Food going to be cut???

[AmtrakFan]

They might not get rite of food totally but there are some mass reforms as you'll notice in Posts by Trainboy325 and OBS those posts have great insite on these problems.

 

[trainboy325]

Diner-lite menus and three man crews come to both Silver Service trains on April 1. The JAX crew base manager has confirmed these changes with a good friend of mine after having her transfer accepted by said manager to be able to work in her hometown. Secondly, the JAX crew base's scheduled closing on April 1 also confirms the diner-lite system as the second waiters and "short" coach attendants make their homes in JAX. With these jobs being removed from the train, expect reduced coach service, such as no seat service after 10pm (pillows, seating assignment, etc.) and/or restrooms not maintained by OBS crews throughout the trip. Like on corridor trains, restrooms that go bad are closed by the conductors and are not reopened until equipment is serviced by coach cleaners at turnaround points. Also, expect dinette crews to disallow coach passengers the opportunity to eat as they'll revolt against the changes in reduced labor to serve over 300 people in both coaches and sleepers. Managers have been dispatched to prevent such abuses, but many of these managers don't care enough about the situation to do anything about it. As many of you may already know, most OBS operation supervisors are LSAs and SAs by craft and with their manager jobs definately being abolished, those managers with high OBS seniorities will be bidding on lower OBS craft jobs that they're suppost to be policing as supervisors right now. No surprise as they're against the overall "do more with less" approach with labor in the dinnettes, they support active drives to "sabotage" food service and customer issues on-board. Sadly, these attempts to "undo" the diner-lite system only cause extreme coach passenger (as well as long time sleeper passengers expecting meals cooked to order) disatisfaction with their travel experience and reduce overall sales in the food service division, causing furthur demands by "bean counters" to cut services because receipts tell them that "nobody's wanting to eat on the train." :angry:

 

[AmtrakFan]

Mr. Henderson,

Won't they still have the 1 Coach Attendent from Miami to NYP?

 

[trainboy325]

There will be a MIA coach attendant on the entire trip. In the case of the Silver Service trains, the coach ridership is extremely high for one person to manage and keep restrooms clean for a 20 plus hour trip. When you have multiple people working the coaches in the day, you can spread the work, provide more attentive service to people and restrooms. During the overnight hours, you always have a least one attendant available to clean thoroughly during the overnight hours and help with keeping doors closed, lights turned off and helping elderly and children in the dark. With one attendant, you have a period of four to five hours at night without available services and no help for those who need it, especially in the evening.

With the old timers being the only ones remaining employed on Silver Service trains, the average service provided by attendants now will disappear. In my personal experience, when I worked my first coach job which was by myself on the Crescent, the report time was 6 am and I worked all the way to Greensboro at around 3 am. After taking a shower and getting a two and a half hour nap, wakeup at Lynchburg and work all the way to New York around 2:30 pm, I was dead. Now ask a very tired person to clean the bathrooms every hour, provide at seat meal service for disabled passengers and move hundreds of carry-on bags, you think you're going to get service with a smile! That's my point. Consistant labor reductions kill service, regardless of how much you adjust one's job description and reduce ones time to rest enroute. :angry:

 

[Save Our Trains Michigan]

The sleepers have nothing to do with money all this 1st class stuff that they want to cut is to lower ridership and try to take all the LD trains off this is just 1 more move to try to take the trains off.

 

[WICT106]

Concur with BNSF, and Trainboy above. The tactics are to kill Amtrak from within. Why there is such a strong desire to get rid of a service which is so popular with the United States middle class is dissappointing to me.

 

[Guest_Gingee]

What are Silver Service trains?

 

[AlanB]

What are Silver Service trains?

The trains that run from NY to Florida and Georgia.

 

[RailFanNebraska]

well ... from my simple calculations ... a dinner on an amtrak train would have to average about 700 dollars a day to pay the staff three kitchen workers and 2 waiters ... plus say, another 500 (??) for the food cost, there about ... in total about 1200 dollars a day in revenue to break even. im somewhat guessing they dont do this lol ... once like i said before, you have to figure out a way to get more people into the dinners, suggestions?