THE NEW MENUS ARE HERE! THE NEW MENUS ARE HERE!

[MiRider]

Frankly I find this baffling. On the one hand everyone complains incessantly about the lack of choice and variation. On the other hand they want everything spelled out precisely on the menu in the five items so there is no room for any variation. Somewhere in there there seems to be some sort of a cognitive disconnection. In my experience order taking is not the most time consuming part of the process anyway. It is food prep and delivery. So why worry so endlessly about something that is not really a critical issue?

As always, a voice of reason. Thanks.

 

[SarahZ]

I don't think it's going to take that long. I compare it to the servers in a restaurant.

"Today, our specialty sandwich is Smoked Ham on Rye, and our seafood offering is an Ahi Tuna Steak. Our Soup of the Day is Chicken Noodle. Can I get you folks anything to drink to start off?"

Boom. Done.

 

[me_little_me]

Slogan for Amtrak Financial Excellence Bean Counter Meeting:

"Let them eat Kung Pao Chicken! What could possibly go wrong??!!!

It could actually come from China. Then it would have lead and melamine - two of the nutrients with a recommended daily allowance. Yummm!

New menu items?

The Beancounter Burger (The name says it all)

Fresh Roast Meat of the Day - (whatever we've hit and been able to salvage)

Locally Foraged Stew (A stew made from whatever station employees have been able to find while dumpster diving behind local restaurants along LD routes)

LocoMotion Dessert Cup (a slice of freestanding jello with no taste, but is fun to watch jiggling with the movement of the train)

What if they don't hit anything on the run? That mean we starve? "We don't have the roast today. We missed the trespasser by 'that much'!"

:blush:

 

[Ryan]

I don't think it's going to take that long. I compare it to the servers in a restaurant.

"Today, our specialty sandwich is Smoked Ham on Rye, and our seafood offering is an Ahi Tuna Steak. Our Soup of the Day is Chicken Noodle. Can I get you folks anything to drink to start off?"

Boom. Done.

Unfortunately, I think that a great deal of the Dining Car staff are either unwilling or unable to do that.

It's quite clear to me when one is wondering about what specific items have been removed from the menus.

Obviously, there's a specialty sandwich available.

"Random Sandwich" isn't quite clear for anyone wondering what they're going to be able to have for lunch.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

What could possibly go wrong using the Airline Model for Amtrak! Less for more, what a great idea eh!

You mean the airline model that has steadily resulted in significantly lower fares, higher passenger numbers, and higher profits for the airline industry?

In the case of the US most of the airfare reductions and increased passenger numbers occurred when the airlines were anything but profitable. After nearly the entire commercial aviation industry fell into bankruptcy they started attacking costs and raising fares anyway they could. Individual investors lost millions in the process and consumers saw total costs for equivalent services skyrocket. As salaries were slashed, seats were reduced, fares were raised, and a liteny of surcharges were introduced profits eventually went up. Consumers never had a chance to react to these decisions with meaninful purchasing power because the airlines which survived followed each others lead. You can’t just lump it all together as one big trend always heading in the same direction. The history of the airline market does have some intersting and important lessons for us, but it has also become an unmitigated disaster from time to time.

Here's the dirty secret that everyone whining about service reductions on airlines keeps forgetting: You prefer the lack of service. You prefer the loss of leg room. And you prefer all the other miseries because you like having lower fares instead. The airlines are just following consumer demand for cheaper travel. Want better service? Pay for the upgrade to business or first class.

You think most of the people in the first or business cabin paid for those seats? The dirty little secret is that most of those seats were given away to people who pay for coach travel. Recognizing that the airline market is no longer catering to our needs or providing practical alternatives many of us are flying less. In some cases a lot less, especially among the folks on this very forum. Although I doubt you’d ever bother to ask us. Your posts appear to be full of assumptions and half-truths with an attitude that is dripping with contempt.

pancakes and french toast are available at the same time and not just in certain directions.

