Silver Star has new Café menu and no diner

[A Voice]

I agree there is a difference, but I don't know if Amtrak sees it that way. Because of the parallel route, it's an easy train to "test the waters." But once they have gathered data from the test... I bet more LD trains will lose their diners.

And riders.

And if you're really not going to travel on Amtrak for LD travel, what are your other options?

Fly

Take a Bus

Drive

What you won't be doing is riding another company's train because ... there isn't one. And if food is your biggest reason to choose the train over one of the other options, I'm guessing the food isn't better on buses or planes. I guess if you drive you can stop at fancy restaurants along the way.

The lack of a rail alternative is absolutely no excuse to accept and condone poor or substandard service on the part of Amtrak. Of course, the mere absence of a diner does not necessarily constitute poor service, though I would argue quite strongly that it is am important amenity to attract higher-fare sleeper (and perhaps business class) passengers.

If Amtrak downgraded the California Zephyr to one locomotive hauling three Amfleet coaches - no baggage, no food service, no sleepers - would that be acceptable? Obviously we have no other rail options.

 

[JoeBas]

I do not believe there is a significant drop in ridership on the SS since the diner was pulled. I believe it was an experiment and had the experiment "failed" in the eyes of Amtrak it would not have been a permanent change.

But again, the star is a special case, where you have the Meteor running parallel with a diner, and a train for the Cheapskates in the star. I guarantee you that you will lose Riders on the single train routes if you cut the diners. You may replace those with other riders, yes, but you will lose those individual unique riders.

If you're really not going to travel on Amtrak for LD travel, what are your other options?

Fly

Take a Bus

Drive

What you won't be doing is riding another company's train because ... there isn't one. And if food is your biggest reason to choose the train over one of the other options, I'm guessing the food isn't better on buses or planes. I guess if you drive you can stop at fancy restaurants along the way.

This is a no-brainer, without the dinerss, our travel will change to fly, then drive, then train. 28 hours without real food is a non-starter. Not looking for fancy food; whatever that means, as there has not been "fancy food" on Amtrak for quite some time. But real, not junk food is important.

And as far as Amtrak is concerned, whether they're losing Riders to flying, driving, or some mythical competing train, it doesn't really matter. At the end of the day all that matters is that they're losing Riders.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

I do not believe there is a significant drop in ridership on the SS since the diner was pulled. I believe it was an experiment and had the experiment "failed" in the eyes of Amtrak it would not have been a permanent change.

But again, the star is a special case, where you have the Meteor running parallel with a diner, and a train for the Cheapskates in the star. I guarantee you that you will lose Riders on the single train routes if you cut the diners. You may replace those with other riders, yes, but you will lose those individual unique riders.

If you're really not going to travel on Amtrak for LD travel, what are your other options?

Fly

Take a Bus

Drive

What you won't be doing is riding another company's train because ... there isn't one. And if food is your biggest reason to choose the train over one of the other options, I'm guessing the food isn't better on buses or planes. I guess if you drive you can stop at fancy restaurants along the way.

This is a no-brainer, without the dinerss, our travel will change to fly, then drive, then train. 28 hours without real food is a non-starter. Not looking for fancy food; whatever that means, as there has not been "fancy food" on Amtrak for quite some time. But real, not junk food is important.

And as far as Amtrak is concerned, whether they're losing Riders to flying, driving, or some mythical competing train, it doesn't really matter. At the end of the day all that matters is that they're losing Riders.

So the real difference between choosing an overnight trip of about 15-20 hrs vs. a 2-3 hr plane ride is those great Amtrak steaks?

 

[crescent-zephyr]

This is a no-brainer, without the dinerss, our travel will change to fly, then drive, then train. 28 hours without real food is a non-starter. Not looking for fancy food; whatever that means, as there has not been "fancy food" on Amtrak for quite some time. But real, not junk food is important.

And as far as Amtrak is concerned, whether they're losing Riders to flying, driving, or some mythical competing train, it doesn't really matter. At the end of the day all that matters is that they're losing Riders.

What do the diners have to do with real food though? If Amtrak could provide "real food" (whatever that means to you) in the Cafe car, or at your seat / in your room, would that work?

I personally don't know what the solution is. If Amtrak asked me what to do I would probably suggest branding some trains "Legacy" trains (Zephyr, Empire Builder, Starlight, and Capitol). Put an extra SSL on as a Parlor Car, complete with bar tender, free wine tastings, etc. Add fancy bedding, toiletries kits, all sorts of extras and charge extremely high prices for sleepers (in demand as needed). Have a full service dining car with the china, linen table cloths, glassware, etc. with the best menu Aramark (or whoever!) can provide. Again... the cost of these meals would be high.

