Senate amendment to eliminate food/beverage on Amtrak (LD too)

[gmushial]

Back in the 1940's The Fred Harvey Company ran the diners on a few trains going West.. I believe that the Santa Fe Super Chief and the Californian offered Harvey service but the service was heavily subsidized by the railroad company. From what I read in the history books, dining cars on every railroad,( even during the Golden Years) never made any money.

History lesson follows.

Originally, long-distance trains *stopped for meals*. Everyone got off the train and it sat still for an hour while people got their meal at the Fred Harvey (or other) restaurant. (In practice this currently actually happens for the eastbound Lake Shore Limited at Albany, but not really for any other train.)

Obviously, this slows the train down. Therefore the dining car was invented. The dining cars lost money on food service from day one, but they allowed the train to *run faster*, because it no longer had to stop for an hour for breakfast, an hour for lunch, and an hour for dinner. The amount of money saved by running the train faster, combined with the added revenue from higher prices which could be charged for faster running, paid for the dining car.

The economics are exactly the same today.

Perhaps Amtrak should figure out how to estimate the cost of running each of the trains on a schedule several hours slower (I believe it would be six hours slower for the California Zephyr), and should credit that much money from ticket revenue to the diner. The trouble is that you're just guessing how much revenue you'd lose by making meal stops. A lot of revenue, definitely.

I'm wondering if this was entirely dead-time, ie, wasn't at least part of that time used to replenish water, reload the tender and do minor servicing of the engine, trucks/bearings etc?

 

[Rail Freak]

People that ride in coach use the diners, too.
Also, nearly every LD run is longer than the 15 hour daytime run of the Pamletto.

Using that as a model for the rest of the system is woefully shortsighted. You should run for Senate, sounds like you'd fit in nicely.

Beautifully said!!!!

 

[Nathanael]

Well, the rub here is that Amtrak isn't the only user of the NEC. Ignoring folks only operating on a mile or two of the NEC, you've got MARC, SEPTA, NJT, MNRR, SLE, and MBTA running commuter trains on the NEC. Add in the LIRR and VRE for "minor" operators (the LIRR only shares tracks in and around NYP; VRE only at WAS), and possibly the Cape Cod folks as well if that train is counted separately (since IIRC it departs from BOS). So either everyone would get to "ride for free" (not the worst idea in the world, frankly) or you'd need some mess of a cost-sharing agreement (good luck hashing that out!). Of course, on top of that, CT owns the New Rochelle-New Haven segment of the line...

By all accounts the cost-sharing agreements for the NEC are already extremely complicated and acrimonious! Even negotiations just between NY and NJ, trying to get a single project done ("Access to the Region's Core", originally) have broken down repeatedly. The real problem is that the state borders don't make sense but I don't think that will be fixed in my lifetime.

 

[Nathanael]

I'm wondering if this was entirely dead-time, ie, wasn't at least part of that time used to replenish water, reload the tender and do minor servicing of the engine, trucks/bearings etc?

Well, obviously, if you already had to stop, you did your best to do the other things which you had to stop for at the same time. But none of that other stuff took an hour. The meal did.

I believe there were a few attempts made to run long-distance trains without diners or meal stops. *Very* unpopular.

 

[Nathanael]

Now, there are out-of-the-box ideas which might work in the future, which wouldn't have worked then.

One is this:

Have all the passengers who want sit-down meals order their food in advance, from their seats. Electronically transmit the orders to a restaurant located at an upcoming station. Pick up the food there, then serve it on the train.

There are several problems with this -- one of which is the multiple seatings and the problem of keeping the food hot while people are "waiting their turn". But the one which makes it completely untenable at the moment is the inability of the Class Is (and to be fair the Class IIs and Class IIIs and commuter railroads) to run the Amtrak trains on time. If this core problem of trains not running on schedule could be addressed, this might allow for the elimination of on-board cooking, which is the really problematic part of on-board train service. Heck, it might allow for food service all day long, with a contract with a restaurant at every station. But it won't work as long as the trains can't keep to schedule.

 

[Paulus]

People that ride in coach use the diners, too.

