anyone uses them. They are difficult to sit on when the train is moving (and not particularly comfortable when standing still!). We don't need la-z-boys by any stretch, but we need more than is shown.

JPS
 
I rode on Cascades and tried out the Bistro Cafe. There's some flaw with those stools next to the ordering area. You'll have people in the way when you're sitting on stools, esp when ordering and paying.

There some tables and "fold up" seats which I found quite comforting. I rather to have the tables and seats remained for comfort and eating, not stools unless you're drinking beers and give you a funny look at ladies or watching Super Bowl.
 
Microwave ovens, convection ovens, and frozen fully prepared meals are common in more places than you think. I recently saw some rebuilt urban apartments in downtown Dallas in which the kitchens had no stoves, but only a built-in microwave and a built-in toaster oven. The supplied, small refrigerator had an oversized freezer. When I asked about the “strange” kitchen, my tour guide told me that many of the younger residents (which the property was aimed toward) have “no idea” how to cook anything; boiling water is a challenge. I don’t know what the built-in dishwasher was for.

For consistency and quality control, many of the chain restaurants use fully prepared, frozen meals. As anyone who has flown first class on Singapore Airlines can confess, micro-waved frozen meals can be very good indeed. The proposed changes to Amtrak’s meal service is only typical of modern food service, and at least an effort to continue the long distance train service rather than strip out all service and give up. As long as I have an alternative to the hassles and non-sense of air travel, I’ll be happy.
 
Amtrak Watcher said:
...As anyone who has flown first class on Singapore Airlines can confess, micro-waved frozen meals can be very good indeed.
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As a minor clarification, all aircraft galleys use convection ovens. There are no microwave ovens on modern airliners. And I do not believe that airline meals are boarded in a frozen state. The meals are cooked at the commissary, then refrigerated, and then warmed on board for serving.

Yes, most first class airline meals very good and Amtrak passengers would be well served if that standard of quality was provided consistently on trains. There is absolutely no reason to assume that pre-cooked meals will be a downgrade of service on Amtrak.
 
Many years ago, more than 20, my husband and I had dinner at a resort in Ocean City Md. I had the most amazing stuffed chicken breast, it had apple stuffing and was the best I had ever tasted. My husband was performing there so I thought he might be able to pull a few strings and get me the recipe. When he inquired about it the waiter just smiled and told us that they get the stuffed chicken breast in frozen and they just heat them up. If the food is as good as this was I see no problem with the "frozen" and reheated food Amrack is planning on serving.
 
I rode the Texas Eagle recently with this new service. I was in First Class, so the meal was included. However, I can see Coach passengers being scared off by the prices.

I found all the meals I ordered to be tasty and filling. It did seems they need to work on making sure the meals are thoroughly heated, which microwaved stuff has a tendency not to be..

There are growing pains. They ran out of some meals, ran out of fruit, had no condiment-type extras, and needed more staff. Once they perfect the logistics, this should change.

I suggested to Amtrak they consider adding fresh cooked egg dishes to the breakfast meal, and maybe a fresh cooked lunch (hot sandwich) or dinner feature item, along with ensuring no pre-packaged meals run short on a trip. And make sure staffing is adequate: we had one waiter onboard.
 
Sorry to tell you this daveyb99, but the new Amtrak service manual only allows for one SA in the "dinette" car as formally known now on 1/2, 3/4, 58/59 and 21/22, regardless of passenger loads. The idea is that the dining (dinette) car will eventually phase in a policy that prohibits coach passengers from the service until the single diner-lite food service system is implemented for the entire passenger manifest. It is unknown if and when this policy will take effect, but the revised employee service standard handbook Chapter 14 that deals with food service cars now in print doesn't include authority to sell meals to coach passenger in the dining car. In a copy of the draft received by a friend of mine who's an Employee Development Officer (Trainer) in Washington says that dining car service that will be phased out this year will be strickly a first class emenity until a decision is reached whether or not the company can continue to offer sleeping car service following the Inspector General's report scheduled for June. The current and previous additions include sleeper, coach and employee ticket stock data. It is obviously way too soon to assume anything about the sleepers at this point, so I won't speculate what will happen. June is too far into the future, especially with Amtrak's infamous 11th hour management decisions on every facet of company operations, so what I believe will happen isn't worth noting anyway.

I agree that with time, the food preparation will improve as the staff learns what times are "really" needed for the heating and GGI gets feedback on support items, such as condiments, garnishes, etc. for entrees and desserts. :unsure:
 
AmtrakWPK said:
So if they can't sell any meals, then they can claim that the cost of the dining service is a !00% loss, and then they can justify killing it entirely. Sounds like W's kind of logic.
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It appears to me here you are one of the few who actually "get it" now! OBS...
 
Okay, I haven't been to this forum for a while and I just read this. Does that mean that the Emperior (Chicago to Seattle) won't have good food for the non coach people in June?
 
Now, its quite hard to tell from the illustration, but would there be space for people to casually sit at, with out having to buy something?

On a 3 day trip, sitting in a coach, which can get pretty raunchy near the end, it would sure be nice to have a place to go and muse...Over

Overall, I like the concept of the "all hours" serving, but will miss the dining car being freshly made, and I certainly feel bad for the individuals who will be losing there jobs over this...

Jon Parker
 
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