Amtrak Long Distance Food

[TWA904]

Some programming changes would need to be made to the res system, When making your reservation
you are shown menus for you train and you select your meals at that time if you so desire. If you haven't made your meal selections by 72 hours before departure, you are sent a text or e-mail reminding you to do so, then if you still don't make your meal selection by 24 hours before departure then you have to take what Amtrak has left over. You could also make your meal times and even select a table. Yes I know if you make your reservation 10 days or more in advance, you may not want to make a meal selection at that time, hence the reminder at 72 hours. If Amtrak changes the menu selections, once again the 72 hour reminder.
This would be available to both sleeper and coach passengers. Meals for coach passengers would be
paid for at the time of reservation or at selection of meals. The LSA's would no longer have to make credit/debt card transactions at meal times.
You could also indicate whether you want your meal in the diner, your cabin or your seat.
This should help in not running out of popular items and then maybe in not having too much of other items left over. This could also relieve the LSA's of having to go through the train taking meal orders.
Any services in a cafe car would remain as they are know.
Then the train could be re-supplied en-route with any items as necessary.

 

[Bob Dylan]

This is a No Brainer except to the Suits now running Amtrak!

 

[Willbridge]

When the three trains (5,25, and 35) all ran combined Chicago to Salt Lake City, you were correct...there were two diner's. The Chicago/Oakland diner known as the "Chicago Diner", and the Chicago/Los Angeles diner, known as the "L A Diner". The Pioneer diner ran Salt Lake City to Seattle...it was either a diner or SS Lounge (can't remember, but I don't think the Pioneer had both. Also can't recall if the Desert Wind picked up a SS Lounge in SLC...
During the years that the Pioneer split at Denver, and ran thru Wyoming, not sure of the consist...

When it split at Denver I believe that a diner/lounge ran SEA-CHI. I do know that regular riders preferred the upbeat crews from the West Coast to the Chicago crews. It would have been great to have a SS Lounge on 25/26, but I don't remember that happening. However, my father always warns me to "never say that something on a railroad never happened" because someone will recollect an exception.

 

[Willbridge]

This weekend I need to go into my large box of slides, negatives and prints from that late '70s early '80s era I have lots of photos from my train trips on the EB the SFZ the DW and the Pioneer back then.

I traveled several times round trip from New York to Portland OR after my Ph. D. adviser moved from Stony Brook to what was then Oregon Graduate Institute. The financial folks at Stony brook were quite puzzled as I repeatedly used funds from my fellowship to travel by train cross country. My excuse was that I could work on my dissertation on the way to visit my adviser and back. Being the bureaucracy that they were, they were quite happy as long as I submitted several sentences of explanation. I am not sure anyone actually ever read it. Either way they did not seem to care what I did with my fellowship grant travel money as long as I submitted legitimate receipts to document the expenditure for travel to a reasonable location for a reasonable reason. They were just a conduit.

The interesting aspect in regard to this discussion of on-board services is that the original train functioned more like a corridor service with the Amdinette and Amfleet I coaches (and was one PDX<>SEA). In Amtrak financial reports it did better than several other routes that had a head start on it. Customers accepted some short-changing of quality because they were promised that things would get better and step by step they did. It also inferred that there is a market for secondary trains that would share fixed costs with the full-service trains -- horrifying the Class I's!

There's some background on the early Pioneer in my Power Point on it at:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/135141530@N04/albums/72157668130775833

Or for viewing it:

 

[jiml]

The interesting aspect in regard to this discussion of on-board services is that the original train functioned more like a corridor service with the Amdinette and Amfleet I coaches (and was one PDX<>SEA). In Amtrak financial reports it did better than several other routes that had a head start on it. Customers accepted some short-changing of quality because they were promised that things would get better and step by step they did. It also inferred that there is a market for secondary trains that would share fixed costs with the full-service trains -- horrifying the Class I's!

There's some background on the early Pioneer in my Power Point on it at:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/135141530@N04/albums/72157668130775833

Or for viewing it:

Thanks, now I have to watch the rest of the series. Seriously, fascinating research, well-presented.