Yes, and? They're perfectly happy with cafe cars as well, so why not get rid of the sleepers and the diners and simply go to those?

Also, nearly every LD run is longer than the 15 hour daytime run of the Pamletto.
Using that as a model for the rest of the system is woefully shortsighted. You should run for Senate, sounds like you'd fit in nicely.

Compare the average trip distances, not the total run length.

From what I read in the history books, dining cars on every railroad,( even during the Golden Years) never made any money. Snack cars, café cars and dining cars today cannot make money. As a accommodation, primarily for the sleeping car passengers, they are necessary. If you remove the dining service, you effectively shut down all the long distance routes.

You shut down the sleepers, but the sleepers are not the long distance train and coach does perfectly well with a cafe car, as the Palmetto demonstrates. Kill the full diners and the sleepers, and you start losing a lot less money.

Try it and you'd lose a *lot* more money. Both the sleepers and the diners add to Amtrak's bottom line -- there's a reason why Amtrak is buying more sleepers and new diners *out of operating profits*; they'll pay for themselves. The diners are necessary for ridership on the long runs, and the sleepers are simply profitable (if you can sell the berths, adding a sleeper to a train increases the train's net profit).

Amtrak has been criticized by the OIG, quite accurately, for not actually studying fleet needs and it's been a recurrent theme for luxury train equipment to be purchased simply because it is the done thing without regard as to whether it is the appropriate thing to do (such as the massive purchases of luxury trains post-WWII when basic studies would've clearly shown, and later did show, that only the short distance routes even had the potential to be profitable).

 

[Ryan]

Yes, and? They're perfectly happy with cafe cars as well

Citation desperately needed here. I'm not sure where this fallacy that the dining car is the exclusive realm of the sleeper passenger and the cafe care is the exclusive realm of the coach passenger, but it's false.

Compare the average trip distances, not the total run length.

Because people don't ride the train from end to end? False. At least until this harebrained scheme is implemented, then it'll be true. And average trip length will be way down (along with ridership and revenue, but hey who cares, right?).

Amtrak has been criticized by the OIG, quite accurately, for not actually studying fleet needs and it's been a recurrent theme for luxury train equipment to be purchased simply because it is the done thing without regard as to whether it is the appropriate thing to do

You must have missed the 3 years running fleet strategy plans that do exactly that. Since when are sleepers and diners "luxury train equipment"?
You should run for Senate, sounds like you'd fit in nicely.

 

[gmushial]

I'm wondering if this was entirely dead-time, ie, wasn't at least part of that time used to replenish water, reload the tender and do minor servicing of the engine, trucks/bearings etc?

Well, obviously, if you already had to stop, you did your best to do the other things which you had to stop for at the same time. But none of that other stuff took an hour. The meal did.

I believe there were a few attempts made to run long-distance trains without diners or meal stops. *Very* unpopular.

What I was thinking was more along the lines of chicken or egg question: if one has to resupply the loco anyway, then might as well call it a meal break [thinking w/re steam era]. And yes, taking on water and coal doesn't take an hour, but likewise, probably a meal break doesn't either... but if one has it stopped, then one can plan/schedule bearing lubes etc... just part of getting a train from a to b.... but either way, would reduce that tasks on the train and a railside meal would always be better than a train-board one. I guess the other model is the one one sees in India - where 45 mins before a meal orders are taken, (then) telegraphed ahead, prepared, and when the train gets 45 minutes down the route all the cooked meals are brought on board - works amazingly well.

 

[jebr]

Sleepers require less subsidy per passenger than a coach passenger does on a per-mile basis. Thus, whatever extra services a sleeper requires are more than paid for by the increased fare.

Plus, I would not be terribly pleased if Amtrak went to cafe-only on LD runs. It'd be okay on shorter runs, but even on a full day trip with three meals, I much prefer diner food when I can have it/afford it. (I'll usually eat in the diner for breakfast and lunch and get something from the cafe car for dinner.) Take that away, and the only difference between Amtrak and bus service is the extra legroom in coach and the worse OTP, at least in the West. (There's also the sightseer lounge on the top floor of the cafe, but if we're trying to cut costs, I'd imagine that'd be converted to revenue coach space instead of non-revenue space.)

