Getting there is half the fun (24 hour dining experiment)

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Saw this link over on Trainorders...perhaps this would work (again). I could find value in this if it were implemented on a train I was on.

Almost 20 years ago, there was a good solution which Amtrak experimented with to make its dining cars on long distance trains perform better financially: It was the 24-hour dining car on the Sunset Limited. This was accompanied by an onboard promotion of “When You’re Hungry, You’re Hungry” and promotional materials were placed in every coach seatback and sleeping car accommodation.

https://www.railwayage.com/passenger/intercity/getting-there-is-half-the-fun/

(Decided to start this as a new topic rather than include it in the "Fresh Choices" thread.)
 
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It's an interesting concept and, as presented, makes a lot of sense. But two things struck me: there's no discussion of why the experiment was reckoned a failure and the concept wasn't implemented, and the bio line at the end – "In the late 1990s, Richardson’s prior company operated the Sunset Limited and City of New Orleans Promotional Office under contract to Amtrak’s Gulf Coast Business Group".

I supposed one explanation could be "Amtrak always makes the wrong decision", but I don't buy it. I think there's more to the story than what a guy who was in charge of marketing the experiment might be inclined to include, or even know in the first place.
 
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It's a great story, but I can't say I recall that happening. Not saying it didn't, just that I cannot remember it.
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The only 24 hours food service car I recall on Amtrak, was on the old NEC, Night Owl...

I do love Cunard Lines old slogan: "Getting There Is Half The Fun"....

My answer to that is: "Coming Back Is The Other Half"....
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What a fantastic article. such a great idea and would be a runaway success even today. Wish Amtrak would try and be more innovative with ideas like this.

This in combination with more realistic wages could work - or is at least worth a try.
I don't think this is a good idea for the reason I've mentioned in various threads. You've overlooked two key points of that article:

In FY 1999, much more of the Superliner fleet was in use than today, and western transcontinental train consists were long. The Sunset always had a baggage car, crew car, at least two sleepers, diner, lounge, four coaches, and between San Antonio and Los Angeles, the through coach and sleeping car from the Texas Eagle. With a good load factor, it wasn’t unusual to have more than 350 passengers on the Sunset at any given time.
Since the Sunset (and most other trains) are much shorter than in previous years, you know longer have the numbers to support both services. These puny trains have undermined the need for the staffing levels required. Aside from the Silver Meteor and the pre-GCT Lake Shore Limited, most trains are down to three coaches and two sleepers. Typically, only one coach is used for long distance service while the rest are for shorter, regional travel.

Additionally, this was before the mandate that Amtrak eliminate the subsidy for F&B services. This is no longer a matter of reducing losses or improving costs. This is a matter of the subsidy not being used for any part of the F&B service. As such. this brings us to point two:

Longer, more leisurely meals meant the coach passengers who ate in the dining car spent more money. It was also important that the menu prices were considerably lower than those found today. The prices were comparable to a casual restaurant of the time, and a family traveling together could afford to eat in the dining car without expending most of their vacation food budget.

The booming business in the lounge car, which maintained normal hours from early morning to late evening, did not suffer with the 24-hour dining car.
Amtrak can no longer use the high volume/low cost method since you've limited the available pool and raised prices to an extreme level while cutting quality. There are plenty of people with expendable income utilizing Amtrak. However, there are plenty of people looking for cheap and convenient travel and in their particular neck of the woods, Amtrak is the answer. They aren't looking for food or an experience. they are looking to "get there."

It's an interesting concept and, as presented, makes a lot of sense. But two things struck me: there's no discussion of why the experiment was reckoned a failure and the concept wasn't implemented, and the bio line at the end – "In the late 1990s, Richardson’s prior company operated the Sunset Limited and City of New Orleans Promotional Office under contract to Amtrak’s Gulf Coast Business Group".

I supposed one explanation could be "Amtrak always makes the wrong decision", but I don't buy it. I think there's more to the story than what a guy who was in charge of marketing the experiment might be inclined to include, or even know in the first place.
During this time, Product Lines had wide latitude to improve their lines and products. A lot of great services and ideas came during this time, However, you had wild and fluctuating services and costs. This group may have eaten up 12% of the budget for 'this many"" riders while that group may have eaten up 14% of the budget for 'that many' riders. As such, passengers had wild and fluctuating experiences, particularly in divisions that didn't have much of a budget. Amtrak operated (and in some aspects still does) as 13 different companies that happened to have the same umbrella.

