Post Trip Dining Car Observations (Coast Starlight)

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seat38a

Engineer
Joined
Jan 27, 2014
Messages
2,025
Location
Orange County California
After traveling on train 11, here are couple of things that I've noticed.

1. The salads that were supposed to be bigger after they started charging for it has now shrunk down in size again, but they are still charging for this pathetic mess for non sleeping car passengers. $3.50

2. While lunch was denied to sleeper passengers who boarded in PDX at 2:00PM(Only 10 minutes late), because they had no more tables and were too busy according to the LSA announcement, 4 tables were taken out of commission. The LSA had two tables dedicated to his stuff, 1 for the crew to come in and out and sit at and 1 for supplies. The second LSA table and the crew table should have been used for paying customers.

3. PPC - Train 14/11 stock CS specific items in LA only so many of the items are completely out when the train 14 returns as train 11. PPC - Lunch items had to be improvised due to normal menu items stocked in LA were gone by the return trip.

4. Whatever method they are using in the dining car is inefficient from passengers perspective. Passengers in coach were denied reservations in the dining car. From the observations of our dining companions and myself, the tables were sitting around empty way too long between turns. When coach and business class passengers have to put their names on a waiting list and are NOT guaranteed to eat in the dining car, then there is a problem.

5. The just for you menu for coach seemed to be popular, or popular because of the dining car situation for coach passengers mentioned above. All just for you meals were completely sold out.

6. While the dining car and the PPC were restocked in Oakland, but whoever is doing the order can do better??? Can someone chime in on how this works? Even with this restock, items such as salads were still run out.
 
Regarding Dining Car restocking in Oak, while there may or may not be a standing order in place, either way, all the LSA/Chef has to do is give one hour advance notice of anything they wish to reorder....

ETA whether or not they receive what they order may be another issue...
 
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