Yes, Amtrak should find savings where it can. But at the same time, let's make sure that we're not cutting things that will over-adversely impact passengers for the money that's "being saved" and, ultimately, its usefulness as a transportation mode.

 

[jebr]

I'm wondering if this was entirely dead-time, ie, wasn't at least part of that time used to replenish water, reload the tender and do minor servicing of the engine, trucks/bearings etc?

Well, obviously, if you already had to stop, you did your best to do the other things which you had to stop for at the same time. But none of that other stuff took an hour. The meal did.
I believe there were a few attempts made to run long-distance trains without diners or meal stops. *Very* unpopular.

What I was thinking was more along the lines of chicken or egg question: if one has to resupply the loco anyway, then might as well call it a meal break [thinking w/re steam era]. And yes, taking on water and coal doesn't take an hour, but likewise, probably a meal break doesn't either... but if one has it stopped, then one can plan/schedule bearing lubes etc... just part of getting a train from a to b.... but either way, would reduce that tasks on the train and a railside meal would always be better than a train-board one. I guess the other model is the one one sees in India - where 45 mins before a meal orders are taken, (then) telegraphed ahead, prepared, and when the train gets 45 minutes down the route all the cooked meals are brought on board - works amazingly well.

On the flip side, having scheduled meal breaks results in a couple of downfalls:

1. What if a train is a fair amount late? For example, if the EB was mostly on-time, MSP would be a decent place to have breakfast, but when it may not arrive until 9, 10, or even later, it suddenly becomes unacceptable. Right now Amtrak is nowhere near close enough to on-time to have dedicated restaurants/seating areas for specific meals, or even to arrange for a caterer to take meal orders and serve the meals on the train.

2. Even if trains were always on-time, you'd probably have to have the meals ordered on-board and cooked in such a fashion so that they're fresh but ready-to-eat when the train arrives at the station. You're then still restricting the time that a person can eat without having to move back on the train to eat at their seat or berth.

3. It eliminates different preferences for meal times. This is somewhat of a moot point for dinner (reservations are required,) but for breakfast especially this is a consideration. People wake up at different times, and while some people want to eat right away at 6 - 6:30am, some may not wake up until 8 or so and want to eat then. That flexibility is lost with off-train meal times.

 

[Paulus]

Yes, and? They're perfectly happy with cafe cars as well

Citation desperately needed here. I'm not sure where this fallacy that the dining car is the exclusive realm of the sleeper passenger and the cafe care is the exclusive realm of the coach passenger, but it's false.

Are passengers desperately unhappy with the Palmetto's food service?

Compare the average trip distances, not the total run length.

Because people don't ride the train from end to end? False. At least until this harebrained scheme is implemented, then it'll be true. And average trip length will be way down (along with ridership and revenue, but hey who cares, right?).

Oh please. With the exception of the Southwest Chief, all long distance routes with information available are in the realm of 400-600 miles. Most are 400-500. The SWC is probably affected by long distances between anything like major origin destination locales; their average coach lengths are longer than the average sleeper lengths on the Crescent, LSL, and CONO. The lower fares, half the price per mile of the Palmetto, probably don't hurt either.

Average Coach Passenger Miles

City of NO 425

Coast Starlight 445

Palmetto 450

Lake Shore Ltd 483

Silver Star 499

Crescent 526

Empire Builder 574

Silver Meteor 575

Southwest Chief 798

Amtrak has been criticized by the OIG, quite accurately, for not actually studying fleet needs and it's been a recurrent theme for luxury train equipment to be purchased simply because it is the done thing without regard as to whether it is the appropriate thing to do

You must have missed the 3 years running fleet strategy plans that do exactly that. Since when are sleepers and diners "luxury train equipment"?

The fleet strategy plans are not an actual study. And sleepers and diners have always been luxury train equipment.

You should run for Senate, sounds like you'd fit in nicely.

Would be hilarious, but not realistic I'm afraid.