No. If you look between those listings, it says "OR" - it's one or the other based on the train - not both at the same time.

Ah, I didn't see the -or- but, then again, I really don't care.

The new menus are just fine with me <shrug>

I don’t doubt that these vague mystery menus are fine with you but the idea that they might not be fine with the rest of us seems to be a continuing concern of yours.

Frankly I find this baffling. On the one hand everyone complains incessantly about the lack of choice and variation. On the other hand they want everything spelled out precisely on the menu in the five items so there is no room for any variation. Somewhere in there there seems to be some sort of a cognitive disconnection. In my experience order taking is not the most time consuming part of the process anyway. It is food prep and delivery. So why worry so endlessly about something that is not really a critical issue?

I find your assumption that every possible complaint must be coming from the same people equally baffling. Who is this “everyone” you speak of?

 

[SarahZ]

I don't think it's going to take that long. I compare it to the servers in a restaurant.

"Today, our specialty sandwich is Smoked Ham on Rye, and our seafood offering is an Ahi Tuna Steak. Our Soup of the Day is Chicken Noodle. Can I get you folks anything to drink to start off?"

Boom. Done.

Unfortunately, I think that a great deal of the Dining Car staff are either unwilling or unable to do that.

Blargh. That seems odd. It's not hard. It's sad that some would be unwilling/unable to do that.

I do agree with the points made by those with allergies and such. Not knowing if I had to pack food would be frustrating.

 

[Ryan]

Blargh. That seems odd. It's not hard. It's sad that some would be unwilling/unable to do that.

Oh, I agree completely that it isn't hard, but there's a not-insignificant portion of the workforce that can't even muster a basic level of civility.

 

[MiRider]

pancakes and french toast are available at the same time and not just in certain directions.

No. If you look between those listings, it says "OR" - it's one or the other based on the train - not both at the same time.

Ah, I didn't see the -or- but, then again, I really don't care.

The new menus are just fine with me <shrug>

I don’t doubt that these borderline useless menus are fine with you but the idea that they might not be fine with the rest of us seems to be a continuing concern of yours. The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

A few posts do not make 'a continuing concern'.

Used in the proper context, 'The lady doth protest too much, methinks', would mean that the new menus are bothersome to me but I'm pretending otherwise.

Drama on and enjoy.

 

[Paulus]

So what is the average sleeper passenger fare paid?

In FY13, the average California Zephyr sleeper fare was $343, the highest of any of the long distance trains (though the Southwest Chief and Empire Builder were also above $300 per person). If you use the average yield per mile from NARPs statistics, it's 23.7¢ which would come out to $577.8 for Chicago to Emeryville.

Firstly, bedrooms are for up to three people, so adjust the price accordingly. Second, you are pulling a last minute fare, of course it will look high. The last coach seat on a plane will be quite high as well. Go with the average sleeper passenger fare instead if you want to look at what people are already paying.

It doesn't look high, it is high. Even a roomette was just under $800 So should someone who pays that fare for a bedroom get a better level of service than someone who pays $1000 less for booking early?The point is you were saying people want cheap fares. That's called coach. It's a choice. It's generally also the norm that passengers/customers paying higher rates for enhanced travel get better services and enhancements.

Again, you were looking at last minute, last available room fares. They are designed to be excessively high fares and they are in no way the norm. Even still, however, those last minute fares are cheaper than the fares of high service (seriously, adjusted for inflation, an A-Day roomette from Chicago to San Francisco was $806.63 and did not include free meals). If you want Pullman service, you need to pay Pullman fares as the regular fare.

 

[train person]

I just wonder where this Pullman Rail service is we can buy tickets for....

 

[PRR 60]

Why not simply have the at-table menus consist of a holder and a single, letter-size copy of that train's offerings? Letter-size copies today cost maybe 1 cent each. I even suspect that New York, Chicago, LA and other O&D locations might even have their own copying machines [sarcasm]. Make-up 100 copies of the train's menu, put one in each of maybe 50 menu holders (leaves 50 copies to replace foamer theft), put the holders on the tables, done. No need to "ask your server" anything. Diners have plenty of time to consider the choices.

