madisonwi, THAT sounds rational and reasonable. Keeping unknown foodstuffs out of the Amtrak food prep equipment, and not having any contact with it by Amtrak personnel seems like it would be the limit of FDA regs. I suppose you could make an argument that you don't want it touching tables, too, but seems like the tables are pretty un-hygenic to start with, so I dunno if that argument would fly. With the condition of those tables I'd probably toss out anything that touched it whether I brought it with me or bought it onboard. And of course since a lot, if not most, coach passengers typically do buy at least something in the lounge car and take it back to their seats to eat it, if there's a contamination argument, then you can't let them eat itheir own food n their seats in coach, either.
It seems more likely that Amtrak is simply trying to keep a captive audience of "if you want to eat here, you gotta buy here". I can certainly agree to that for the diner (baby formula or Rx foods that Amtrak can't supply, being an exception as far as I'm concerned), but I have a real problem with that policy in the lounge, since, in the first place, you don't have to be eating to sit there. Now yes, with the high costs involved in running food service on a train, the stuff they sell there has to be relatively expensive to avoid operating at a huge loss. But some folks simply can't afford it, and they ought to be able to bring their own stuff and consume it. Seems kind of petty to keep them out of the lounge car, and also seems like it would make more of a mess of the coaches. And on a long distance train, that, in turn, means less enjoyment for succeeding passengers that have to sit in those seats. Anyway, that's my $.02's worth
I was irked, last week, when a conductor or AC told somebody (NOT me) he'd have to go back to his coach seat to eat whatever it was the guy had brought to the lounge car to eat. Especially since the entire lounge car had a total of three occupied tables (including the conductor or AC), and all the rest were completely empty.