Chefs being removed off Capitol Limited

cpotisch said:

Palmland said:

Is there any confirmation that the Capitol is losing it’s chefs? Unless I missed it, seems it’s just hearsay from an Amtrak employee.

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You didn’t miss anything. All we know what he heard about that one employee. Knowing Amtrak, it wouldn’t at all surprise me for them to ditch the chef on the CL, given recent trends. That said, until we get further info, I wouldn’t say this is by any means definite.

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Nothing is definite, until it occurs...and even then, they may change it back. The reality of the situation is they have done this to the Capitol before. The Star is gone, the LSL's dining car doesn't seem like it is returning despite the fact there are plenty of new cars available and they are still looking to deflect criticism and cut costs.

It is not unreasonable to consider this action, particularly if the end to end travel isn't the bulk of your passengers.

It'll be interesting – maybe in a painful way, maybe not – to see what happens with bike service on long distance trains. It has the same problem with inconsistent service that the diners (and so much else) have. One way to eliminate inconsistency is to eliminate the service. I hope that doesn't happen, but I also hope the current idiocy is fixed somehow. West coast corridor trains don't have a problem handling roll on bikes, and they have less staff (which might be an advantage in this case), shorter dwell times and far, far better on time performance.

They also have better and more consistent food (and beer!).

spinnaker said:

Pittsburgh. The CL has a horrible schedule for departures west. OK for arrivals from the east. Barely livable for departures east. The Pennsylvanian has an OK schedule but no baggage car and it does not carry bikes. That is the one that has me upset. I really want to go to Trenton to do a trip on a bicycle path out there but can't get my bike out there without pre-shipping it.

Yeah I know it is worse elsewhere but still a pain.

Not to mention the time it takes. I took the CL back from Cumberland last year. I could have driven round trip in the time it takes, Not complaining there. I don't care but it is a reason more people don't use the train. Also there was a ton of space available in the car for more racks but only one rack for 6 bikes in that car. And this is along one of the most popular bike trails in the country. But then again (at least on the day I was there) there were empty racks. And our car was almost empty in coach.

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spinnaker said:

Lonestar648 said:

Some cities, commuter rail is critical and can not be replaced by driving cars. Chicago, New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, etc. Many other cities are trying to move that direction. Light and heavy rail run near capacity in many of these cities. The geography of Pittsburgh makes using rail difficult at best, but they did have a great trolley system in the South Hills and to east of the city, decades ago, the tunnel it used is still used today.

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We replaced the trolleys with light rail in the South Hills . They pretty much used the same lines. But if you are talking way back then yes the trolley system was extensive. We also had local passenger trains. It actually was not that long ago the one from the east went away. Not enough ridership. Why someone would rather sit in their car in traffic is beyond me.

We also had a rather extensive number of inclines. Long gone before I was born. One was so large it carried horses and wagons. One actaully had a curve in the track going up the hill.

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I remember taking the trolley Shannon Drake out to Brookside where we lived. I also took the trolley from downtown to Forest Hills. The inclines were a great way to see the city either up to or down from Mt. Washington. My father reminded in the 1940's when they lived on Iberia Street, lots of people who lived in the Mt. Washington area, would take the inclines to and from work in the city. Sorry, I do not remember this, but I do remember that was when rail was king. I miss those days taking the B&O and the PRR.

I, too, live in Pittsburgh but have a different take. Departures west? The Capitol Limited is scheduled in at 11:45 pm, which to me isn't that bad (think Cleveland in the middle of the night) and is actually early a fair amount of the time. The Eastbound is scheduled in at 5:20 a.m., perhaps a bit early, but not horrendous. I would prefer it was a bit later, and it often is. It would be ideal if the trip was quicker but if you are looking for speed there's no doubt driving is better. To each their own. It is a nice ride between Pittsburgh and Washington during daylight hours. The Pennsylvanian has good arrival and departure times in and out of Pittsburgh and, again, is typically on time if not early. The trip over the mountains will never be quicker without a massive investment which will never happen. But the Pennsylvanian is still reasonably well patronized.

spinnaker said:

crescent-zephyr said:

Where do you live?

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Pittsburgh. The CL has a horrible schedule for departures west. OK for arrivals from the east. Barely livable for departures east. The Pennsylvanian has an OK schedule but no baggage car and it does not carry bikes. That is the one that has me upset. I really want to go to Trenton to do a trip on a bicycle path out there but can't get my bike out there without pre-shipping it.

Yeah I know it is worse elsewhere but still a pain.

Not to mention the time it takes. I took the CL back from Cumberland last year. I could have driven round trip in the time it takes, Not complaining there. I don't care but it is a reason more people don't use the train. Also there was a ton of space available in the car for more racks but only one rack for 6 bikes in that car. And this is along one of the most popular bike trails in the country. But then again (at least on the day I was there) there were empty racks. And our car was almost empty in coach.