 

[jebr]

Compare the average trip distances, not the total run length.

Because people don't ride the train from end to end? False. At least until this harebrained scheme is implemented, then it'll be true. And average trip length will be way down (along with ridership and revenue, but hey who cares, right?).

Oh please. With the exception of the Southwest Chief, all long distance routes with information available are in the realm of 400-600 miles. Most are 400-500. The SWC is probably affected by long distances between anything like major origin destination locales; their average coach lengths are longer than the average sleeper lengths on the Crescent, LSL, and CONO. The lower fares, half the price per mile of the Palmetto, probably don't hurt either.

Average Coach Passenger Miles

City of NO 425

Coast Starlight 445

Palmetto 450

Lake Shore Ltd 483

Silver Star 499

Crescent 526

Empire Builder 574

Silver Meteor 575

Southwest Chief 798

Which means half of passengers go further than that on a train.* It also ignores connections people may be making which require the use of multiple trains, but not having enough time between trains to have a sit-down meal. That also ignores sleeper passengers, which likely have longer trips overall and some of which would still take coach on those longer trips if sleeper service was eliminated.

*Assuming either a bell-shaped or even distribution of passenger trip-miles. Median would be more useful here, but not sure if that's available.

 

[Paulus]

Which means half of passengers go further than that on a train.* It also ignores connections people may be making which require the use of multiple trains, but not having enough time between trains to have a sit-down meal.
*Assuming either a bell-shaped or even distribution of passenger trip-miles. Median would be more useful here, but not sure if that's available.

It also means that if it is perfectly acceptable on the Palmetto, it's perfectly acceptable on similar trains such as the Starlight or CONO.

 

[gmushial]

I'm wondering if this was entirely dead-time, ie, wasn't at least part of that time used to replenish water, reload the tender and do minor servicing of the engine, trucks/bearings etc?

Well, obviously, if you already had to stop, you did your best to do the other things which you had to stop for at the same time. But none of that other stuff took an hour. The meal did.
I believe there were a few attempts made to run long-distance trains without diners or meal stops. *Very* unpopular.

What I was thinking was more along the lines of chicken or egg question: if one has to resupply the loco anyway, then might as well call it a meal break [thinking w/re steam era]. And yes, taking on water and coal doesn't take an hour, but likewise, probably a meal break doesn't either... but if one has it stopped, then one can plan/schedule bearing lubes etc... just part of getting a train from a to b.... but either way, would reduce that tasks on the train and a railside meal would always be better than a train-board one. I guess the other model is the one one sees in India - where 45 mins before a meal orders are taken, (then) telegraphed ahead, prepared, and when the train gets 45 minutes down the route all the cooked meals are brought on board - works amazingly well.

On the flip side, having scheduled meal breaks results in a couple of downfalls:

1. What if a train is a fair amount late? For example, if the EB was mostly on-time, MSP would be a decent place to have breakfast, but when it may not arrive until 9, 10, or even later, it suddenly becomes unacceptable. Right now Amtrak is nowhere near close enough to on-time to have dedicated restaurants/seating areas for specific meals, or even to arrange for a caterer to take meal orders and serve the meals on the train.

2. Even if trains were always on-time, you'd probably have to have the meals ordered on-board and cooked in such a fashion so that they're fresh but ready-to-eat when the train arrives at the station. You're then still restricting the time that a person can eat without having to move back on the train to eat at their seat or berth.

3. It eliminates different preferences for meal times. This is somewhat of a moot point for dinner (reservations are required,) but for breakfast especially this is a consideration. People wake up at different times, and while some people want to eat right away at 6 - 6:30am, some may not wake up until 8 or so and want to eat then. That flexibility is lost with off-train meal times.

All cogent points.

 

[jebr]

Which means half of passengers go further than that on a train.* It also ignores connections people may be making which require the use of multiple trains, but not having enough time between trains to have a sit-down meal.
*Assuming either a bell-shaped or even distribution of passenger trip-miles. Median would be more useful here, but not sure if that's available.

It also means that if it is perfectly acceptable on the Palmetto, it's perfectly acceptable on similar trains such as the Starlight or CONO.

