pre-Amtrak dining

[Bonser]

Does anyone know if meals were included in the Pullman fare in the pre-Amtrak days? Or did everyone just pay ala carte? Also, were coach passengers allowed in the dining car? Thanks in advance for any info on this.

 

[Steve4031]

They were not included.

 

[MARC Rider]

Coach passengers were allowed in the dining car. At least I was when I ate breakfast in a NEC dining car on the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1963.

My only other dining car experience pre-Amtrak was on the Denver Zephyr (CB&Q), and that was a charter with the Scouts, and, presumably, dinner and breakfast were included in the fare. And we were not served in the regular dining car, nor did we get the regular dining car menu. I seem to recall that the food, while marginally edible, made Amstew taste good. But that was my recollection of all of the institutional food we got traveling with the Scouts (except when we had breakfast at the cafeteria at Fort Carson. That Army food was pretty good.)

 

[mmcpparties]

FQUOTE="MARC Rider, post: 829008, member: 5030"]Coach passengers were allowed in the dining car. At least I was when I ate breakfast in a NEC dining car on the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1963.

My only other dining car experience pre-Amtrak was on the Denver Zephyr (CB&Q), and that was a charter with the Scouts, and, presumably, dinner and breakfast were included in the fare. And we were not served in the regular dining car, nor did we get the regular dining car menu. I seem to recall that the food, while marginally edible, made Amstew taste good. But that was my recollection of all of the institutional food we got traveling with the Scouts (except when we had breakfast at the cafeteria at Fort Carson. That Army food was pretty good.)[/QUOTE]
Wow. I remember the breakfast at Ft Carson also. Was heading to Philmont back in the day.

 

[Rasputin]

My experience pre-Amtrak was in the late 1960s which was after the Pullman days. Dining car meals were not included in the sleeping car fare and were extra. Coach passengers were always welcome in the dining car and I never recall any practice of sleeping car passengers having to be fed first or given any preference in the dining car over coach passengers. Most of my trips back then were as a coach passenger.

The same goes for my trips in the first few years of Amtrak.

On Canadian National in the 1960s and 1970s, meals were included in the sleeping car fare but coach passengers were always welcome in the dining car. Sleeping car passengers did not have the option of purchasing sleeping car space which did not include the meals.

I believe that Canadian Pacific and maybe some U.S. railroads may have offered sleeping car passengers the option of buying an all inclusive plan or just paying for the transportation.

 

[Bob Dylan]

I dont recall any Class Is in the US that offered Optional Meal Plans to Sleeping Car Passengers.( Disclaimer: I didnt ride All of the Many Roads that used to exist)

AFAIK everything was a LA Carte in the Diner,but there were Lunch Specials in the Cafes that had Counter Meals. I recall having a Lunch of a Ham and Cheese Sandwich,Mac n Cheese and a Glass of Milk for 75 Cents as a Kid on a Santa Fe Train.

The Best Breakast I ever had on the Rails was on the Southern Crescent between Atlanta and Washington, the Best Lunch was on the Super Chief,and the Best Dinner was on the Panama Ltd. between Chicago and New Orleans.

Of course Amtrak had a la Carte meals in the Diners up until the 90s (with Coach Passengers welcome up until recent times) when Meals became Included in Sleeper Fares.

 

[railiner]

Some of the premier trains on some roads had separate diner’s for Pullman or coach passengers. Also separate lounges.

This was often the case when previously all-Pullman, and all-coach streamliner’s, were combined into one long train, but not all cases...

 

[Bob Dylan]

Some of the premier trains on some roads had separate diner’s for Pullman or coach passengers. Also separate lounges.

This was often the case when previously all-Pullman, and all-coach streamliner’s, were combined into one long train, but not all cases...

Never got to eat in the Turquoise Room on the Super Chief, but the Lounges and most of the Diners were really good, and even the Lunch Counter served excellent food!

Worst meals I ever had on a US Train was the New and Contemporary Boxed crapola on the Cap Ltd. when this moronic idea First started!
( even worse than the Automat Cars on the SP during the "run 'em off/train off" days!!")