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Lonestar648 said:

spinnaker said:

Lonestar648 said:

Some cities, commuter rail is critical and can not be replaced by driving cars. Chicago, New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, etc. Many other cities are trying to move that direction. Light and heavy rail run near capacity in many of these cities. The geography of Pittsburgh makes using rail difficult at best, but they did have a great trolley system in the South Hills and to east of the city, decades ago, the tunnel it used is still used today.

Click to expand...

We replaced the trolleys with light rail in the South Hills . They pretty much used the same lines. But if you are talking way back then yes the trolley system was extensive. We also had local passenger trains. It actually was not that long ago the one from the east went away. Not enough ridership. Why someone would rather sit in their car in traffic is beyond me.

We also had a rather extensive number of inclines. Long gone before I was born. One was so large it carried horses and wagons. One actaully had a curve in the track going up the hill.

Click to expand...

I remember taking the trolley Shannon Drake out to Brookside where we lived. I also took the trolley from downtown to Forest Hills. The inclines were a great way to see the city either up to or down from Mt. Washington. My father reminded in the 1940's when they lived on Iberia Street, lots of people who lived in the Mt. Washington area, would take the inclines to and from work in the city. Sorry, I do not remember this, but I do remember that was when rail was king. I miss those days taking the B&O and the PRR.

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One summer, in the 1970s, I commuted from the South Hills via trolley through the tunnel toward downtown, and transferred there to an incline up to the top of Mt. Washington. Best commute I ever had.

PaTrainFan said:

I, too, live in Pittsburgh but have a different take. Departures west? The Capitol Limited is scheduled in at 11:45 pm, which to me isn't that bad (think Cleveland in the middle of the night) and is actually early a fair amount of the time. The Eastbound is scheduled in at 5:20 a.m., perhaps a bit early, but not horrendous. I would prefer it was a bit later, and it often is. It would be ideal if the trip was quicker but if you are looking for speed there's no doubt driving is better. To each their own. It is a nice ride between Pittsburgh and Washington during daylight hours. The Pennsylvanian has good arrival and departure times in and out of Pittsburgh and, again, is typically on time if not early. The trip over the mountains will never be quicker without a massive investment which will never happen. But the Pennsylvanian is still reasonably well patronized.

spinnaker said:

crescent-zephyr said:

Where do you live?

Click to expand...

Pittsburgh. The CL has a horrible schedule for departures west. OK for arrivals from the east. Barely livable for departures east. The Pennsylvanian has an OK schedule but no baggage car and it does not carry bikes. That is the one that has me upset. I really want to go to Trenton to do a trip on a bicycle path out there but can't get my bike out there without pre-shipping it.

Yeah I know it is worse elsewhere but still a pain.

Not to mention the time it takes. I took the CL back from Cumberland last year. I could have driven round trip in the time it takes, Not complaining there. I don't care but it is a reason more people don't use the train. Also there was a ton of space available in the car for more racks but only one rack for 6 bikes in that car. And this is along one of the most popular bike trails in the country. But then again (at least on the day I was there) there were empty racks. And our car was almost empty in coach.

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The arrival/departure times are a real hard sell if you need to have someone drop you off or pick you up at the station. Few people actually live downtown, so for most passengers it involves a drive of at least 20 minutes or so.

tricia said:

The arrival/departure times are a real hard sell if you need to have someone drop you off or pick you up at the station. Few people actually live downtown, so for most passengers it involves a drive of at least 20 minutes or so.

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Yep. A big problem for me since I really don't have anyone to pick me up or drop me off. Especially that early in the morning. And some of those departures are awfully early for a bike ride assuming I want to take my bike with me.

The good news is parking is only something like $7.50 downtown on weekends and right across the street from the station.

I get that. 5:05 a.m. is no fun for anyone. Nevertheless, it's better than many other cities, especially in Ohio.

spinnaker said:

tricia said:

The arrival/departure times are a real hard sell if you need to have someone drop you off or pick you up at the station. Few people actually live downtown, so for most passengers it involves a drive of at least 20 minutes or so.

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Yep. A big problem for me since I really don't have anyone to pick me up or drop me off. Especially that early in the morning. And some of those departures are awfully early for a bike ride assuming I want to take my bike with me.

The good news is parking is only something like $7.50 downtown on weekends and right across the street from the station.

