Let's hope the six Parlor cars will be PPC substitutes, as similar to the originals as possible, including the swivel chairs, which are closer to a plum / thistle than purple.* That's a lot to ask from the company that gave us the CCC,,,
While the CCC may not have been the best idea ever, I do think it important to remember that Amtrak was sort of forced into giving us that car. It was Congress and they're typical micro-management that caused Amtrak to seek out solutions to the costs of food service, which is what led to the CCC.
Is there a law or directive from congress that says "The car must include an inexplicable choke point in the middle and some of the bench seating must face inward?" Most of the problems I have with the CCC are unlikely to have come from Congress, although I've certainly been proven wrong before. I think whatever favorable comments the CCC has received probably come from the simple reality that the CCC is the first "new" car we've seen on a Western trains in ages. Everything else is decades old and looks every minute of it.
No law at all. And the "choke" point isn't inexplicable. It was done to separate the dining car side from the cafe car side. As well as to give the cafe attendant a bit more space, without expanding the area into the space needed by the dining car side.
Besides, there isn't a dining car in the fleet that doesn't have a choke point. On a Superliner Dining car, basically every employee must stop doing anything every time people try to walk through the prep area. Ride a single level diner and you have that narrow, 1 person only hall all along the kitchen, complete with 2 90 degree turns.
As for the seats facing inward, that's not something that Amtrak came up with either. I just rode in a dome car on the Saratoga & North Creek RR two weekends ago. The dome car had at least 4 or 5 tables set up in a similar fashion. I'm not entirely sure why they do that, although one thought is that it may help to avoid the odd man out that happens when you have a party of 3 in a traditional booth.
I personally don't like it or agree with the idea of that type of seating, but it's not something that Amtrak dreamed up all on its own. And I believe that I heard recently that Amtrak is actually working to remove those booths and replace them with the traditional 4 people booths.