 

[jiml]

On Canadian National in the 1960s and 1970s, meals were included in the sleeping car fare but coach passengers were always welcome in the dining car. Sleeping car passengers did not have the option of purchasing sleeping car space which did not include the meals.

Definitely confirm this. Not that much has changed under VIA; although they have experimented on and off with budget sleeper fares that did not include meals, all currently do - and coach passengers can still use the diner if space is available after all sleeper reservations have been taken. (There are sometimes two dining cars on peak-season Canadians as well.) One direction on my recent Ocean trip had a clear delineation between the sleeper and coach sections of the diner, but the other was wide-open.

 

[zephyr17]

No, dining was not included in sleeping car/Pullman fares. For one thing, the Pullman company got the the accommodation charge and not the railroad and most diners were railroad operated, not Pullman operated (although the rr got the First Class rail fare).

Second, Amtrak didn't introduce it until the 1980s and sleeping car accommodation charges were increased by a very close approximation of the price of meals for 2 when they did it. I was riding and remember being quite PO'd about it. It was actually done to boost dining car revenue. Many sleeper passengers were not eating all meals in the diner, and it was a way to funnel revenue to the diners regardless.

Finally, some railroads such as passenger-friendly Santa Fe offered an add on package that included meals. Santa Fe marketed it as the "One Price Ticket". As I recall, on the Super Chief the One Price Ticket was good for anything on the menu except the Champagne Dinner.

When a train carried one diner, generally all passengers were allowed to eat there, although many trains would carry a second dining option with more limited selection and lower prices such as a lunch counter diner. Some trains, such as Santa Fe's Super Chief/El Capitan, carried two diners. There were actually 3 food service venues on the Super Chief/El Cap, the Super Chief diner, the El Cap diner, and the Kachina Coffee Shop on the lower level of the El Cap lounge (for those familiar with their later incarnation as the Pacific Parlour Car, the Coffee Shop was in the space used as the movie theater). The Super Chief/El Cap from a service perspective was operated as two separate trains that happened to be coupled together and coach passengers were strictly not allowed in the Super Chief section.

 

[railiner]

The Super Chief and the El Capitan is an example of what I referred to...One time separate all-Pullman and all-coach streamliners that when business slowed were combined into one train to cut operating costs. During peak seasons, they were separated again, until finally permanently combined.

The El Capitan used Hi-Level equipment, including a 12 wheeled diner, with the galley on the lower level, and a full length dining room on the upper level. Adjoining it was the “Top of the Cap” lounge car, with dome-like ceiling windows, a bar, and a news stand at one end. On the lower level was the “Kachina Coffee Shop”.
The rear Hi-Level chair car (like the front one), was a Transition car, to allow the operating crew (only), access to the single level Super Chief section. The Super Chief carried a 36 seat diner, who’s galley also served the Turquoise Room, contained in the adjacent “Pleasure Dome Lounge car. The Turquoise Room could serve as overflow space for the diner, or could be reserved for private parties. The dome offered rotating observation seats. Below the dome was a sunken lounge area. Forward of this was another lounge area, including a writing desk.

 

[Larry H.]

We rode the Canadian National from Toronto to Vancouver the month before Amtrak took over. And as sleeper passengers we got free meals. My feeling was that since you didn't pay and they discouraged tipping the food service was pretty poor. In fact they had mostly the same menu for three days going out. After that we switched our return trip to the Empire Builder instead of returning though Canada. I will never regret that, the Empire Builder even as they wanted to drop all passenger service still took pride in having fresh fish from Seattle other local items in what for the time was a very lovely diner with etched glass panels that divided the car in three places. The service was excellent. They also ran the coffee shop kind of car for coach passengers if they wanted a little less formal setting. It had a long counter with stools and a few tables. The whole train interior was filled with indian designed painted walls. It made for a very interesting ride. That is one of the biggest things other than the now sad diner situation that I really miss. Booking a trip on a name train used to mean you would have a different lay out and designs to the interior and usually the exterior . Now its all the same somewhat shabby double level car with little to no design excellence.

