I thought the entire thrill was riding the train and seeing the countryside. I thought the experience of the trip.the Rockies, the great Southwest, the inner cities and the back streets. Yet this entire thread is about stuff! Tablecloths, pickles and wine/cheese, salt and pepper shakers. Its all about stuff. Its not about the freedom of the rails anymore.
You guys want stuff, go stay at a high class hotel in NYC. You will get all your stuff and you will pay for. Amtrak looses gazillions of bucks, but as long as everyone gets their free stuff its Ok. I am 65 and do remember the good old RR days. Silver service, home cooked meals and plenty of stuff. Why did those days end? RRs could not afford the stuff, jet travel was that way, now they can no longer afford the stuff. Everyone needs to get a grip, nothing is free anymore. If you don't wish to ride Amtrak, then don't! Go elsewhere! Find a different train, one that gives plenty of free stuff! Just stop griping about stuff that ain't coming back.
+2
I thought the purpose of a train service is to get one from one place to another in a reasonable degree of comfort, at an acceptable pace, and depending on one's financial status, at an affordable price. So far, the changes have been in the small stuff: wine & cheese tastings, flowers, loss of the sleeper lounge on the AT, changing the child's fare age limit, and so on. The LD trains are still running with sleeper and diner service. Much of what Amtrak is doing is following the path taken by the airlines over the last several decades; trimming amenities to reduce costs and employing a complex price structure designed to maximize revenue. Whether the airlines customers were happy about the changes or not, going very lean on service has kept the airlines in business and led to actual operating profits (for now).
So far, Amtrak has not taken it anywhere near as far as the airlines with much tighter seating in coach, charging extra for all checked bags, and so on. The airlines also have aggressively cut the number of domestic flights over the past 6-8 years to increase passenger loads on the remaining flights. Amtrak has not done that nor should it because there is no excess of daily service frequencies to cut. Whether there are more shoes to drop for the LD trains and the system as a whole, well, we shall see what happens in Congress this year.
Spoken like true Rail Fans.................
Level of service means very little to you then, eh? Why not go X country in a commuter coach? Hey, it would be cheaper! No need for Service Attendants to clean the bathroom, or other duties that PAX could do.
Ya just don't get it..............
"John Q Traveling Public" certainly doesn't have the same level-of-expectation that I do when riding Amtrak, but they aren't gonna be happy with dirty cars, tardy trains, and crap food either. "John Q" could care less about a P-42, or a switch engine, he just wants to get there, reliably, and maybe cheaply. He probably doesn't care so much about flowers or tablecloths either. But some people do, especially the ones who pay the premium for sleeper class.
That's my beef with Amtrak. If you are gonna charge the rates they do, then provide something other than mediocre food, and "Denny's style" service....... No one is asking for a return to the days of silver service, bedtime turn-down, or shoes being polished. But Amtrak's current movement is going to chase away a few travelers, who expect
something, anything, for the extra fare. Not just an average meal on a Formica table, served on plastic plates, and flat bed to lay down at night...........
Now, if they can keep the sleepers full, AND get rid of all the amenities, china, wine tasting, tablecloths, etc.?
Well, then they should. Because "why give something away for free, when you have more business than you can handle anyway?
I won't ride, but that won't make a lick of difference to Amtrak's bottom line. 'Cause someone else, either a foamer or an unwitting traveler, will
gladly buy the sleeper that I have chosen not to buy.
No, the "ENTIRE THRILL" of riding a train is NOT the country-side, the inner-city, and what's OUTSIDE the window. If that were the case, Auto-Train would cease to exist. There is FAR MORE than just scenery, although for many, including me) that is a big
part. The
service I get, (or not), the
food, I eat, and the
surroundings I consume that meal in, (Table-mates, staff, "amenities" on table, entree choices, quality of food, cleanliness of windows, cleanliness of diner-in-general, quality of dining experience, time it took etc.,etc., ) all play a major role in my traveling experience.
I just don't get, (my fault, I admit) how some people could be happy curled up in a coach seat for days, staring out the window, eating their meals from the cooler they brought.
I'd rather listen to chalk-screeching on a blackboard, or have my eyes poked out with a dull stick than do that again. I've "been there - done that" as a youth/twenty-something.
So
when I pay the premium bucks for the sleeper service, I expect more. Now that Amtrak is not giving me what I expect, I will complain, and travel other modes more frequently. You can say "my loss". Any you may be correct.
But I cannot, and will not, pay those bucks, and put up with the kind of service that seems to be in Amtrak's future. To each their own. The dumbing-down (and what many think of as "good service") of America continues..............