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tricia said:

PaTrainFan said:

I, too, live in Pittsburgh but have a different take. Departures west? The Capitol Limited is scheduled in at 11:45 pm, which to me isn't that bad (think Cleveland in the middle of the night) and is actually early a fair amount of the time. The Eastbound is scheduled in at 5:20 a.m., perhaps a bit early, but not horrendous. I would prefer it was a bit later, and it often is. It would be ideal if the trip was quicker but if you are looking for speed there's no doubt driving is better. To each their own. It is a nice ride between Pittsburgh and Washington during daylight hours. The Pennsylvanian has good arrival and departure times in and out of Pittsburgh and, again, is typically on time if not early. The trip over the mountains will never be quicker without a massive investment which will never happen. But the Pennsylvanian is still reasonably well patronized.

spinnaker said:

crescent-zephyr said:

Where do you live?

Click to expand...

Pittsburgh. The CL has a horrible schedule for departures west. OK for arrivals from the east. Barely livable for departures east. The Pennsylvanian has an OK schedule but no baggage car and it does not carry bikes. That is the one that has me upset. I really want to go to Trenton to do a trip on a bicycle path out there but can't get my bike out there without pre-shipping it.

Yeah I know it is worse elsewhere but still a pain.

Not to mention the time it takes. I took the CL back from Cumberland last year. I could have driven round trip in the time it takes, Not complaining there. I don't care but it is a reason more people don't use the train. Also there was a ton of space available in the car for more racks but only one rack for 6 bikes in that car. And this is along one of the most popular bike trails in the country. But then again (at least on the day I was there) there were empty racks. And our car was almost empty in coach.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

The arrival/departure times are a real hard sell if you need to have someone drop you off or pick you up at the station. Few people actually live downtown, so for most passengers it involves a drive of at least 20 minutes or so.

Click to expand...

The time of arrival/departure for The Cardinal in Cincinnati is an issue for me. I have a friend who did so on one trip to/from Chicago and was clearly informed by her: Never Again!

The CL used to arrive Pittsburgh about an hour later in the morning and an hour earlier in the evening when I had several projects in the area quite a while back. Best was pre-Amtrak when I would just get on a Sleeper in the evening, go to bed, then the train picked up the sleeper when it arrived Pittsburgh.

Thirdrail7 said:

Bob Dylan said:

Re the Special Meals for Coach pasengers:

When I rode the Sunset Ltd. this Winter the offering was a Chicken Dinner with a bottle of Water that cost $12, and the Coach Attendant took orders,the LSA collected the $$$ in advance since they are the only OBS allowed to handle purchases.

The attendant delivered them to the Coach Seats ( Sleeping Car pax weren't allowed to order them).Several Coach riders told me it was delicious and worth the $12!

I think this is an excellent idea for LD Trains for ALL passengers that could pre order and paid for with their tickets.

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Or...just picture this. When you use the website to reserve you ticket, you pick from a menu of available items in advance. Then, they use the dining cars to serve the meals that would be higher quality than what is served in the diner lite and would be closer to what is served on the Acela.

It has the potential to reduce costs, staff, waste and criticism from Congress.

Just something to think about.

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This isn't out of sorts from what I experienced on the Spirit of Queensland last year: Basically, it was an Acela First-grade meal (probably a little better, but that's down to taste) served at-seat in Business (which was, btw, an TATL/TPAC Business-grade product...albeit with a bed you couldn't take down yourself). There was also a very nicely stocked bar car, and I think they had things set up to restock at both Rockhampton and Townsville (including loading those Acela-style meals). IIRC, from what Jis says this is also how Indian Railways tends to handle things.

The biggest issue I see with such a plan is simply allowing for OTP on the longer-distance trains. If you had reliability on LD trains within, say, an hour 90-95% of the time (which seems like a painfully modest goal) and a good chunk of the remaining delays were likely to be weather-related and thus at least somewhat predictable, you could probably handle this alright. The problem is that if the Zephyr were to load breakfast at Salt Lake City and the EB train gets stabbed for four hours, you now have a bit of a problem...but at least some of that problem is arguably specific to the Western trains.

Now, if you load everything at the origin? That would work as long as you can keep it fresh.

Loading meals works on both the east bound and west bound Portland Section of the Empire Builder. The end product in both cases is OK... Not great. But OK. In my experience the boxed meals on the Empire Builder were better than the non-chef meala on the City of New Orleans.

I don't think all trains need the exact same thing. Just because a train has a sleeper, doesn't mean it needs a full service diner.

You could add a unit in the Baggage Car to load trays of meals for the Sleeper Passengers that the SCA would serve to each room. The Coach Attendant could have a limited number of small meals/snacks for purchase during meal time. A cart could be used to go down the isle. Now, meal service would be similar to what Delta serves and the DC and SSL have been eliminated as well as the crews. Is this what we should be expecting in a year or two?

There is no baggage car space needed for this type of service on the Empire Builder.

