Sleeping car meals on 27/28

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M

MSP_Train_Hopper

Train Attendant
Joined
Jan 17, 2012
Messages
53
My wife and I are going to be traveling MSP to PDX in the next couple days. I've done the route quite a few times in coach but this will be my first time in a sleeper car. She has only taken coach too, but just to her family's place in North Dakota.

What is the food like for the SPK - PDX legs? I've heard that boxed meals are loaded on from restaurants in Spokane or Portland. Are there a couple choices for the meals?
 
When taking 28 departing PDX, those boxed dinners are prepared by one of Portland's restaurants, and I consider then one of the best meals on Amtrak! Your SCA will ask you which you want and give it to you when leaving PDX. However, they only load as many as there are in the sleeper, so you may not get your first choice, but none are bad.

It's been awhile since I've taken 27, but I had to walk to the SSL to get my breakfast box from the café. It was nothing to write home about, but it was acceptable.
 
Strongly agree with the_traveler. When I traveled east on the Builder a few years ago, the Box Supper was amazingly good for being a cold meal. And we even got a small bottle of champagne to go with it (but that has gone by the wayside with the service cuts). And if you want a little more room when you eat, feel free to take your meal up to one of the tables in the Sightseer Lounge.

I do not know about the westbound breakfast, but from everything I have heard and read, it is nowhere near as good.
 
Ditto on the delicious boxed dinner on #28, and the fair to midling breakfast on #27 out of SPK! ( but the Columbia River scenery from the Sightseers Lounge as the Sun comes up makes up for it!)
 
the_traveler said:
When taking 28 departing PDX, those boxed dinners are prepared by one of Portland's restaurants, and I consider then one of the best meals on Amtrak! Your SCA will ask you which you want and give it to you when leaving PDX. However, they only load as many as there are in the sleeper, so you may not get your first choice, but none are bad.

It's been awhile since I've taken 27, but I had to walk to the SSL to get my breakfast box from the café. It was nothing to write home about, but it was acceptable.
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American lets its first-class passengers pre-order a meal up to 24 hours before departure. To mitigate the possibility of running out of things, I wonder if Amtrak could adopt something along these lines, especially for the trips where there'll only be one breakfast, lunch and dinner. Longer trips, I imagine, would present some difficulties with the concept, I suppose.
 
I took 28 a couple of months back - there were three options for the cold, boxed dinner. Beef, chicken, or shrimp. I opted for chicken. It was an excellent boxed meal. It has been about four years since I've headed west on 27, the boxed breakfast from the Sightseer Lounge was fine, but nothing special.
 
The boxed breakfast on #27 is from Havre, MT, not Spokane.

It's usually a breakfast croissant sandwich, fruit cup and a yogurt. A beverage is provided from the lounge car's stock.
 
Palmetto said:
Why Havre? The dining car is on the train at Havre.
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Restaurants open at train time and one of them went for the contract. Would there be any other reasons?How about logistics, havre has very open platform access, as most of Montana does, and allows a trailer to be backed right up to the lounge car to offload, whereas Spokane has an elevated right of way with an island platform that doesn't allow easy access for deliveries.
 
CCC1007 said:
Palmetto said:
Why Havre? The dining car is on the train at Havre.
Click to expand...
Restaurants open at train time and one of them went for the contract. Would there be any other reasons?How about logistics, havre has very open platform access, as most of Montana does, and allows a trailer to be backed right up to the lounge car to offload, whereas Spokane has an elevated right of way with an island platform that doesn't allow easy access for deliveries.
Click to expand...
They also load on what looks to be a pretty good Big Sky Picnic Chicken Dinner at Havre and sell it in the Lounge, mainly to Coach pax.
 
OlympianHiawatha said:
CCC1007 said:
Palmetto said:
Why Havre? The dining car is on the train at Havre.
Click to expand...
Restaurants open at train time and one of them went for the contract. Would there be any other reasons?How about logistics, havre has very open platform access, as most of Montana does, and allows a trailer to be backed right up to the lounge car to offload, whereas Spokane has an elevated right of way with an island platform that doesn't allow easy access for deliveries.
Click to expand...
They also load on what looks to be a pretty good Big Sky Picnic Chicken Dinner at Havre and sell it in the Lounge, mainly to Coach pax.
Click to expand...
I've never had the Chicken Dinner as I'm always in a Sleeper on the Builder but passengers and Crew have told me its pretty good and for sure a nice change from the junk food in the Cafe and the Bland, Overpriced "New" National items in the Diner.
 

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