 

[jis]

We rode the Canadian National from Toronto to Vancouver the month before Amtrak took over.

Surely you meant to say VIA took over? Amtrak did not ever take over that service you mention.

 

[zephyr17]

CN from Vancouver to Toronto was not taken over by Amtrak. Ever.

VIA Rail Canada was established in 1977, 6 years after Amtrak.

CN innovated in their passenger services in the last years in order to maintain ridership, and including meals may well have been one of those innovations. However, assuming it happened, and I have no reason to doubt it, it still was not the standard, traditional railroad practice. And VIA undid it. Meals were not included on VIA sleeper fares in the 1980s when I rode VIA all over Canada.

 

[jiml]

Even after the transition to VIA the various routes were not standardized for quite some time. If you were on a former CN train the food was always inferior to former CP, and of course the latter had the better-looking diners - not unlike those described a couple of posts back. CN's had much more of a cafeteria vibe.

 

[JRR]

No, dining was not included in sleeping car/Pullman fares. For one thing, the Pullman company got the the accommodation charge and not the railroad and most diners were railroad operated, not Pullman operated (although the rr got the First Class rail fare).

Second, Amtrak didn't introduce it until the 1980s and sleeping car accommodation charges were increased by a very close approximation of the price of meals for 2 when they did it. I was riding and remember being quite PO'd about it. It was actually done to boost dining car revenue. Many sleeper passengers were not eating all meals in the diner, and it was a way to funnel revenue to the diners regardless.

Finally, some railroads such as passenger-friendly Santa Fe offered an add on package that included meals. Santa Fe marketed it as the "One Price Ticket". As I recall, on the Super Chief the One Price Ticket was good for anything on the menu except the Champagne Dinner.

When a train carried one diner, generally all passengers were allowed to eat there, although many trains would carry a second dining option with more limited selection and lower prices such as a lunch counter diner. Some trains, such as Santa Fe's Super Chief/El Capitan, carried two diners. There were actually 3 food service venues on the Super Chief/El Cap, the Super Chief diner, the El Cap diner, and the Kachina Coffee Shop on the lower level of the El Cap lounge (for those familiar with their later incarnation as the Pacific Parlour Car, the Coffee Shop was in the space used as the movie theater). The Super Chief/El Cap from a service perspective was operated as two separate trains that happened to be coupled together and coach passengers were strictly not allowed in the Super Chief section.

Your point about diner revenue for non eaten meals is one I have been talking about for some time.

AMTRAK doesn’t seem to have a clue about proper accounting.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

Surely you meant to say VIA took over? Amtrak did not ever take over that service you mention.

Maybe he was saying after Amtrak took over the US trains and was comparing his Canadian trip to his now Amtrak trip on the Empire Builder. ‍

 

[jiml]

One point, alluded to by Larry H, that should not be lost on a forum of Amtrak fans was how much better the food on Amtrak was than early VIA too. We took our first fully-VIA LD trip in 1978. I imagine it compared very closely to the first days of Amtrak, but Amtrak had found "its legs" by 1978 and this was most obvious in the food quality and variety.

 

[MARC Rider]

In the summer of 1975 I rode the Merchants Limited a few times between Philadelphia and New York. I would get a diner meal between Trenton and Newark. The menu was pretty simple (fish, chicken, or steak), the food was good, but plain, and the service was fast and efficient. They served on fresh linens and used the old PRR silver and china. Pricing was for a complete meal. ($2 for fish, $3 for chicken, and $8 for steak) I think beverages and dessert may have been extra.

 

[railiner]

The very early years of Amtrak was a time of rapid changes. The first year or two, the menu’s and services were pretty much a carryover of what the “host railroads” offered immediately prior to Amtrak, and on their former equipment as well. So there was a wide range of service.

One of Amtrak’s first priorities at the time was to quickly “homogenise” and standardise the product offered and create parity nationally. This resulted in improvement for some, but a downgrade for others...

 

[sttom]

I know it's cited in some documentaries that on the Coast Daylight, the coffee shop made enough to cover the cost of the crews wages in transit. From what my grandpa told me about SP trains, the food service prior to 1960 was far superior to anything he's had on Amtrak. But no, food was generally not included in the fare prior to Amtrak.

