http://cs.trains.com/trn/b/fred-frailey/archive/2018/04/23/meals-on-wheels-oh-my.aspx
Fred Frailey with a great take on this. Just add in hot meals to this and it's not so bad.
If you ask me, the guy is "off his rocker" with this analysis and let me tell you why. First off the hot breakfast in the dining car costs very little to serve. Add up what a cup of coffee, a roll, two eggs and a link or sausage or two strips of bacon costs to make. You're talking about maybe a $1.00-$1.50 in food cost perhaps less. Now replace this with a cold breakfast. Will it really save anything ? Now lets look at labor cost. Its been reported that food service workers will not lose their jobs. OK that's a good thing, you still have that labor and they are still on the payroll. Now consider that Amtrak will still run a car for sleeper passengers to eat in..Amtrak has the cost of running the car. Will someone please tell me where the savings are?
Who do you think is off his rocker? Just because you can get something at the Supermarket at some price does not mean that the same thing can be retailed in a restaurant on wheels served by folks making good union wages and benefits for the same price. Otherwise all breakfasts at Denny's even would cost much less than they do.
The core issue about labor cost is that this is a method for moving the labor cost out of the F&B account to the general train account, while also eliminating a part of it, so even if every person is retained on the train, they disappear from the F&B account, except for one LSA. Capiche? The business about cold food has entirely to do with minimizing work load on the remaining non F&B people picking up the food from inventory and delivering them. I, like Fred, would prefer that airline First Class or Acela First Class style hot food was served, and maybe we will be able to arrive there somehow. But it does require some prep.
Again, just because I am explaining what is going on does not mean I necessarily agree with any of it.