As expenses climbed, maintenance stopped and economic prospects deteriorated, product line empowerment was eliminated and "standard experience" took hold.

Still, it was great to see what happened when groups took charge and ownership of "their " train.
 
Fair enough - I didn’t consider the volume. Seems like just a matter of time and there will be no F&B employees left other than one very busy Lounge Attendant - with endless lines in the lounge car during open hours.
 
Fair enough - I didn’t consider the volume. Seems like just a matter of time and there will be no F&B employees left other than one very busy Lounge Attendant - with endless lines in the lounge car during open hours.
This is another example of OTP killing logical plans. At one point, they wanted to short turn select OBS personnel en route. There was also a period where they would double up cafe car attendants over certain portions of the route and short turn them back. They would assist the LSA and give them breaks and board another train.

More often than not, the meets didn't occur as planned. So, the program was scrapped.
 
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It's an interesting concept and, as presented, makes a lot of sense. But two things struck me: there's no discussion of why the experiment was reckoned a failure and the concept wasn't implemented, and the bio line at the end – "In the late 1990s, Richardson’s prior company operated the Sunset Limited and City of New Orleans Promotional Office under contract to Amtrak’s Gulf Coast Business Group".

I supposed one explanation could be "Amtrak always makes the wrong decision", but I don't buy it. I think there's more to the story than what a guy who was in charge of marketing the experiment might be inclined to include, or even know in the first place.
Bruce Richardson runs (or ran?) a group called United Rail Passenger Alliance. I don't know what their purpose ever was, other than to post weekly rants about everything they hated about Amtrak. They always made all sorts of fantastic claims about how long-distance trains were profitable, but never managed to produce any actual evidence supporting their claims. They just "said so" and expected the rest of the world to believe it.

Years ago, I read a discussion about the 24-hour dining car experiment (wish I could remember where I read it), and someone had some very good points about why it failed. Basically, I believe the long and short of it was that it required more staff (i.e. someone has to cover that overnight shift, and that means they probably won't be available for lunch/afternoon), and the actual demand for food at 3 a.m. is (unsurprisingly) not very high.

One thing that's telling (and, in fact, typical of Bruce Richardson/URPA's notes) is that he keeps saying it was "financially successful" but never, ever cites any actual numbers. We just have to take his word for it. Unfortunately, years ago I read his stuff on a regular basis (he posted to other online groups), and the only thing I got out of it was that he had an agenda, and he wouldn't back up any of his claims with citations.
 
Fair enough - I didn’t consider the volume. Seems like just a matter of time and there will be no F&B employees left other than one very busy Lounge Attendant - with endless lines in the lounge car during open hours.
This is another example of OTP killing logical plans. At one point, they wanted to short turn select OBS personnel en route. There was also a period where they would double up cafe car attendants over certain portions of the route and short turn them back. They would assist the LSA and give them breaks and board another train.

More often than not, the meets didn't occur as planned. So, the program was scrapped.
Speaking of which, I'm still surprised the Cascades manages to have assists even though just for the summer...which I'm lucky enough to start as my regular this Friday. But these trains have really gotten crazy busy, because of the cruise season.
 
Fair enough - I didn’t consider the volume. Seems like just a matter of time and there will be no F&B employees left other than one very busy Lounge Attendant - with endless lines in the lounge car during open hours.
This is another example of OTP killing logical plans. At one point, they wanted to short turn select OBS personnel en route. There was also a period where they would double up cafe car attendants over certain portions of the route and short turn them back. They would assist the LSA and give them breaks and board another train.

More often than not, the meets didn't occur as planned. So, the program was scrapped.
Speaking of which, I'm still surprised the Cascades manages to have assists even though just for the summer...which I'm lucky enough to start as my regular this Friday. But these trains have really gotten crazy busy, because of the cruise season, and we need it.
 
Although I'm not sure running the diner 24/7 is viable, I do think that there is much room for improvement in the superliner observation car. The current setup, particularly in the V1 cars, has all the food stuffed in a small area, not well merchandised, and staffed by a car attendant who works crazy hours. What I'd love to see is to reconfigure those cars to expand the food display area, effectively creating a mini-convenience store setting. Have reach in coolers for sandwiches, premade salads, bottled drinks, etc. Serve frozen foods that can be microwaved in a self service prep area. Heck, even put out a rack of roller dogs. Let 7-11 be your guide. And run that for 24 hours, staffing with two or more attendants who could rotate in and out. Or staff with three, and serve mixed drinks from the upstairs booth? That could take up some of the slack from coach folks unable to make it to the diner and unable to afford the pricing.