All of the other trains... cut them down in service. Keep a diner of some type on the Chief and Sunset, but the others could make it without any diner, Silver Star style. If the "Legacy" trains work... expand them to others such as the Silver Meteor. If they don't... well... they would have to go too I guess.

 

[JoeBas]

So the real difference between choosing an overnight trip of about 15-20 hrs vs. a 2-3 hr plane ride is those great Amtrak steaks?

No, the difference is nutrition. When you get older than 25, pizza rolls, packaged donuts and gas station quality hot dogs don't cut it. Sorry.

At least with flying you can eat around its short duration.

 

[JoeBas]

What do the diners have to do with real food though? If Amtrak could provide "real food" (whatever that means to you) in the Cafe car, or at your seat / in your room, would that work?

Probably. But call me a cynic, that won't happen. What WILL happen is the diners go, without any plan, so just like when whole trains are annuled for track work, no alternate (transportation) nutrition will be provided.

 

[OlympianHiawatha]

So the real difference between choosing an overnight trip of about 15-20 hrs vs. a 2-3 hr plane ride is those great Amtrak steaks?

No, the difference is nutrition. When you get older than 25, pizza rolls, packaged donuts and gas station quality hot dogs don't cut it. Sorry.

At least with flying you can eat around its short duration.

Wait a minute! I'm over twice that old and still, from time to time, thrive on gas station hot dogs, sticks of mini-doughnuts and other C-Store treats!

 

[MARC Rider]

Sounds like we could have some sort of operation to retrofit the diners for more storage space, have most things ready-to-heat (with specific instructions for heating to make a decent product) and serve people at their seats at a given time. Is there enough staff for the coaches to allow that (and would there be time for the sleeper car attendants to handle it?) At-seat or cart service seems to be the best of both worlds, especially if supplemented by a cafe car for on-demand food.

And including meals with all coach tickets should be a non-starter. Most people don't take trains from endpoint to endpoint, and many take it over either zero or one meal periods. Raising coach prices to cover the cost of a meal would almost certainly drive down business overall.

I agree about not including meals in coach prices (except maybe for city pairs that traverse through meal times), but I'm not sure how serving large numbers of passengers at their seats is going to be any cheaper than a diner done right. (i..e, being open longer hours to serve more people and thus increase revenue.) Somebody has to heat up all those pre-cooked meals and then carry them through the train to serve the passengers at their seats. That, I think requires more than one cafe car attendant. And I'm not sure that airline-style wheeled serving carts will be easy to roll between cars on a train going 79 mph on rough track.

By the way, the servers will also have to take money for the purchases, each of which will be different. They'll obviously need better mobile credit card processing than Amtrak currently has. This might be a case for including meals in at least some coach pairs, or selling prepaid meal plans. The whole thing sounds suspiciously like food and beverage service for domestic US coach airline passengers. (Except, if you ask me, I'd love to see airlines sell first class meal service to coach passengers on longer flights.) How is selling food in coach working out for the airlines? In fact, how is their First class food and beverage service look on their books? They might not need to satisfy Mica, but they do have to deal with activist investors.

By the way, is the plan for the Silver Star involve allowing sleeper passengers to have the SCAs bring them meals from the cafe? (and presumably handle the payments.) One of the least pleasant things about the Amtrak cafe car experience is the standing in line to wait while the one overworked attendant finally gets to you, and then wait while they put your order together. I'd gladly give a nice extra tip to and SCA who would do that for me. It might even make up for the lack of a diner for me, if the fare difference is large enough.

 

[neroden]

I guess if you drive you can stop at fancy restaurants along the way.

You sure can. On several family road trips, my parents located all the fancy restuarants along the route in advance and made reservations. Very, very tasty road trips.

It's a lot slower than the train. But it can be a higher-quality experience if you do it that way!

Most people aren't willing to slow down their driving trip quite *that* much.

But the train needs to have food quality at least comparable to roadhouses (Denny's or Subway or whatever) in order to properly compete with driving.

I do not believe there is a significant drop in ridership on the SS since the diner was pulled.

There was a significant drop in ridership on the Star since the diner was pulled. It showed up quite clearly in the data. People are making excuses for it, which is understandable since there are all kinds of other reasons why the Star might have lost riders while the Meteor gained riders.
The lost revenue was slightly less than the costs cut by removing the diner, though, so shortsightedly Amtrak probably considers this a "success".

