Dearborn to St. Paul on 2 July

[taking the cars]

My wife and I are making another run to St. Paul, Minnesota from Dearborn, Michigan. We'll be on the Wolverine and then the EB. Our last trip on this route was just a few days before Christmas. The EB segment was delayed five hours and we ended up on a "made up" train going only as far as the Twin Cities. I do not remember if coach passengers on the EB can get diner between Chicago and St. Paul.

We will have one young grandson with us who will be getting off at Jackson, Michigan on the westbound leg as he lives in Grass Lake.

We are returning on 7 July and hope this trip will be warmer and faster than the winter trip.

 

[EB_OBS]

Dinner is available between CHI & MSP. It is however usually the busiest dinner of any on the EB. Sleeping car passengers do get first dibs at reservation times. This typically will leave the coach passengers with only the late seating around 8:00 or 8:30pm. Sometimes there may be a few seats left at the very first seating which is at 5:00pm. There are five coach cars for the LSA to go through on this night and it's just luck of the draw whether you may be in the first car or the last car he/she goes to. If you are unable to get into the dining car for dinner, speak to the Train Attendant about having dinner at your coach seat.

 

[AlanB]

While all you say is true EZ223, the Empire Builder still remains the easiest train for a coach passenger to have a chance at dinner in the dining car. The reason for that is, save the Auto Train, no other dining car uses a seating plan that seats more passengers than the Empire Builder.

Most other dining cars using SDS can seat only 96 passengers or 144 depending on staffing, and 96 is basically the capacity of the sleeping cars on the train. The EB on the other hand can serve 192 passengers for dinner, more if the crew doesn't put supplies on one of the tables.

 

[EB_OBS]

While all you say is true EZ223, the Empire Builder still remains the easiest train for a coach passenger to have a chance at dinner in the dining car. The reason for that is, save the Auto Train, no other dining car uses a seating plan that seats more passengers than the Empire Builder.
Most other dining cars using SDS can seat only 96 passengers or 144 depending on staffing, and 96 is basically the capacity of the sleeping cars on the train. The EB on the other hand can serve 192 passengers for dinner, more if the crew doesn't put supplies on one of the tables.

Absolutely correct. We do utilize a third waiter on the EB which enables the diner to get more passengers in. Really the main significance about dinner on this particular night is that the sleeping car passengers could easily fill 120 - 140 of those seats because of passengers getting off mid-dinner and other sleeper passengers getting on mid-dinner. Then of the possibly 300+ coach passengers, only 50 - 60 are pretty much assured of at least getting into the diner by 8:30 pm.

I've done reservations this night, starting with the MSP coach in the rear and had 30+ passengers make reservations just from that one car. With four more coaches to go after that one, sometimes it's rough making it the rest of the way through the train in one piece. I've wished we had four waiters and more tables many times on this particular night.

 

[taking the cars]

My wife and I did get a EB diner dinner reservation for 7 p.m. on the westbound leg of our trip. We were in the last car (the "Minneapolis coach") and the attendant from the dining car came through the train soon after we left Chicago. During dinner we enjoyed the scenery along the Mississippi River with a very nice couple from Chicago who were taking the train all the way to the West Coast. This is one of the more enjoyable aspects of rail travel.

All parts of the westbound trip were good--the Wolverine (351) was nearly on time and the bathrooms clean. The service attendant in the EB "Minnesota car" was friendly and very efficient (sorry, but I forgot her name).

Coming home the eastbound trip on 7 July started off behind schedule as the EB was almost an hour late arriving in St. Paul. Once everyone was on board the train moved about 100 yards away from the station and then stopped for twenty, or so, minutes with a "mechanical problem." The time was not made up, but we managed to get to Chicago with about twenty minutes to spare. We were directed to the waiting Wolverine (354) by efficient and smiling Amtrak attendants--actually beating the crowd from the coach seat line up inside the station.

We had opted for breakfast at our hotel in Minneapolis so we hit the EB dining car for an early lunch reservation. The rush for the connection in Chicago meant a missed stop at the food court in Union Station. We had munchies with us and survived the rest of the journey with only the addition of a pizza from the snack car on the Wolverine.

Many thanks to the service attendant (Patricia) in our westbound EB coach car. She kept the restrooms very clean in our car and the next one.

During both legs of our trip and on each train, the cars were filled with travelers. All-in-all--it was a very good experience.