Now, to make my scenario work, the big gotta have it would be that we need to increase train lengths and patronage, and does the current admin have it in their soul to do so? Not sure. But it'd sure be fun to see how it did on some "flagship" train and try from there...
 
Although I'm not sure running the diner 24/7 is viable, I do think that there is much room for improvement in the superliner observation car. The current setup, particularly in the V1 cars, has all the food stuffed in a small area, not well merchandised, and staffed by a car attendant who works crazy hours. What I'd love to see is to reconfigure those cars to expand the food display area, effectively creating a mini-convenience store setting. Have reach in coolers for sandwiches, premade salads, bottled drinks, etc. Serve frozen foods that can be microwaved in a self service prep area. Heck, even put out a rack of roller dogs. Let 7-11 be your guide. And run that for 24 hours, staffing with two or more attendants who could rotate in and out. Or staff with three, and serve mixed drinks from the upstairs booth? That could take up some of the slack from coach folks unable to make it to the diner and unable to afford the pricing.

Now, to make my scenario work, the big gotta have it would be that we need to increase train lengths and patronage, and does the current admin have it in their soul to do so? Not sure. But it'd sure be fun to see how it did on some "flagship" train and try from there...
This is a good common sense idea that would probably work; so that means it will never be implemented!
 
It's an interesting concept and, as presented, makes a lot of sense. But two things struck me: there's no discussion of why the experiment was reckoned a failure and the concept wasn't implemented, and the bio line at the end – "In the late 1990s, Richardson’s prior company operated the Sunset Limited and City of New Orleans Promotional Office under contract to Amtrak’s Gulf Coast Business Group".

I supposed one explanation could be "Amtrak always makes the wrong decision", but I don't buy it. I think there's more to the story than what a guy who was in charge of marketing the experiment might be inclined to include, or even know in the first place.
Bruce Richardson runs (or ran?) a group called United Rail Passenger Alliance. I don't know what their purpose ever was, other than to post weekly rants about everything they hated about Amtrak. They always made all sorts of fantastic claims about how long-distance trains were profitable, but never managed to produce any actual evidence supporting their claims. They just "said so" and expected the rest of the world to believe it.

Years ago, I read a discussion about the 24-hour dining car experiment (wish I could remember where I read it), and someone had some very good points about why it failed. Basically, I believe the long and short of it was that it required more staff (i.e. someone has to cover that overnight shift, and that means they probably won't be available for lunch/afternoon), and the actual demand for food at 3 a.m. is (unsurprisingly) not very high.

One thing that's telling (and, in fact, typical of Bruce Richardson/URPA's notes) is that he keeps saying it was "financially successful" but never, ever cites any actual numbers. We just have to take his word for it. Unfortunately, years ago I read his stuff on a regular basis (he posted to other online groups), and the only thing I got out of it was that he had an agenda, and he wouldn't back up any of his claims with citations.
It's funny that you mention them because they have been actively trying to recruit me because of how dissatisfied with RPA I am. The issue I see on the splinter groups is people a kin to where I am are disenfranchised by being left on the fringe of the group. Which builds up a resentment over time and eventually they just splinter away.

While the best way to combat splinter groups is to nip them in the bud before they start by not allowing people especially the disenfranchised and minority members of RPA to hit the fringe. Bring them into the group, and teach us the supposed ways and maybe there won't be people going about it in their own way. That or maybe the minority members might have something right that changes how the group runs as a whole.

So while people like Bruce are supporting the long distance cause maybe they aren't going about it in exactly the right way. I still support a lot of RPAs economic arguments, and issues yet even I'm on the verge.

To get back to the dining car 24 hour thread in this I believe that there is a way that you could say it's financially successful. Keep in mind I do not know the hourly rate of an LSA but let's say it is twenty an hour which I honestly hope is lower than what it is for that demanding customer facing job. If one sells a bag of chips, and a soda if I'm recalling he menu right that's around five dollars.

If you have four sales you are covering the direct cost of the staff member and still lose money on the actual product. However if you do six sales in the hour like that you should be covering the direct cost of the staff member and the product. However you can still spin it to unprofitability by counting in the employees benefit package, shipping the products, and the crews it takes to stock the train.

Also remember the initial statements were made when the train had a significantly higher load factor so it is quite possible it could have been barely breaking even. And as long as something is barely turning a profit it can be considered a money maker.