The Palmetto runs a single-day, no overnight operation, so the absolute longest trip one could take is 829 miles. Almost every station served by the Palmetto also has at least one other train with full diner service on it for customers that want that, so Amtrak can still keep those customers if a customer really wants a train with diner service. There's no similar service for the CONO or the Starlight, so Amtrak would lose those passengers, however many those may be.

The Palmetto also has no sleeper service, which means most customers are coach passengers already, inflating the average mileage there compared to coach-only passengers on the CONO or the Starlight. Both of them run an overnight, which makes sleeper berths an attractive option for longer trips, but the coach-only mileage won't reflect those passengers and their distance traveled. (And yes, even if we eliminated sleeper service, some of those longer passengers would transfer to coach service, thus increasing the average mileage.)

 

[jis]

I think the issue of Diner service on trains is a complicated one. It sure would be nice to be able to continue it.

Back in the 80's there was an attempt to put an end to them during the Stockman inspired raid on Amtrak. Before that Food charges were not included in the Sleeper tickets, and not enough Sleeper passengers were using Diners to make it worthwhile. The solution then for increasing Diner revenues was to include Food in the Sleeper fares, thus effectively increasing the revenues that could be booked against Diner service, in that as soon as a Sleeper ticket was sold a certain amount of revenue went to the Diner irrespective of whether the service was used or not. I have no idea whether it was implemented that way or not. Only Slumbercoaches were not included in this save the Diners fare scheme.

Looks like we have come full circle back to the same discussion again.

BTW, Amtrak has given an estimate of what percentage of passengers they expect to lose if Dining/Food service is discontinued. To quote the NARP article on this matter:

Amtrak estimates that elimination of food service would reduce ridership by 4.5%, cut ticket revenue by 9.9%, and increase the size of its required operating grant—even before considering labor protection costs associated with mass lay-offs.

So clearly even Amtrak does not believe that all its passengers will disappear, OTOH it also believes that the hit will be substantial, more so on revenue than ridership, which is natural since presumably more longer distance riders will be lost.

 

[benjibear]

I don't think you can get rid of food service. However, what is Amtrak doing to improve food service and possibly reduce cost/increase revenue. I read about Amtrak chef's and culinary advisors. I think the keep it simple approach should be used.

For café food, a friend that was just on a train made a comment it was like eating out of a vending machine. There has to be improvements that can be made with the café cars to increase the amount of people that want to use them.

 

[jebr]

For café food, a friend that was just on a train made a comment it was like eating out of a vending machine. There has to be improvements that can be made with the café cars to increase the amount of people that want to use them.

That may be because it's essentially vending machine food in the cafe, just heated up a bit better (sometimes.)

I've always thought the cafe car would be better served by being contracted out to another company or becoming a franchise of sorts for another company. Starbucks seems to be the most likely (they do have some sandwiches and such,) but I've been to the Target cafes and they would seem to be a decent option if you limit the options somewhat (for example, no popcorn or slushies.) Heck, even Kwik Trip has better food, and they're just a convenience store.

The problem is always space, though, but keeping it simple would help that quite a bit...less items means that the remaining space can be used more efficiently (or even have storage elsewhere and just restock each night.)

 

[jphjaxfl]

Since I live in Jacksonville, FL, I most often use the Silver trains. If Dining Car service were eliminated, I doubt I would use Amtrak. Since most of my trips are long distance via Sleeping car, I expect dining service. I have traveled by passenger train for many year and some sort of Dining service has always been part of the trip. If traveling by plane, meal service is not as important because the trip are not that long unless traveling over seas. If Dining service goes, long distance service will go.

 

[TVRM610]

Dining cars are not necessary for Long Distance trains. There are other options.

Meals can be served in room, catered by outside sources. For those that say "that won't work" look at the Empire Builder Portland Section.. it serves Dinner on the East bound, and Breakfast on the West bound. Both meals are catered from 2 different sources. You know what.. it works! For those of you that say "it won't be good quality" I've read multiple reports on this site that say the best meal they have been served on Amtrak is the catered dinner on the Empire Builder. This is a real legitimate option.