Anderson said:

The biggest issue I see with such a plan is simply allowing for OTP on the longer-distance trains. If you had reliability on LD trains within, say, an hour 90-95% of the time (which seems like a painfully modest goal) and a good chunk of the remaining delays were likely to be weather-related and thus at least somewhat predictable, you could probably handle this alright. The problem is that if the Zephyr were to load breakfast at Salt Lake City and the EB train gets stabbed for four hours, you now have a bit of a problem...but at least some of that problem is arguably specific to the Western trains.

Now, if you load everything at the origin? That would work as long as you can keep it fresh.

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The logistics become much easier if you eliminate all the LD trains and chop the routes up into corridors...

/me ducks.

Then you would need states subsidizing operations which means goodbye Amtrak in the South.

I am sure they will figure out how to spend $1.3 billion and unless they plan to buy themselves a lot of vacations and then spend the rest of their lives in the slammer, I am certain that most LD trains will continue to run as long as Congress keeps funding them. This is just a shot across the bow to Congress saying clearly that if the national Account is not funded in an ongoing basis, the national Network will be gone. It is entirely upto them.

crescent-zephyr said:

Loading meals works on both the east bound and west bound Portland Section of the Empire Builder. The end product in both cases is OK... Not great. But OK. In my experience the boxed meals on the Empire Builder were better than the non-chef meala on the City of New Orleans.

I don't think all trains need the exact same thing. Just because a train has a sleeper, doesn't mean it needs a full service diner.

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I would not want to eat boxed meals for 3 days, 3 meals a day. I would likely never ride the LD trains if it came to that. Doubt a lot of others would want to do that either. I never rode trains before because of the horrible scheduling. It was just too inconvenient for me because of my limited time off. no I have more time I can tolerate the schedule for the comfort of train travel. Eating a boxed meal for 3 days is not my idea of comfort.

chrsjrcj said:

Then you would need states subsidizing operations which means goodbye Amtrak in the South.

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And most of the West and a not insignificant portion of the East. Anyway I don't pretend to know anything more than hearsay that is probably several layers removed from the source, but there seems to be enough smoke to say that more changes are yet to come.

Loading meals does not mean boxed meals. The LSL is entirely served using pre-plated meals. And some of it is actually surprisingly good.

Sent from my iPhone using Amtrak Forum

So meals would be prepared at stops before meals then loaded and kept warm? I would think that would be satisfactory.

spinnaker said:

I would not want to eat boxed meals for 3 days, 3 meals a day.

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Except there's no single train that runs for 9 meal periods (or single train car.) I'd be hard pressed to even find a direct train ride that covers 9 meal periods (I suppose Portland, ME to Palm Springs, CA via the Downeaster, LSL, and Texas Eagle would meet that, but lunch on day 2 isn't provided by Amtrak and breakfast on day 1 would be on the Downeaster's cafe car.)

For me, I've, at most, had five consecutive meals on board, and seven total in a trip. The biggest thing for me is to get a variety of options for meals, and a varied "pre-packaged and heated like first class airline food" menu would actually serve me better than the current nationalized menu.

Edited to add: It looks like going from a terminus of a west coast train on the west coast to central/southern Florida would get well above 9 meals (Emeryville - Miami looks to have 13 meal periods.) There's two transfers in there, however, to get meals, and frankly with it being a five-day trip I doubt there's a lot of people that would do that trip even with the most luxurious on-board food options.

New York to L.A. via LSL & the Texas Eagle would cover 9 meals, though you could get whatever meal you wanted for lunch in CHI between trains.

I was just playing around on the Amtrak web site and was surprised to see that the roomette fare CHI-LAX, departing 5/13, is $670 on the Southwest Chief and $1858 on the Texas Eagle -- almost 3x as much! I've traveled CHI-LAX on the TE when the roomette fare was less that on the Southwest Chief, though the distance is longer. The vagaries of demand pricing...

As for box meals, I am not a fan -- never mind multiple box meals in a row. One of the pleasures of train travel is sharing a meal with others in the dining car. I prefer to take the Empire Builder to/from Seattle rather than Portland because you get a box meal in the Portland section. I would choose flying over the train for many more trips if Amtrak went to box meals. Of course I can speak only for myself; I don't know what percentage of their passengers feel that strongly about hot meals served in the diner.

The most meal periods I've been on board for was On the LSL and CZ. With eight. Surprisingly on the Coast Starlight I had five in a PDX-LAX trip.

You're missing out on the Portland Section of the Empire Builder! The Columbia River Gorge is totally worth it. (But im guessing you've ridden that portion in a private?

If properly done (which it was both times I rode that sections) I actually really like the box meal service on the EB. I like the diner too. One or the other does not cancel out rail travel for me.

What I don't like is the meal options on the City (well below the standards of the box meals on the EB) and the no meal options on the Silver Star. It's really hard to call anything in the Silver Star cafe a full meal.