All I’m saying is when chefs for Crescent were based out of NO the food was awesome, nobody cooks like NO people, can’t remember the name of the place in NO, but a friend took me to a place for fried chicken, pre-Covid, the place looked like the worse toilet I ever saw, and don’t let me tell u about the actual toilet, lol, best fried chicken I ever tasted, I ate outside .lol Most people from NO really can cook. Im an implant
Amtrak dining and cafe service
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TheCrescent
OBS Chief
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I don’t know, but the Crescent has some crew changing at (I think) Charlottesville.
fdaley
OBS Chief
They still have this poster hanging in the Rensselaer station. It's been false advertising for nearly four years, but yes, I hope it becomes accurate someday soon.
tricia
Conductor
With few exceptions, LD trains with dining cars are situated so that sleeping cars are on one end, and coach passengers approach from the other end. When you walk in from the dining car end, the staff will assume you're a sleeping car passenger. When the staff member takes your meal order, you'll be asked what your car and room number are.
fdaley
OBS Chief
It really is true. On our last big trip, in early 2019 before Amtrak killed dining service on the Crescent and other eastern trains, green beans were the vegetable served with every dinner entree. We had the same green beans at every dinner from Seattle to Los Angeles to New Orleans to Virginia. They were kind of raw and rubbery on every train until the Crescent, when finally, they were tender and delicious. I had a lot of particularly good meals on that train over the years, even if it was supposedly the same stuff served on every other train. When the roast half chicken was a regular dinner offering, it always seemed better on the Crescent.
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trimetbusfan
OBS Chief
Remember that Amtrak owns 25(!!) VL2 dining cars. I’m sure many are mothballed, but there is still a huge potential for them.
I've always thought this was the most ridiculous concept. Why would a regular passenger remember either of these things? Can't they just use the name? Either way, whenever I've been in a sleeper and didn't remember the car number off the top of my head, the server got absurdly annoyed and sighed. Center of Excellence strikes again.
trimetbusfan
OBS Chief
In my several travels I have taken after Traditional Dining was reinstated, I have not once been asked my car/room number when ordering meals. I’m not sure if something has changed there, but I just wanted to point it out.
fdaley
OBS Chief
I wonder if this has something to do with the fact that coach passengers are no longer being served. Pre-pandemic, the car and room number were a way a verifying that you were in a sleeper, and for everyone else the order would result in a billable total. Now, except for the BC car on the Coast Starlight, where the policy seems a bit muddled, dining car access is entirely restricted to sleeper passengers, so there's not really a need to track which passengers came from where.
trimetbusfan
OBS Chief
I believe there is a separate forum about this (either on AU or Facebook) talking about this. I do not have the time to track that down right now.
jis
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More than likely that is the case.
BTW each time I traveled by the Super Star recently, the SCA came by asking whether I'd be eating in my room or in the Diner, and whenever I selected Diner they gave me a slp with the car number, room number and seating time. Usually when I get to the Diner I present that slip at the counter and get my meal which has always been ready for pickup when I got there at the appointed time. So there is nothing to remember except to have the reservation slip and the time when to show up.
In Business on the Starlight you do have the option of the dining car, somewhat subject to availability since sleeper passengers have priority.
It is a fixed price, $20 breakfast, $25 lunch, $45 dinner (which includes appetizer, dessert and one alcoholic beverage).
Well, it has been that way ever since Amtrak started including meals in the sleeper fares in the mid 1980s.
I have never had a problem remembering my accommodation, personally. I do have to think about it for a second on long trips, though...
"Hmm, 30 car room 2, no that was the Chief, now I'm 31 room 5."
TheCrescent
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I have shown my ticket in the cafe car and that sufficed.
Recently all meals have been delivered to my room. Are sleeping passengers allowed to go to the cafe car? On the Crescent, I’ve been lectured by the staff when I went to the cafe car. But I also got lectured (a while ago) when I asked for room service. So I don’t know what the rules are- other than that I dread dealing with Amtrak cafe car staff.
jis
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Yeah, I was thinking exactly that. Nothing to do with Center of Excellence.
Likewise. Besides I always keep a copy of my e-ticket in my pocket. Who knows when I get off at a smoke stop and they start checking tickets before letting you on or you get accosted by some over zealous LEO? Keep all bases covered is my motto.
Yeah, I keep my boarding pass/eticket in my pocket at all times onboard, too.
While there are grumpy OBS staff all over, I have noticed that the staff on the Eastern LD trains are generally less service oriented, often surly, and even more prone to making up their own "rules" than their western counterparts.
Dakota 400
Engineer
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Your idea makes sense to me. Looking at the Crescent's schedule, having an exchange of dining car crew at Charlotte. A Charlotte-NYP team; a Charlotte-New Orleans team. There would still need to be a dorm car available for the teams because of the long down times between meal services.
Until it gets superliners it won't be.
How do you expect someone to remember which room they're in when they go back if they don't know the room number? I get why pax might not remember the car, but the room number is totally reasonable.
On the SWC some staff members make an announcement about the little grocery store by the station in ABQ, and tell passengers they can get something from there. Last time I was on #4, I saw the LSA come back with groceries as well. (I wonder what would happen if the LSA somehow couldn't make it back for whatever reason, it's not like they are instrumental in the departure of the train, the T&E staff may not know).
Before the meal, at the same time that reservations are taking for sleeping car passengers, the LSA will walk through the BC car to ask for reservations there. When they do they also take your credit card to charge for the meal. So by the time you enter in the diner, you already have paid for the meal.
If you upgrade last minute they don't get notified, they will pass you when you're in your new seat and take your reservation, same as normal.
I never had a problem going to the cafe car as a sleeper passenger. We often go to get some wine to have as a before dinner drink in our room.
LSL will never get Superliners for reasons that have been hashed out on one of the threads here. I don't see why they couldn't do traditional dining from a Viewliner diner.
fdaley
OBS Chief
I think Cal was referring to the fact that the graphic at the bottom of that Lake Shore Limited poster, which I never looked at that closely before, appears to show a Superliner train streaking along, with upper-level windows and lower-level doors illuminated.
In any case, I would settle for the main upper image of the poster -- people dining at a table with a tablecloth -- becoming a reality on the Lake Shore again. And that could, as you say, be done in one of the Viewliner diners that were designed and built to provide such service but were instead used to serve boxed meals at bare tables from the moment they were put into the LSL consist.
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I experienced this on the Zephyr last summer. The guy at my table did not remember his car but remembered his room number. The server was snippy and rude and stated the chef would be mad if this information was not correct. I helped him remember his car number and told him it was 632. Then the grumpy waitress stated, so that's is room 8 car 532. I said, "no ma'am, I think you mean room 8 car 632. This is 6 and we are now eastbound." She looked at me. I said, "Well I am sure the chef would be mad at you if you wrote the wrong train number on the ticket. And I did not want you to get in trouble." She smiled. Ended up providing decent service. The other guy was only going to Reno. It was his first train ride and he was mad and did not tip her. He noticed she was nicer to me than to him.
Sidney: I concur with your comment. As a former regular commuter ATN-WAS-ATN on the Crescent, I barely got to experience the new Viewliner diners before flexible dining and COVID rendered them nearly useless. Even though Floridians ejected John Mica from office in 2016, I am afraid it may be some time before the return to real "railroad" dining.
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