Also food quality not only varied by railroad, but by class of train. Food was generally cheaper and less luxurious on the Challenger than it was on the City of San Francisco since the Challenger was the budget train of it's day. And the Lark had full dining service whereas a second class train might only have a coffee shop.

And that's not to say a SP coffee shop was equivalent to a cafe car on Amtrak. You could still get something like a burger or other simple hot meals at for less than a full meal. From my experience, the cafe car offers nothing like what was said to be offered in the past. A second point to this is that distance didn't affect dining service tiers for some railroads. The Daylight was a first class train and had a full triple section dining car, a second class train traveling the same route didn't. And local trains would only have non heated and non refrigerated foods. My grandpa told me that when riding the Senator (the SP predecessor to the Capitol Corridor) all they had was coffee and pre packaged snacks like Cracker Jack's.

 

[Maglev]

On Canadian National in the 1960s and 1970s, meals were included in the sleeping car fare but coach passengers were always welcome in the dining car. Sleeping car passengers did not have the option of purchasing sleeping car space which did not include the meals.

When my family took Canadian National's Super Continental from Montreal to Vancouver in 1975, our sleeper fare did not include meals. We only ate one meal in the dining car, and I remember having a delicious roast beef.

 

[Bob Dylan]

I know it's cited in some documentaries that on the Coast Daylight, the coffee shop made enough to cover the cost of the crews wages in transit. From what my grandpa told me about SP trains, the food service prior to 1960 was far superior to anything he's had on Amtrak. But no, food was generally not included in the fare prior to Amtrak.

Also food quality not only varied by railroad, but by class of train. Food was generally cheaper and less luxurious on the Challenger than it was on the City of San Francisco since the Challenger was the budget train of it's day. And the Lark had full dining service whereas a second class train might only have a coffee shop.

And that's not to say a SP coffee shop was equivalent to a cafe car on Amtrak. You could still get something like a burger or other simple hot meals at for less than a full meal. From my experience, the cafe car offers nothing like what was said to be offered in the past. A second point to this is that distance didn't affect dining service tiers for some railroads. The Daylight was a first class train and had a full triple section dining car, a second class train traveling the same route didn't. And local trains would only have non heated and non refrigerated foods. My grandpa told me that when riding the Senator (the SP predecessor to the Capitol Corridor) all they had was coffee and pre packaged snacks like Cracker Jack's.

My Grandpa,a 40 year SP Hand told me the same things, and my years of riding SP Trains up until A Day found all this to be Spot on!

 

[zephyr17]

SP Coffee Shop service was actually very roughly equivalent to current Amtrak dining car service. It was sit down service with full meals and waitstaff. The main difference between Coffee Shop and Dining service was it served a more limited menu (still more extensive than Amtrak's dining cars) at a generally lower price point, and they used placemats instead of table linens.

SP also had their Hamburger Grill cars which were counter service but the burgers were still cooked to order.

However, SP also developed their infamous Automat car which ultimately displaced dining and coffee shop service on every train except the Cascade and the City of San Francisco. Coffee Shop service was returned to the Sunset along with sleeping cars in 1970 under an agreement with the ICC under which SP agreed to return dining and sleeping car services to the train in return for ICC approval to reduce frequency to tri-weekly.

It was all a part of SP's strategy to drive off patronage on their trains in order to get ICC and Cal PUC approval for discontinuance petitions. A strategy that Richard Anderson appears to be adopting.

 

[sttom]

I don't think Anderson believes ruining the experience will drive passengers away from Amtrak like the SP did. It's more likely that he cares only about cost cutting and truly believed that Amtrak's numbers are correct even though they are somewhere between fudged and fraudulent. Delta is still around after his leadership, so will Amtrak. Congress has made it clear it won't let Amtrak die, but that it will let hair brained experiments go more or less unchecked so long as the network isn't dismantled.

As for SP food service, I do think something akin to a coffee shop should be on some trains. It would make sense. But the SP is sadly long gone like it's glorious Daylights.