Recent content by A.H. Rudd

Recent scuttlebutt from a trip on the City of New Orleans: the traditional dining pilot program (currently in place on the Silvers) is rumored to come to the CONO in October. Plans are to allegedly staff superliner diners with a Chef downstairs and an LSA upstairs. We’ll see what ends up happening.

@blueman271 It's nice to get more info about traditional dining returning to 19/20 from another source. The train is New Orleans crew base. One would think that once the infrastructure is in place to bring traditional dining back, it could expand to the CONO relatively painlessly, if Amtrak...

@Acela150

I'm simply relaying what my sleeping car attendant, the dining car LSA, a conductor, and an Amtrak supervisor told me when I asked about the return of traditional dining to East Coast routes during my CONO trip last week. I asked all 4 of them separately, and they all told me the same thing...

Now hear this, now hear this. According to multiple sources aboard a recent run of Amtrak's City of New Orleans, the traditional dining pilot program (currently underway on the Silver Star) will be coming to The Crescent next, and subsequently the City of New Orleans. To facilitate...

Now hear this, now hear this: aboard Train 92, The Silver Meteor, my LSA has informed me that traditional dining is returning to this route on or around March 15. And there was much rejoicing.

Whatever will become of my beloved K-Tower?

I believe you have to book through Amtrak's specific link for the BOGO to apply. I would check to make sure that there's still a roomette at an acceptable fare bucket before cancelling your existing reservation. The sale ends the 21st (tomorrow)

I once bumped into former DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson on the Cap Limited during the summer of 2019. We spoke for a bit while waiting for our flex meals. He told me he enjoys taking the train from DC to Chicago.

If your schedule allows I would recommend catching the Coast Starlight from Emeryville. It's daily scheduled departure is 8:39am. Then you would change trains in Los Angeles and ride one of Amtrak's Surfliner trains the rest of the way to San Diego, with a scheduled arrival of 1:14am.

If memory serves, the stop in STL is long enough that you can easily have food delivered to the station. Think St. Louis style ribs from Pappy’s.

My kids and I are on the Illini SB from CHI to CEN this evening. While stretching our legs and exploring the train we stopped by the half-cafe on the lower level of our superliner coach to make small talk with the LSA. I asked if he’d heard any scuttlebutt regarding the return of traditional...

For what it’s worth, the cafe attendant on this morning’s NB Saluki told me that traditional dining will be returning to LD trains on July 19. He worked the Zephyr for a decade, so I assume he knows what he’s talking about.

I rode the CONO from CHI to NOL on April 19. I’m happy to report the sightseer lounge was in the consist. I asked our conductor and she said it never left (thankfully.)

On Monday I took the City of New Orleans from CHI to NOL. My sleeping car attendant was a New Orleans crew base Amtrak chef who just got back on the extra board after a long furlough. He informed me that traditional dining (crab cakes, steaks, French toast, etc) will be returning to ALL of...