I feel like the dining cars should be kept on select routes... but if Amtrak would get out of the mindset that Dining Cars are necessary for sleepers, and that sleepers are necessary for over night trains... then I think we could have more service and a more profitable railroad. If the Palmetto was extended to Miami... people would still ride it. I wish we could have overnight coach trains in addition to the sleeper trains.

 

[amamba]

Sleepers are necessary for overnight trains for me. As are dining cars.

 

[jebr]

Dining cars are not necessary for Long Distance trains. There are other options.
Meals can be served in room, catered by outside sources. For those that say "that won't work" look at the Empire Builder Portland Section.. it serves Dinner on the East bound, and Breakfast on the West bound. Both meals are catered from 2 different sources. You know what.. it works! For those of you that say "it won't be good quality" I've read multiple reports on this site that say the best meal they have been served on Amtrak is the catered dinner on the Empire Builder. This is a real legitimate option.

What do they serve for breakfast on the Portland section?

My biggest concern with that is that, if we're catering, diner/sleeper car food will consist almost entirely of cold food options. If the trains ran on-time (like they should,) warm catering could work, but not when trains (especially the Empire Builder) run late, especially in intermediate points. If we're reheating food, then we're back to having staff to at least reheat food, and then why not just have a diner?

I'm not sold most passengers will like having only cold food options or convenience-store level hot food items on journeys of longer than a few hours.

I feel like the dining cars should be kept on select routes... but if Amtrak would get out of the mindset that Dining Cars are necessary for sleepers, and that sleepers are necessary for over night trains... then I think we could have more service and a more profitable railroad. If the Palmetto was extended to Miami... people would still ride it. I wish we could have overnight coach trains in addition to the sleeper trains.

Sleepers, last I remember hearing, require less subsidy per passenger mile than a coach passenger. People will still be able to ride coach overnight, but unless there's an equipment shortage of just sleepers and that's the only reason Amtrak isn't extending a service, sleepers should at least be an option. (If we're subsidizing them significantly more than we are coach passengers, then we should re-evaluate it, but right now that isn't the case.)

EDIT: Source for subsidy difference

 

[cirdan]

At least with the rise of the open Internet, we have soapboxes (like this one!). In the Age of TV and Radio, we didn't, and advertising was completely dominant over, well, real information.

This is probably why so many companies are so hostile to "net neutrality", the idea that we should be able to get to whatever website we want at the same speed.

Back in the day we had some decent newspapers that were put together by seasoned and undaunted journalists who still earned that job title. They asked critical questions and sought to cut through the smoke and mirrors. Of course not everybody had a soapbox, but some pretty intelligent people had a good soapbox. The erosion of print media and the move from user-payed media to advertising-payed media means that everything is done as cheaply as possible and good journalism is ancient history.

 

[cirdan]

A northeastern Senator should bring a counter proposal, requiring the same of aircrafts, including subsidies for airports, ATC, etc.

I'm sure this amendment going after LD services has NOTHING to do with this...

US Airways

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

US Airways is a major U.S. airline owned by the US Airways Group, headquartered in Tempe, Arizona.

Well, you're probably not that far off base:

http://votesmart.org/candidate/campaign-finance/28128/jeff-flake#.UfMGfUDVBsk

My take on it was that it's coming from someone with zero professional experience outside of politics. Looking at his resume, it would seem that's also right.

The bill to require that pets be allowed to ride trains will make it farther than this trash.

I don't think the major airlines have an axe to grind with Amtrak. Even if Amtrak disappeared tomorrow, the extra passengers the airlines would see (other than the NEC) would hardly be noticeable.

 

[dlagrua]

Almost all of the sleeper passengers use the dining car. On the Autotrain, everyone on the entire train uses the dining cars. If you pull the dining cars I would estimate that fare revenues would be substantially reduced. Many travelers, including ourselves, would stop traveling long distance and really now how much money will be saved? Will it have a noticeable effect on reducing the deficit? In the grand scheme of things we are talking about chump change.