Or, have a white board where the variable offerings are listed so that passengers could see as they are being seated.

I don't doubt that servers get sick and tired of spewing the specials list table after table after table. Communicating the special items should not require that.

 

[SarahZ]

Why not simply have the at-table menus consist of a holder and a single, letter-size copy of that train's offerings?

I had a similar thought earlier. I pictured those small menu holders you tend to see at pubs and places like Applebee's. Like this:



It would be easy to slide the applicable menu in/out of the holder, and with a flat design, it would easy to move it from the middle of the table to over by the window when the plates start coming out.

 

[Paulus]

What could possibly go wrong using the Airline Model for Amtrak! Less for more, what a great idea eh!

You mean the airline model that has steadily resulted in significantly lower fares, higher passenger numbers, and higher profits for the airline industry?

In the case of the US most of the airfare reductions and increased passenger numbers occurred when the airlines were anything but profitable. After nearly the entire commercial aviation industry fell into bankruptcy they started attacking costs and raising fares anyway they could. Individual investors lost millions in the process and consumers saw total costs for equivalent services skyrocket. As salaries were slashed, seats were reduced, fares were raised, and a liteny of surcharges were introduced profits eventually went up.

Citations please. Given the $1,442 minimum for a Los Angeles-New York flight in 1974 (adjusted for inflation), I'm really doubting that equivalent services skyrocketed.

Consumers never had a chance to react to these decisions with meaninful purchasing power because the airlines which survived followed each others lead. You can’t just lump it all together as one big trend always heading in the same direction. The history of the airline market does have some intersting and important lessons for us, but it has also become an unmitigated disaster from time to time.

Customers had every chance to do so and the entire reason that the airlines followed each others lead was because the customers chose cheaper flights. Everybody knows RyanAir is crap and terrible service, yet people are still attracted by the low fares that it offers compared to better service airlines.

Here's the dirty secret that everyone whining about service reductions on airlines keeps forgetting: You prefer the lack of service. You prefer the loss of leg room. And you prefer all the other miseries because you like having lower fares instead. The airlines are just following consumer demand for cheaper travel. Want better service? Pay for the upgrade to business or first class.

You think most of the people in the first or business cabin paid for those seats? The dirty little secret is that most of those seats were given away to people who pay for coach travel. Recognizing that the airline market is no longer catering to our needs or providing practical alternatives many of us are flying less. In some cases a lot less, especially among the folks on this very forum. Although I doubt you’d ever bother to ask us. Your posts appear to be full of assumptions and half-truths with an attitude that is dripping with contempt.

I'm well aware that most of those are upgrades from coach thanks to frequent flyer miles and whatnot. You're missing my point: If you want that service yourself, pay for it, because then you'll be getting close to the pre-deregulation fares that supported that level of service. Also, don't confuse your own habits of personal travel with what everyone else is doing. There's a small dip in passenger numbers thanks to the 2008 crash and the rather terrible recovery we've had, but nothing like a major rejection of how the airlines have reacted to passenger desires for cheaper tickets and air travel remains significantly more common today than it was pre-1978.

 

[tonys96]

I think I won't complain about this. It'll reduce the profitability of the dining cars a hell of a lot, though, as more people "pack in". You can charge for a good selection of good meals but not for this cut-back mess... And it'll damage ridership and revenue a lot too (more in sleeper, but also in coach).Maybe this is part of a clever plan to demonstrate to Mica that cutting dining car service will make it lose more money. If so, I think we should assist Amtrak by making sure that it loses more money.

That would require

No, it wouldn't. Look up the word "more", Paulus. It's in the dictionary.

Look up the word profit. Also in the dictionary.

Something roughly like a dining car is simply something you have to have once your runtime runs across multiple meals.