It's just like RPA's transit oriented development theory that passenger rail is beneficial to the economy because of developments around stations, or the staff members who work on trains supporting economies. There is a lot of truth behind this theory but it can be spun to not be as well.

If I wanted to say that passenger rail didn't make economic sense to communities I can point to several cities that do not have passenger rail and are experiencing building booms. Or just say that people were already flocking to such and such city because that's where the jobs went, so the people followed.

Whereas passenger rail mostly has nothing to do with where the jobs are being created. So if I can easily spin one of RPA's biggest theories I've heard at two events then yes you can spin the 24 hour diner into being a money maker.

The key though to getting the change you want is to bring all of the diverse characters who ride the rails into RPA so it better represents them. That includes my generation, private car owners, the crafts at the railroad itself, women, people of color, a variety of people on the socioeconomic scale, students, and the retired. And once RPA truly embodies the characters of passenger rail and embraces them (not leaving them on the fringe) maybe just maybe they can bring everyone in. I'm sure there are plenty of things that both RPA and URPA agree on.

Work on the agreements between both, and we will see change because now is not a time for infighting between advocates.
 
It's an interesting concept and, as presented, makes a lot of sense. But two things struck me: there's no discussion of why the experiment was reckoned a failure and the concept wasn't implemented, and the bio line at the end – "In the late 1990s, Richardson’s prior company operated the Sunset Limited and City of New Orleans Promotional Office under contract to Amtrak’s Gulf Coast Business Group".

I supposed one explanation could be "Amtrak always makes the wrong decision", but I don't buy it. I think there's more to the story than what a guy who was in charge of marketing the experiment might be inclined to include, or even know in the first place.
Bruce Richardson runs (or ran?) a group called United Rail Passenger Alliance. I don't know what their purpose ever was, other than to post weekly rants about everything they hated about Amtrak. They always made all sorts of fantastic claims about how long-distance trains were profitable, but never managed to produce any actual evidence supporting their claims. They just "said so" and expected the rest of the world to believe it.
Yes his diatribes were quite interesting to read, and even contained quite a bit of interesting information intermingled with unsubstantiated wishful nonsense. It takes an effort to sift through it and separate the wheat from the chaff.

AU has a rather complete collection of his musings upto sometime in 2012 which can be found at:

http://discuss.amtraktrains.com/index.php?/topic/6158-urpa-newsletter/

If you have the time, it is educational, funny and sad, all at the same time, but not to be taken as gospel truth unless you are into "Proof by repeated assertion" as a valid proof methodology, and "hearsay as fact" as a valid provenance technique for ascertaining validity of facts..

Years ago, I read a discussion about the 24-hour dining car experiment (wish I could remember where I read it), and someone had some very good points about why it failed. Basically, I believe the long and short of it was that it required more staff (i.e. someone has to cover that overnight shift, and that means they probably won't be available for lunch/afternoon), and the actual demand for food at 3 a.m. is (unsurprisingly) not very high.

One thing that's telling (and, in fact, typical of Bruce Richardson/URPA's notes) is that he keeps saying it was "financially successful" but never, ever cites any actual numbers. We just have to take his word for it. Unfortunately, years ago I read his stuff on a regular basis (he posted to other online groups), and the only thing I got out of it was that he had an agenda, and he wouldn't back up any of his claims with citations.
That is correct. I have never seen any facts or analysis supporting that assertion which he has made several times back then and is continuing with now.

In any case, URPA by its own statement is not a membership organization, so it is meaningless to talk about someone joining it as a "member". If you are Andrew and Bruce's friend, you can get a shiny VP title at URPA. If such things make you feel good you should jump on board.

For the same reason, RPA and URPA joining would merely mean RPA granting its imprimatur to URPA for nothing in return, since URPA really has nothing to give in exchange.

In any case, the last update to URPA's web site http://www.unitedrail.org/appears to have been in 2013

I have some vague recollection that he got involved in some stuff in connection with one of the several pie in the sky rail to Las Vegas schemes and landed himself in a bit of a soup, at which point he stopped contributing to the URPA Newsletter, and Andrew Selden started doing the Newsletter, and after that I (and apparently AU too) lost track of their doings.

