No Coach food on 19(12)

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Rasputin said:
I understand that the Crescent No. 19(12) was largely unable to provide coach passengers with any cafe food due to a staff shortage and a cash register meltdown.

Further information would be welcome and maybe it was not as bad as it seems (but on Amtrak it usually is.)
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I have seen similar reports elsewhere, so something definitely go pear shaped that day.
 
We had something similar happen on the Lake Shore on November 13/14, 49(13).

The cafe announced a limited selection available because the car hadn't been restocked. The Boston cars, including the cafe, had gone to New York. That was cited as the reason (so what happened with Sunnyside's commissary?).

Then, overnight, the electrical service failed in the cafe. So there was no service in the cafe at all. The cafe attendant announced bags of Cheezits were available in the coaches, and coach passengers could get coffee to go from the diner.

At least the Lake Shore had a diner.
 
Devil's Advocate said:
Why not simply teach adults how to handle elementary school math? It's amazing what passes for a Superpower these days.
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Sure they can preform the transactions manually with basic math, however some bean counter is going to want to see the receipts of everything that was sold after the register fails. So unless you want the cafe attendant writing tons of paper receipts a mpos would work. Also the MPOS would be on it's own secured network and can still take cash and debit/card. Hopefully everything is priced in the full dollar amount so you don't have to worry about change.

Work smarter, not harder.


(Yes. I do agree with you)
 
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Simple. Amtrak cares more about saving nickles and dimes than about making money so they fail to provide sufficient food and amenities in cafes, can't figure out how to sell them without 18th Century systems, and could care less about customer relations on board their trains. If they had vending machines, they'd never be refilled and the items would be growing mold. If they contracted it out, they'd find the lowest bidder who'd hire someone that couldn't find the items. They haven't got the brains to pre-stock non-perishables at certain locations.

Hell, they can't even reliably stock the sleeper diner at it's starting location even though they know how many and what people are in each room for how long.

Amtrak runs its food service like the incompetents they are.
 
The LSA is financial responsible for the food. So selling with out a cash register is possible, though I am sure not given out a receipt would be a problem for someone at Amtrak.

Food service improvement is the new guy thing at Amtrak. So now that he been promoted, it will get improved. Or not.
 
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Devil's Advocate said:
Why not simply teach adults how to handle elementary school math? It's amazing what passes for a Superpower these days.
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How are they going to handle credit card sales (which I think is now all on-board sales)?

Yeah, in the old days, they didn't verify the card over the phone/wireless/internet/whatever, they just ran a copy through a mechanical reader and gave the customer a carbon copy. Before that the salesclerk had to look through a big book that had lists of problematic credit card numbers. They might also do a manual visual check of the customer to see if the customer's presented gender matched the apparent gender of the cardholder's name, though my Mom would give me her credit cards so I could shop for school, and the stores never gave me any problems.

Anyway, all that stuff is gone. The cards don't even have the numbers and names embossed so they'll imprint on one of the old manual card readers, there are no books of problem accounts. In other words, everything is electronic, and when the system goes down, it goes down. I'm not even sure how they handle transactions in those parts of the country where there's no cell coverage.
 
MARC Rider said:
How are they going to handle credit card sales (which I think is now all on-board sales)?
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The expectation of being able to purchase food is reasonable. Giving customers the option to pay with cash when cards are down is a reasonable accommodation. The implication that all sales should cease just because electronic payments are down punishes those who plan for outages and interruptions.
 
I thought someone said in an earlier thread that whatever device they are using just stores transaction data locally when there's no cell service, until it can be uploaded. For the dollar amounts we're talking about in the cafe, a couple of bogus card transactions won't run the company into bankruptcy.

If the power goes out, Amtrak should just distribute bottled water and snacks for free as customer recovery. IMHO, bags of Cheezits fit the bill.
 
joelkfla said:
I thought someone said in an earlier thread that whatever device they are using just stores transaction data locally when there's no cell service, until it can be uploaded. For the dollar amounts we're talking about in the cafe, a couple of bogus card transactions won't run the company into bankruptcy.

If the power goes out, Amtrak should just distribute bottled water and snacks for free as customer recovery. IMHO, bags of Cheezits fit the bill.
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Cheezits are really good. We discovered this a couple weeks ago when the Acela lounge in DC supplied them for free. But trail mix would be better - more protein. In our fear of Cafe Car meltdowns, we traveled with many Kind bars and even some Mary Jane's camper bag foods and mini kettle. Didn't have to use any of that. So, does Amtrak reimburse sleeper customers for missed meals?
 
me_little_me said:
Simple. Amtrak cares more about saving nickles and dimes than about making money so they fail to provide sufficient food and amenities in cafes, can't figure out how to sell them without 18th Century systems, and could care less about customer relations on board their trains.
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Cute, but if they actually didn't give a flying ... fig like some insist hyperbolically, they'd end cafe service altogether except on state-sponsored trains where the state insists on it. It doesn't make money, lots of people bring food and drinks with them anyway for corridor trips of a few hours, and vendors like the El Paso burrito lady would pop up in more places, especially smoke stops, if "forced" demand (buy from a station vendor or don't eat) was there.
 