No, it's not. You personally might like having a dining car instead of a cafe car, or ordering a pizza delivered at the next stop, but that does not mean it is somehow a requirement of service; the fact that the Palmetto and quite a large number of corridor trains run across multiple meals without having a dining car does rather lend merit to the suggestion that they do not. Do recall that the majority of ridership, even on long distance trains, is not running across multiple meals and most people are quite willing to have cafe meals rather than requiring a full service sit down meal experience.

Yes, dining car service is a vital loss leader, and none of the numbers you waved about change that. Remove the service, watch ridership and revenue drop in both sleeper and coach, by very large amounts.

The impact on coach, which barely uses it beyond the level of a cafe car to begin with, will be completely negligible. If sleeper declines, good riddance to it. Food and beverage direct costs amounted to 73.8% of all sleeper revenue for Fiscal Year 2012. If the loss of dining cars means that there is not one single sleeper passenger, ever again, on Amtrak, Amtrak will likely be ahead of the game financially. The whole point of a loss leader is that you take a small loss in order to get people in the door for something with much larger profits. This is not a small loss. This is damn near every dollar brought in.

Is there room for revenue/cost improvements in the dining cars? Yes. You aren't going to get there by cutting the menu. You might get there by (a) eliminating the hours spent doing paperwork and (b) keeping the dining car open more hours per day. Same labor costs, happier customers (==will pay more), more customers. Could you satisfy the requirement for food with a *massively* upgraded cafe car? Sure. That doesn't seem to be happening either.

The vast majority of customers currently are not actually paying for food however and it is doubtful that having the dining car open a few more hours of the day would allow the, quite frankly, massive increases in fares that are required.

"The vast majority of customers are not actually paying for food"??

How, pray tell, are they getting it then?

 

[Green Maned Lion]

They are paying for food; the monetary allocation for those prices comes out of their sleeper fares. They pay for their sleeper fare one way or another.

 

[Paulus]

"The vast majority of customers are not actually paying for food"??

How, pray tell, are they getting it then?

They are paying for food; the monetary allocation for those prices comes out of their sleeper fares. They pay for their sleeper fare one way or another.

It is a perk of the sleeper fare, however, quoting Amtrak OIG: "However, when establishing the price of sleeper tickets, the Marketing department does not consider the cost of providing food and beverage services, according to Marketing officials. They set ticket prices based on an assessment of customer demand and price sensitivity." The lack of any relation to actual food expense is why I state that they do not currently pay for it and instead merely receive it as a free perk.

 

[D.P. Roberts]

I don't think it's going to take that long. I compare it to the servers in a restaurant.

"Today, our specialty sandwich is Smoked Ham on Rye, and our seafood offering is an Ahi Tuna Steak. Our Soup of the Day is Chicken Noodle. Can I get you folks anything to drink to start off?"

Boom. Done.

From the server's end, yes, it seems easy. But I'd add it to the list of things that seem easy to a server that end up being extraordinarily difficult in an Amtrak dining car.

I work in customer service, so I generally give other customer service employees the benefit of the doubt. I also think that the majority of the Amtrak employees I have encountered do a pretty good job - especially the SCAs. I've also had generally good experience with ticket counter reps, conductors, phone agents, and others. But Amtrak dining car attendants, IMHO, operate at a level well below their counterparts at regular restaurants. I hate the idea of having to rely on them to tell me what's for dinner when I'm perfectly capable of reading a menu for myself.

Here's my idea:

You'll notice that for breakfast, most of the menus say that either the Pancakes OR the Railroad French Toast will be available. Your server lets you know which one is being served at that meal. Why can't they do that with the other options? As we know from other posts here about amtrakfoodfacts.com, there are only two choices for each "special item" anyway - why not just list both of those specials in the same manner?

For example, under "Specialty Sandwich", the menu can list both the Crab Cake and the Bratwurst, with their appropriate descriptions. The menu includes the phrase "OR (Depending on your train's specific menu)" between them. That way, when your server says "Today's Specialty Sandwich is the Bratwurst", you already know what he/she is talking about, without asking them to explain what it is.

