downgraded place settings?

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tommylicious

OBS Chief
Joined
Sep 9, 2013
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599
what's this I hear about downgraded place settings in dining cars? i did a search to little avail. thanks for your help.
 
No more flower on the table by the window; and thin plastic plates... kind of like eating (can one actually eat there vs merely survive) at McDonalds now... part of the motivation of the bringing food on the train and/or having food from outside being brought to the train tread. ... up until last year looked forward to at least one dining car meal; after this last CZ trip: now looking forward to arranging to have food brought to the train at a smoke stop. Sadly.... but the Mica's of the world should be happy - they've succeeded in cheapening the Amtrak experience.
 
You will have a paper place mat for breakfast and lunch. Not a single flower on the table. Sometimes a tablecloth for dinner. Its all part of the assinine Amtrak plan to give the highest paying customers less. There will be less alright. Less trips from this end.
 
On the Southwest Chief and Capitol Limited we just traveled on, they had a tablecloth down with sheets of white paper over them. The Cardinal just had the white sheets of paper.

Past years, they were using paper table cloths.
 
The SWC has always had plastic plates (since I started riding in 2010 anyway), so that change doesn't bother me. I care more about the food than plastic versus china.

I always thought the flowers were fake since I never touched them, so that change surprised me, only because I didn't know they were real. I won't miss them. One less thing on the table is good - less clutter.

Besides, Amtrak food is sort of like diner food, so I thought the flowers were kind of silly. They don't put flowers on the table at Applebee's.

Anyway, if you do a search for "amenities", you'll find about eleven million threads debating this. It was like Flowergate 2014 for a while there.
 
Just raise prices and provide a better product. What's really killing Amtrak financially is legacy pension costs. They are truly massive.
 
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The Whistler said:
You will have a paper place mat for breakfast and lunch. Not a single flower on the table. Sometimes a tablecloth for dinner. Its all part of the assinine Amtrak plan to give the highest paying customers less. There will be less alright. Less trips from this end.
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This most recent trip was the first Amtrak trip for the wife... and after seeing this new cheapened down Amtrak, she wanted to know why I was so enthused about flying Amtrak... I found that I was hard pressed to justify such this time. The next trip in a couple of weeks she has already said that she's not interested in going on. Oh well... the Mica's of the world, unable to make the world a better place, have to do their part in tearing it down.
 
SarahZ said:
The SWC has always had plastic plates (since I started riding in 2010 anyway), so that change doesn't bother me. I care more about the food than plastic versus china.

I always thought the flowers were fake since I never touched them, so that change surprised me, only because I didn't know they were real. I won't miss them. One less thing on the table is good - less clutter.

Besides, Amtrak food is sort of like diner food, so I thought the flowers were kind of silly. They don't put flowers on the table at Applebee's.

Anyway, if you do a search for "amenities", you'll find about eleven million threads debating this. It was like Flowergate 2014 for a while there.
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I can partially share that view, ie, I've eaten in some real rat hole looking places, simply because the food was that over the top good... but this last time the steak was near-leather like; the cheesecake was available, but they had run out of the topping (this was 6 hrs into the CZ's run), etc. Though I find it ironic, or maybe reassuring, in that on the first night they had run out of dinner seating time slots and anyone w/o an assigned time was simply put on a wait list; for the second night one could pick their seating time - and this was with more people on the train... what's the expression: fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me?
 
tommylicious said:
Just raise prices and provide a better product. What's really killing Amtrak financially is legacy pension costs. They are truly massive.
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Tommy, please search the forum for the "amenities" threads. You'll see long, detailed discussions about finances and such.
 
I agree with Sarah, flowers and china do not make the meal. I think the food is still good and I can live with the plastic plates and paper place mats, still nice to have real napkins and importantly good and friendly service.
 
To the OP, there are drama queens who use this topic to get their partisan rant on. SarahZ has a pretty grounded view of the whole thing.
 
The last time we took Amtrak to Florida, the dining car staff was far from efficient or friendly. Not Amtrak's best showing.
 
First of all, Sarah, how dare you demean thousands of excellent diners around the country, who serve superb food at good prices, by comparing them to Applebee's. Applebee's, Bob's Big Boy, Denny's, and others of that ilk are NOT diners. They are Slow-Food Restaurants, much more closely related to truck stops. They serve bland, salty, food barely better than fast food, but do it slowly.

I do agree with comparing Amtrak to diner food.

I like china plates, but I think that what Amtrak is doing is sad, but not particularly important.
 
Green Maned Lion said:
First of all, Sarah, how dare you demean thousands of excellent diners around the country, who serve superb food at good prices, by comparing them to Applebee's. Applebee's, Bob's Big Boy, Denny's, and others of that ilk are NOT diners. They are Slow-Food Restaurants, much more closely related to truck stops. They serve bland, salty, food barely better than fast food, but do it slowly.

I do agree with comparing Amtrak to diner food.

I like china plates, but I think that what Amtrak is doing is sad, but not particularly important.
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It wasn't meant to be a direct comparison, to be honest. I should have separated the sentence into a new paragraph. I love diners, so that was a compliment to Amtrak.

Applebee's... not so much. :p
 
There are folks to whom the very basics are fantastic. There are those who feel at the prices, there should be some extra touches.

That is why there is vanilla and chocolate in the Ice Cream freezers at Braums.

Then there are those who appreciate Neapolitan. I liked the flower, don't need cloth table coverings, want metal utensils, and melamine plates would be just fine.

But anyone who says this nickle and diming tomfoolery is going to save routes or jobs is sadly mistaken. It is for show to the congresscritters.
 
As long as the food is good (and it usually is), I don't really care what the plates are made out of, or what the decorations are on the table. Sure, I'd prefer china plates, flowers, and real tablecloths, but if those are the cuts that Amtrak has to make based on the current climate, I'm OK with that. I'd rather see the above happen than portion reductions, significant selection cuts, or large reductions in quality.

I obviously wasn't around when Amtrak had better food service, so I don't really have a baseline of what things used to be like, but I've only once been disappointed with the food (a breakfast I had on the Cardinal a few weeks ago).
 
When cutting my steak, I want a steak knife that I wont cut through to the table, meaning a real plate. ;)

Bruce-SSR
 
I don't think that those plates are exactly flimsy. I've never almost cut through them. Perhaps you're being a bit overly aggressive towards your Amsteak? ;)
 
William W. said:
I don't think that those plates are exactly flimsy. I've never almost cut through them. Perhaps you're being a bit overly aggressive towards your Amsteak? ;)
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I was thinking if they cheapen the plates, not what they currently have.. or had last September ;)

Bruce-SSR
 
If the current plastic plates are replaced with something cheaper, and less sturdy, then I'd have to agree haha.
 
Unless the plates and bowls have changed in the past few months they are adequate provided you don't go on a Sword Swinging Melee with the knife. Of course I still haven't figured the economics behind the original decision to use them considering what I've heard from some of the LSAs on what they cost.
 
OlympianHiawatha said:
Unless the plates and bowls have changed in the past few months they are adequate provided you don't go on a Sword Swinging Melee with the knife. Of course I still haven't figured the economics behind the original decision to use them considering what I've heard from some of the LSAs on what they cost.
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Age check..... John Belushi Playing a samurai working in a deli ;)

Bruce-SSR
 
Silver Star rider said:
When cutting my steak, I want a steak knife that I wont cut through to the table, meaning a real plate. ;)

Bruce-SSR
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When cutting a steak, if I need a "steak knife," I probably don't want the steak ;-) when I have a rib-eye at home, if a regular dinner knife won't cut it easily, the butcher hears about it.
 
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