We always pack food to survive, just in case. We’ve been on a few trains where the cafe was shut down for various reasons. We sit there at our seats, comfortably eating our food, while the starving passengers around us give us evil looks like we are part of the 1% or something. How dare we show up prepared and responsible for our own well being.
 
Devil's Advocate said:
The expectation of being able to purchase food is reasonable. Giving customers the option to pay with cash when cards are down is a reasonable accommodation. The implication that all sales should cease just because electronic payments are down punishes those who plan for outages and interruptions.
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Amtrak is currently taking cash payments onboard and has been again for a few months now.

The issue here is the cash register failure, not the card only policy that is no longer in effect.

Until what seems like just a few years ago, Amtrak did not use cash registers onboard and the LSAs used what amounted to a cigar box. Control was accomplished through inefficiently matching inventory to receipts manually. There was a LOT of "leakage" and revenue lost to Amtrak. The Inspector General's office called it out and required installation of cash registers.

They are not going back to the cigar box method.

What is needed is the least sophisticated system possible that can run on standby batteries and does not require bluetooth (used for credit card integration) or a network connection to be functional. The credit card handling should not be integrated directly to the register, so the register can function for cash purchases in almost all cases.

In other words, follow the KISS principle and not over-engineer it. The new cash register/card handling system I saw on my November trip is clearly over-engineered, with the card/register integration using bluetooth proving troublesome repeatedly on various trains with different LSAs.
 
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I just took a NEC trip last week. I brought breakfast with me because after one disaster of a trip with the cafe car shut down for over 4 hours, I will never make that mistake again. Now oddly enough, I brought drinks, because I forgot business class came with free drinks, since I was a last-minute upgrade. As for cash, I tried to pay with cash and the attendant just pointed at a card reader from behind his sneeze shield. He did have a tip box full of cash, so I guess tips are not infectious.
 
John Bredin said:
Cute, but if they actually didn't give a flying ... fig like some insist hyperbolically, they'd end cafe service altogether except on state-sponsored trains where the state insists on it. It doesn't make money, lots of people bring food and drinks with them anyway for corridor trips of a few hours, and vendors like the El Paso burrito lady would pop up in more places, especially smoke stops, if "forced" demand (buy from a station vendor or don't eat) was there.
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I've bought food from local vendors, but it is hard to find people in higher income communities who will put up with waiting for delayed trains. It works best where better jobs are not available or where service is punctual.

1979 111.jpg
 
John Bredin said:
Cute, but if they actually didn't give a flying ... fig like some insist hyperbolically, they'd end cafe service altogether except on state-sponsored trains where the state insists on it. It doesn't make money, lots of people bring food and drinks with them anyway for corridor trips of a few hours, and vendors like the El Paso burrito lady would pop up in more places, especially smoke stops, if "forced" demand (buy from a station vendor or don't eat) was there.
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Amtrak certainly cares enough to provide food service but they don't care enough to provide a solution when things go awry. I imagine that on-board employees are given no direction about what to do when these things happen. At least that is the impression that I get. If someone knows the exact protocol (if any) that Amtrak has, then corrections would certainly be welcome. I don't know if such situations are covered in the Amtrak service manual or not (and unfortunately I haven't had a chance to look).
 
I always bring some food and drink when I get on an Amtrak train, but many simply won't know they could be stuck without food if things go wrong.
Giving away free food to hungry passengers seems the kind thing to do if payment options fail?
I have been a coach passenger in the past, when the diner failed, free food was brought to the train from KFC...
 
desertflyer said:
Another group of passengers unlikely to use Amtrak in the future. Ugh.
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Maybe a few hungry people - many people who do shorter trips don't even bother with the cafe car or bring their own food - the cafe car is rather pricey if you're on a budget. Remember that not everyone is riding overnight especially in coach. The few that did were probably not happy.
 
John Bredin said:
Cute, but if they actually didn't give a flying ... fig like some insist hyperbolically, they'd end cafe service altogether except on state-sponsored trains where the state insists on it. It doesn't make money, lots of people bring food and drinks with them anyway for corridor trips of a few hours, and vendors like the El Paso burrito lady would pop up in more places, especially smoke stops, if "forced" demand (buy from a station vendor or don't eat) was there.
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They don't give a fig. I'm sure the only thing stopping them would be the massive complaints to congress critters by constituents and then the critters would shove the problem down Amtrak management's throats.

Amtrak management is simply too incompetent, too uncaring, too matter-of-fact about how they treat their paying customers. Simple as that. They don't have any concept of customer service whatsoever.
 
AFS1970 said:
I just took a NEC trip last week. I brought breakfast with me because after one disaster of a trip with the cafe car shut down for over 4 hours, I will never make that mistake again. Now oddly enough, I brought drinks, because I forgot business class came with free drinks, since I was a last-minute upgrade. As for cash, I tried to pay with cash and the attendant just pointed at a card reader from behind his sneeze shield. He did have a tip box full of cash, so I guess tips are not infectious.
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Wait, I thought the cafe cars were accepting cash as of a couple months ago?
 

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