Currently, the menu is half useless. With this incredibly easy change, you get the best of both worlds - the server can quickly explain what the options are, but the passengers still get all (or at least most) of the information they need about each dish.

 

[SarahZ]

That seems a fair compromise.

 

[Train person]

From the above quoted Amtrak OIG.

http://www.amtrakoig.gov/sites/default/files/reports/oig-a-2014-001_0.pdf.

The comment on the bottom of page 6 seems to contradict the above post....

 

[Paulus]

From the above quoted Amtrak OIG.

http://www.amtrakoig.gov/sites/default/files/reports/oig-a-2014-001_0.pdf.

The comment on the bottom of page 6 seems to contradict the above post....

Which comment?

 

[Devil's Advocate]

What could possibly go wrong using the Airline Model for Amtrak! Less for more, what a great idea eh!

You mean the airline model that has steadily resulted in significantly lower fares, higher passenger numbers, and higher profits for the airline industry?

In the case of the US most of the airfare reductions and increased passenger numbers occurred when the airlines were anything but profitable. After nearly the entire commercial aviation industry fell into bankruptcy they started attacking costs and raising fares anyway they could. Individual investors lost millions in the process and consumers saw total costs for equivalent services skyrocket. As salaries were slashed, seats were reduced, fares were raised, and a liteny of surcharges were introduced profits eventually went up.

Citations please. Given the $1,442 minimum for a Los Angeles-New York flight in 1974 (adjusted for inflation), I'm really doubting that equivalent services skyrocketed.

The experience you get today for $300 is vastly different that the experience you received for $1,400 in the past. The model which has given the airlines profits during the deregulated era also includes contributing factors such as stock liquidations, bankruptcy protections, wage freezes, lost benefits, seat reductions, and an ever increasing list of usage restrictions, fuel surcharges, baggage fees, meal charges, phone fees, change fees, airport booking fees, and penalties. That doesn’t sound like the kind of path I would want Amtrak to take. In fact Amtrak's straightforward rules and fees are a large part of what drew me to them in the first place.

Consumers never had a chance to react to these decisions with meaninful purchasing power because the airlines which survived followed each others lead. You can’t just lump it all together as one big trend always heading in the same direction. The history of the airline market does have some intersting and important lessons for us, but it has also become an unmitigated disaster from time to time.

Customers had every chance to do so and the entire reason that the airlines followed each others lead was because the customers chose cheaper flights. Everybody knows RyanAir is crap and terrible service, yet people are still attracted by the low fares that it offers compared to better service airlines.

In many cases consumers today have few if any other options to choose from. The bus systems and rail systems have been hacked to bits. Employers have standardized on air travel for scheduling and reimbursement purposes. The airlines have merged and merged again until most of the market could move in lock step. Middle class wages have stagnated and lost ground to inflation while the cost of many goods and services has increased. As a result it’s not that easy to determine if folks are flying because they really don’t care or because they simply have few if any other choices available to them. It's not like one airline raises fees and the rest just sit back and let consumers decide which set of rules they want over the course of several months. These days one airline makes a change and within a day or two the rest have already caught up. By the time the average family that only flies once or twice a year gets on their next plane a dozen new fees and restrictions have already been spread all across the market.

 

[tonys96]

"The vast majority of customers are not actually paying for food"??How, pray tell, are they getting it then?

They are paying for food; the monetary allocation for those prices comes out of their sleeper fares. They pay for their sleeper fare one way or another.

It is a perk of the sleeper fare, however, quoting Amtrak OIG: "However, when establishing the price of sleeper tickets, the Marketing department does not consider the cost of providing food and beverage services, according to Marketing officials. They set ticket prices based on an assessment of customer demand and price sensitivity." The lack of any relation to actual food expense is why I state that they do not currently pay for it and instead merely receive it as a free perk.

