Food Service Question

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CrazyTrain

Train Attendant
Joined
Sep 10, 2018
Messages
28
Location
New Orleans
Forgive me if this is in the wrong place, but I have a question regarding dining on the City of New Orleans, for anyone who has recently traveled on that line.

I commented on someone's video on YouTube about a month ago, long before I knew of this forum or knew anything really. The channel owner responded that they don't really offer much in way of food for each meal. Should I bring my own food beyond snacks? Both times I've traveled on the Crescent, there were full meals offered, but it's been at least 2 years. Do they no longer serve full meals on any train?
 
Amtrak Menu's are available for each Long Distance train at their website. Beyond that, "we report, you decide".

However, there appears consensus around here, the City service is the least palatable beyond the "Fresh and Contemporary" fare found on the Capitol and Lake Shore.
 
Coach or sleeper passenger? (Diner meals included with sleeper fare) Crescent still has a full service diner, CONO has no chef, this limits selections in the diner a bit. The cafe selections have recently been overhauled. Links to the menus are on the Amtrak website..
 
The CONO serves a limited selection of heat-and-eat meals. Meals are included with a sleeper ticket, however as was said, dining on the CONO is considered by many to by the worst of any long distance Amtrak train. If you're in coach you'll have to pay to dine, and the prices are pretty absurd for what you're getting. Point is, if you're in a sleeper I would say just eat in the diner, and if you're in coach you should probably bring some food.

Both times I've traveled on the Crescent, there were full meals offered, but it's been at least 2 years. Do they no longer serve full meals on any train?
The Crescent and CONO are totally unrelated, other than the fact that they share a terminus. Here is a list of every LD train that doesn't have full meal service:

  • CONO - Very limited selection of heat-and-eat meals prepared and served by one LSA
  • Cardinal - Also has heat-and-eat meals, though the selection is somewhat less limited and the food is usually considered to be of marginally better quality
  • Lake Shore Limited - "Contemporary dining" serving a few mostly cold boxed meals exclusively to sleeper passengers in a "sleeper lounge"
  • Capitol Limited - Same as Lake Shore Limited
  • Silver Star - No dining car whatsoever - just a cafe car.
Every other Long Distance train has a full service diner open to all passengers, serving a much wider selection of hot meals.
 
Another stupid question... are the dining car and the Cross Country Cafe separate dining areas?
The Cross Country Cafe is a type of Superliner Diner which was retrofitted about 10 years ago with a new upper-level layout. At one end you have 10 pretty standard four person tables, and at the other end you have two tables and two weird 3-person booths. The original idea was to replace both the standard dining car and the lounge car with one of these, with the short end with the weird booths serving as the lounge, and the long end with the 10 tables serving as the diner. They discovered that a CCC does not have nearly enough capacity to serve as both a diner and a lounge, so now all the Cross Country Cafes serve exclusively as a diner, and an SSL serves as the lounge. The short end of the CCCs are almost never used, and if they are, it's just as a makeshift lounge area for the crew.
 
Amtrak Menu's are available for each Long Distance train at their website. Beyond that, "we report, you decide".

However, there appears consensus around here, the City service is the least palatable beyond the "Fresh and Contemporary" fare found on the Capitol and Lake Shore.
I dont think too much of Amtraks food in general for the past many many years. Fresh and Contemporary is decent for an overnight trip. Have you had the opportunity to try the fare?
 
Amtrak Menu's are available for each Long Distance train at their website. Beyond that, "we report, you decide".

However, there appears consensus around here, the City service is the least palatable beyond the "Fresh and Contemporary" fare found on the Capitol and Lake Shore.
Actually, several people have said that the boxed lunches would be an upgrade to the CONO menu.
OP—I’ve traveled the CONO a couple of times the last year. I don’t think they are serving the pork shank anymore, but that was quite good. The beef Bourgogne was not good. It needed seasoning.

The heated sandwiches southbound were TV dinner quality.

Breakfast the eggs were over cooked and the potatoes under heated. The continental breakfast was the best option and it was all sugar.
 
I took the train southbound in a sleeper last month.

Dinner was a choice of two sandwiches (muffuletta or chipotle chicken) with chips, a pickle, and either a packaged brownie or cookie for dessert. The muffuletta was good but this time it was not served warm whereas the last time I took it in May, it was.

For breakfast there are three choices. I had the double sausage/cheese biscuit and fruit. The fruit was a joke - literally one strawberry sliced into about six tiny pieces and two small orange slices. The biscuit was obviously straight out the microwave.

For lunch the choices were the sandwiches from the previous night, a mediocre looking salad, or the hot entree, which was an Asian noodle bowl. I had the noodle bowl and it was tolerable.

Overall - don’t expect much in the way of high quality meals. Sad to think just a couple of years ago you could still get a nice steak southbound out of CHI. And a classic French Toast breakfast. I hope the box meals come soon on this train - they would be an improvement.

Enjoy the ride, though. I know I always do.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Amtrak Menu's are available for each Long Distance train at their website. Beyond that, "we report, you decide".

However, there appears consensus around here, the City service is the least palatable beyond the "Fresh and Contemporary" fare found on the Capitol and Lake Shore.
I dont think too much of Amtraks food in general for the past many many years. Fresh and Contemporary is decent for an overnight trip. Have you had the opportunity to try the fare?
I agree that Fresh and Contemporary is in some ways way better than the fare served on the CONO.
 
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