If the "TV dinners" bring the ridership back, *then* I guess you really *could* consider it a success. Honestly I'm hoping this does work.

 

[MARC Rider]

So the real difference between choosing an overnight trip of about 15-20 hrs vs. a 2-3 hr plane ride is those great Amtrak steaks?

No, the difference is nutrition. When you get older than 25, pizza rolls, packaged donuts and gas station quality hot dogs don't cut it. Sorry.

At least with flying you can eat around its short duration.

The hot dog in the Amtrak cafe car is not a "gas station quality" frank. It is an authentic Hebrew National frankfurter. Unless you live near an authentic old-style kosher butcher shop or deli, you cannot find a better hot dog anywhere. And just today, on a Northeast regional cafe car, I saw with my own eyes the attendant take the frank, heat it separately from the roll, and toast the roll in a separate toaster. The only thing missing, aside from sauerkraut, is that Amtrak has eliminated the Grey Poupon mustard packs from the condiment tray. They could at least serve brown deli mustard instead of the awful yellow stuff.

Oh, and the guy who bought it paired this delectable treat with a half bottle of chardonnay, There's no accounting for taste, I guess.

 

[JoeBas]

But the train needs to have food quality at least comparable to roadhouses (Denny's or Subway or whatever) in order to properly compete with driving.

You highfaluting people with your fancy vegetables and salads. Let them eat Ding Dongs!!!

 

[JoeBas]

So the real difference between choosing an overnight trip of about 15-20 hrs vs. a 2-3 hr plane ride is those great Amtrak steaks?

No, the difference is nutrition. When you get older than 25, pizza rolls, packaged donuts and gas station quality hot dogs don't cut it. Sorry.

At least with flying you can eat around its short duration.

The hot dog in the Amtrak cafe car is not a "gas station quality" frank. It is an authentic Hebrew National frankfurter. Unless you live near an authentic old-style kosher butcher shop or deli, you cannot find a better hot dog anywhere. And just today, on a Northeast regional cafe car, I saw with my own eyes the attendant take the frank, heat it separately from the roll, and toast the roll in a separate toaster. The only thing missing, aside from sauerkraut, is that Amtrak has eliminated the Grey Poupon mustard packs from the condiment tray. They could at least serve brown deli mustard instead of the awful yellow stuff.

Oh, and the guy who bought it paired this delectable treat with a half bottle of chardonnay, There's no accounting for taste, I guess.

So Chardonnay comes from grapes, I GUESS that counts as a fruit/vegetable... But whatever, y'all seem determined to win the race to the bottom. Enjoy the trophy when you get there.

 

[niemi24s]

I do not believe there is a significant drop in ridership on the SS since the diner was pulled.

You don't believe? Why not expend the effort to figure out if there was or wasn't a significant drop. Or any drop at all! But because "significant" is a bit subjective, I'll simply give the percent ridership changes for the Silver Service during the two most comparable recent periods of Jul 2014 - Mar 2015 and Jul 2015 - Mar 2016:

• Silver Service down 5.1%

• Silver Star down 8.7%

• Silver Meteor down 1.0%.

There. Isn't that better than playing a hunch? ^_^

 

[crescent-zephyr]

"Authentic Hebrew national frankfurter." Do you work for Amtrak marketing? Lol!

I think the cheese and cracker tray is pretty decent, but I wouldn't call it "an authentic selection of premier cheeses"

 

[jis]

Is there any relationship between the ridership trend on Silver Star and the removal of one Coach from its consist?

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

I do not believe there is a significant drop in ridership on the SS since the diner was pulled.

You don't believe? Why not expend the effort to figure out if there was or wasn't a significant drop. Or any drop at all! But because "significant" is a bit subjective, I'll simply give the percent ridership changes for the Silver Service during the two most comparable recent periods of Jul 2014 - Mar 2015 and Jul 2015 - Mar 2016:

• Silver Service down 5.1%

• Silver Star down 8.7%

• Silver Meteor down 1.0%.

There. Isn't that better than playing a hunch? ^_^

That's a lot of effort to come up with these so TY.

OK here's my next hunch that if you wish to spend the time looking through 6-7 reports to confirm or deny go ahead.

How about revenue? Could Amtrak be selling more sleeper services on the SS to make up for the fewer # of riders? I know I said ridership first but if revenue evens out I think Amtrak can deal with the lack of ridership.

 

[niemi24s]

OK here's my next hunch that if you wish to spend the time looking through 6-7 reports to confirm or deny go ahead.