That is an idiotic, simplistic comment. The meal cost is part of the sleeper cost.
Only a buffoon does not know that there is no such thing as a free lunch, or dinner, or breakfast. Everything has a cost and is paid for somehow.

 

[Train person]

From the above quoted Amtrak OIG.http://www.amtrakoig.gov/sites/default/files/reports/oig-a-2014-001_0.pdf.The comment on the bottom of page 6 seems to contradict the above post....

Which comment?

The one you seem to have ignored.....

 

[jis]

I find your assumption that every possible complaint must be coming from the same people equally baffling. Who is this “everyone” you speak of?

The Borg collective of AU of course.

 

[Paulus]

The experience you get today for $300 is vastly different that the experience you received for $1,400 in the past.

I'm well aware of that. It has, in fact, been my point. However, what you were saying is that the experience you received for $1,400 has skyrocketed well above that point.

The model which has given the airlines profits during the deregulated era also includes contributing factors such as stock liquidations, bankruptcy protections, wage freezes, lost benefits, seat reductions, and an ever increasing list of usage restrictions, fuel surcharges, baggage fees, meal charges, phone fees, change fees, airport booking fees, and penalties. That doesn’t sound like the kind of path I would want Amtrak to take. In fact Amtrak's straightforward rules and fees are a large part of what drew me to them in the first place.

Amtrak's rules and fees are no more or less straightforward than those of airlines. Amtrak just doesn't provide a nice little breakdown of all the fees and whatnot that go into the fare like the airlines tend to do.

In many cases consumers today have few if any other options to choose from. The bus systems and rail systems have been hacked to bits.

They could choose alternate means of air travel. Rail and bus will never be worthwhile contenders to air outside of the three hour zone anyhow, so the state of that network is really quite meaningless.

Employers have standardized on air travel for scheduling and reimbursement purposes.

They've standardized on air travel because it's the cheapest and fastest option; it makes no sense to spend more money and half a week to send someone by rail across the country when they can do it for less in half a day. Note that many employers in the NEC send them on Amtrak instead of by air, because Amtrak is faster and cheaper in that market.

The airlines have merged and merged again until most of the market could move in lock step. Middle class wages have stagnated and lost ground to inflation while the cost of many goods and services has increased. As a result it’s not that easy to determine if folks are flying because they really don’t care or because they simply have few if any other choices available to them.

The number of trips that individuals make has gone up significantly since deregulation and while middle class wages have stagnated in real dollars, the cost of air fare (and most goods and services for that matter) has dramatically dropped in real dollars.

It's not like one airline raises fees and the rest just sit back and let consumers decide which set of rules they want over the course of several months. These days one airline makes a change and within a day or two the rest have already caught up. By the time the average family that only flies once or twice a year gets on their next plane a dozen new fees and restrictions have already been spread all across the market.

Because they know from experience and marketing studies that the cheaper option is the preferential option. They're not clueless idiots, they're doing it for a reason.

"The vast majority of customers are not actually paying for food"??How, pray tell, are they getting it then?

They are paying for food; the monetary allocation for those prices comes out of their sleeper fares. They pay for their sleeper fare one way or another.

It is a perk of the sleeper fare, however, quoting Amtrak OIG: "However, when establishing the price of sleeper tickets, the Marketing department does not consider the cost of providing food and beverage services, according to Marketing officials. They set ticket prices based on an assessment of customer demand and price sensitivity." The lack of any relation to actual food expense is why I state that they do not currently pay for it and instead merely receive it as a free perk.

That is an idiotic, simplistic comment. The meal cost is part of the sleeper cost.
Only a buffoon does not know that there is no such thing as a free lunch, or dinner, or breakfast. Everything has a cost and is paid for somehow.

Again, it is only a part of the sleeper cost if the sleeper cost is set with it in mind, otherwise it is nothing more than a perk. The Metropolitan Lounges are not part of the cost of a sleeper ticket; they are simply a perk. Ideally the ticket is set high enough to recoup the money from the perks. This is not so with Amtrak's long distance trains.