And as you might glean from the following AU thread, the disintegration of Amtrak and collapse of its CEO has been an on and off thing over many years according to predictions of URPA and Richardson.
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http://discuss.amtraktrains.com/index.php?/topic/44938-amtrak-disintegration-begins/
 
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Although I'm not sure running the diner 24/7 is viable, I do think that there is much room for improvement in the superliner observation car. The current setup, particularly in the V1 cars, has all the food stuffed in a small area, not well merchandised, and staffed by a car attendant who works crazy hours. What I'd love to see is to reconfigure those cars to expand the food display area, effectively creating a mini-convenience store setting. Have reach in coolers for sandwiches, premade salads, bottled drinks, etc. Serve frozen foods that can be microwaved in a self service prep area. Heck, even put out a rack of roller dogs. Let 7-11 be your guide. And run that for 24 hours, staffing with two or more attendants who could rotate in and out. Or staff with three, and serve mixed drinks from the upstairs booth? That could take up some of the slack from coach folks unable to make it to the diner and unable to afford the pricing.

Now, to make my scenario work, the big gotta have it would be that we need to increase train lengths and patronage, and does the current admin have it in their soul to do so? Not sure. But it'd sure be fun to see how it did on some "flagship" train and try from there...
I hear what you're saying, however I feel like Amtrak has been doing everything they can to cut meal service onboard, so running the SSL 24/7 with more staff, in addition to coolers and freezers, might go against Amtrak's focus right now. I would also note that there is a limited amount of space in the lower level of the SL lounges, so it could be pretty difficult to fit it all. And there are restrictions and liability involved in running a self-serve microwave station. If they get rid of dining cars altogether, I could see this as a realistic substitute that could be worth looking into, but since Amtrak have recently been taking desperate measures to cut back on meal service and staff, I imagine that setting up a mini 7-11 in the lower level of the SSLs might not make much sense. Just my opinion.
 
Incidentally in the "History repeats itself" department, take a look at this AU thread
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:

http://discuss.amtraktrains.com/index.php?/topic/45398-can-a-ld-train-not-lose-money/

This was about Boardman and his utterances about LD trains, I kid you not. The more I dive into the AU historical threads the more I am bemused.
Yep!

And here's another about Boardman's goal of eliminating food service losses:

http://discuss.amtraktrains.com/index.php?/topic/56985-boardman-amtrak-commits-to-end-food-and-beverage-losses/
 
To get back to the dining car 24 hour thread in this I believe that there is a way that you could say it's financially successful. Keep in mind I do not know the hourly rate of an LSA but let's say it is twenty an hour which I honestly hope is lower than what it is for that demanding customer facing job. If one sells a bag of chips, and a soda if I'm recalling he menu right that's around five dollars.
If you have four sales you are covering the direct cost of the staff member and still lose money on the actual product. However if you do six sales in the hour like that you should be covering the direct cost of the staff member and the product. However you can still spin it to unprofitability by counting in the employees benefit package, shipping the products, and the crews it takes to stock the train.
While it may not seem like much, the actual costs of running a dining car 24 hours can get very high, very fast.

According to the article, the 24-hour diner added two staff members to the train.

However, each "train" requires several sets of crews to cover all departures. Using the Sunset Limited, which runs three departures per week, I believe that the crews at the time probably had a seven-day duty cycle (LAX to LAX), and while I don't know for sure, I'm guessing they probably had a two-week work cycle (seven days on, then seven days off). That means you'd need six sets of OBS crews, times two extra employees per crew. That means 12 extra OBS crew positions. Then you need to consider the extra board to cover for vacations, sick calls, training, etc. That's probably an extra 10-20% staff, so add 2 people.

Benefits and employment expenses can be as much as 30-40% of an employee's wages. Then there's meal costs en route (not huge, but still to be considered) and hotel costs at the away terminal.

It's not as simple as $x/hour of wages times the number of extra hours the diner is open.

All told, it's easy to see how the added staffing costs of a 24-hour diner could be north of a million dollars per year. The Sunset Limited runs three days per week, per direction, that's 312 departures per year. If the staffing costs $1,000,000/year extra, each individual departure (from the east or west end) would need to sell more than $3,200 worth of additional meals to cover the costs. That's a lot of hamburgers and sodas.

Even if we simplified it to a 24-hour cafe car and only needed one extra LSA instead of two (cut the staffing costs in half), that's still $1,600 in extra sales per trip (not even counting the cost of the food itself). How many $5 chips & soda combos do you need to sell for this to be financially successful?
 
I didn't purport to know the actual numbers. What I purported to know was that you can take a set of numbers and make them say anything. And that is the truth you can spin a number anyway you want it to go.

But what do I know about anything with a solid 3.8 college GPA after all in the PV world we don't use math.
 
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