How about revenue? Could Amtrak be selling more sleeper services on the SS to make up for the fewer # of riders? I know I said ridership first but if revenue evens out I think Amtrak can deal with the lack of ridership.

Your turn.

Think I'll go watch cartoons on TV and let the forum gourmets get their panties all in a wad over food. Sheesh.

 

[Paulus]

There was a significant drop in ridership on the Star since the diner was pulled. It showed up quite clearly in the data. People are making excuses for it, which is understandable since there are all kinds of other reasons why the Star might have lost riders while the Meteor gained riders.

The lost revenue was slightly less than the costs cut by removing the diner, though, so shortsightedly Amtrak probably considers this a "success".

If the "TV dinners" bring the ridership back, *then* I guess you really *could* consider it a success. Honestly I'm hoping this does work.

Close to a million dollars a month in decreased operating loss isn't "slightly less."

 

[neroden]

Is there any relationship between the ridership trend on Silver Star and the removal of one Coach from its consist?

Why, yes. In recent years, when ridership drops, Amtrak has adjusted consist lengths to match!

 

[neroden]

There was a significant drop in ridership on the Star since the diner was pulled. It showed up quite clearly in the data. People are making excuses for it, which is understandable since there are all kinds of other reasons why the Star might have lost riders while the Meteor gained riders.

The lost revenue was slightly less than the costs cut by removing the diner, though, so shortsightedly Amtrak probably considers this a "success".

If the "TV dinners" bring the ridership back, *then* I guess you really *could* consider it a success. Honestly I'm hoping this does work.

Close to a million dollars a month in decreased operating loss isn't "slightly less."

We can argue about the definition of "slightly" for as many hours as you like, Paulus.

The way I see it, losing 8% of riders isn't good even if the bottom line improves temporarily. Trains thrive on high volumes; dropping volumes are the death spiral.

I hope the pre-plated dinners in the cafe bring the riders back. Hey, it would work for me (if I ever travelled that direction).

 

[jis]

Is there any relationship between the ridership trend on Silver Star and the removal of one Coach from its consist?

Why, yes. In recent years, when ridership drops, Amtrak has adjusted consist lengths to match!

My question had more do with which happened first. I don't know. Do you or are you just being flippant?

 

[user 6862]

From a visitor perspective 2 simple points.

I asked Rosie what did she think of a LD train without a diner, " it's a major part of what makes it special".

Later in the year we are using the SS and not the Meteor but only because the arrival time in Richmond is much better for our purposes. If the Meteor were to get vaguely closer to the SS's arrival time we would have been willing to compromise to get the diner option, but we are not foodies just enjoy the diner experience on Amtrak trains.

We travel to the US for several reasons. Friends, driving through a fabulous country, Greyhound buses and Amtrak. LD trains are the newest to us but are now in second place as to the reason to travel to the US, eating reasonable food seated comfortably with the possibility of meeting new people is a large part of that.

 

[CSXfoamer1997]

From a visitor perspective 2 simple points.

I asked Rosie what did she think of a LD train without a diner, " it's a major part of what makes it special".

Later in the year we are using the SS and not the Meteor but only because the arrival time in Richmond is much better for our purposes. If the Meteor were to get vaguely closer to the SS's arrival time we would have been willing to compromise to get the diner option, but we are not foodies just enjoy the diner experience on Amtrak trains.

We travel to the US for several reasons. Friends, driving through a fabulous country, Greyhound buses and Amtrak. LD trains are the newest to us but are now in second place as to the reason to travel to the US, eating reasonable food seated comfortably with the possibility of meeting new people is a large part of that.

I'm with ya on that! When I traveled by Amtrak, I had a great experience! Only, I wish the food in the diner (excluding the cafe car) could be better.

 

[PRR 60]

The removal of the Silver Star diner was aimed at sleeper class riders. A look at the sleeper ridership seems to suggest that the change is working.

10/1/15 to 2/29/16 (compared to the same period the prior year

Silver Star: Sleeper ridership up 5.6% (13,694 compared to 12,970)

Silver Meteor: Sleeper ridership down 6.5% (16,799 compared to 17,960)

This supports the claims by Amtrak management that the Silver Star sleeper occupancy rate has risen into the mid-80's since the changes was made.

 

[CSXfoamer1997]

Why the heck is it, that just because a train has a diner on it, that sleeping car accommodations are more expensive?

Paying more for a sleeper just to get diner meals makes no sense in my opinion.

I mean, is it the same way on the Superliner trains?