 

[Nola guy]

Some programming changes would need to be made to the res system, When making your reservation
you are shown menus for you train and you select your meals at that time if you so desire. If you haven't made your meal selections by 72 hours before departure, you are sent a text or e-mail reminding you to do so, then if you still don't make your meal selection by 24 hours before departure then you have to take what Amtrak has left over. You could also make your meal times and even select a table. Yes I know if you make your reservation 10 days or more in advance, you may not want to make a meal selection at that time, hence the reminder at 72 hours. If Amtrak changes the menu selections, once again the 72 hour reminder.
This would be available to both sleeper and coach passengers. Meals for coach passengers would be
paid for at the time of reservation or at selection of meals. The LSA's would no longer have to make credit/debt card transactions at meal times.
You could also indicate whether you want your meal in the diner, your cabin or your seat.
This should help in not running out of popular items and then maybe in not having too much of other items left over. This could also relieve the LSA's of having to go through the train taking meal orders.
Any services in a cafe car would remain as they are know.
Then the train could be re-supplied en-route with any items as necessary.

I'm very much a newbie, so this bit about meal selection is very interesting to me. I'm taking Empire Builder from Chicago to Seattle in about two weeks, and when I made the reservation months ago I didn't see anything about meal selection. Am I expected to do this? Is there a webpage I can go to and take care of this without waiting for their reminder?

 

[pennyk]

I'm very much a newbie, so this bit about meal selection is very interesting to me. I'm taking Empire Builder from Chicago to Seattle in about two weeks, and when I made the reservation months ago I didn't see anything about meal selection. Am I expected to do this? Is there a webpage I can go to and take care of this without waiting for their reminder?

Currently, no advance meal selection is offered. The post you quoted appeared to discuss how things may happen if meal selection was offered.

 

[Nola guy]

Currently, no advance meal selection is offered. The post you quoted appeared to discuss how things may happen if meal selection was offered.

Ah. I see. A closer read now shows me he was speaking hypothetically. Thanks.

 

[jis]

This is correct, but I'm pretty sure this configuration changed under Amtrak. Still looking for a reference.

They came to Amtrak as 80 seaters. Several were later converted to Diner-Lounges for use in the Desert Wind pool, which required 5 of the 6 originally built during summer when the Desert Wind Diner-Lounge ran between Denver and Los Angeles. The change consisted of removing the booths from one end of the car and replacing them with the then lounge style seating.

If you are a member of trainorders.com, go to their "Nostalgia" section and look for "Desert Wind". There are photos of both the Hi Level Lounges and Diners interiors posted there. They are posted by someone who worked as LSA on Desert Wind in those days.

One big mechanical difference was that these cars were 6 axle cars due to their heavier weight for carrying all the extra electrical generation equipment in pre-HEP days. When they were converted to HEP, all that extra weight was taken out but the springs and bolsters weren't rebalanced. So they became very poor riders. The LSA who posted pictures in trainorders states that he hated working on those cars they rode so poorly, and no one missed them when they were withdrawn.

The Pioneer, after it converted to bi-level got Superliner Diner or Lounge which had to double for both Diner and Lounge. It used to be the last car of the train as I mentioned earlier. Officially it had tray meal service between Salt Lake City and Seattle, as opposed to full Diner service, whatever that might mean. This was before its last incarnation when it split at Denver instead of SLC/Ogden.

 

[jiml]

Thanks jis; I was pretty sure the dining area was smaller than standard. Memory's not as good as it once was.

 

[Willbridge]

Thanks, now I have to watch the rest of the series. Seriously, fascinating research, well-presented.

Thanx! You can get to all seven of the Pioneer videos along with some other rail and transit videos at:
https://www.youtube.com/user/rwrynerson/videos

That expedition and the material assembled in the videos was prepared in the expectation that it would be useful in a public input process for the study of resuming service. It wasn't; public input was evaded.

 

[jis]

Thanx! You can get to all seven of the Pioneer videos along with some other rail and transit videos at:
https://www.youtube.com/user/rwrynerson/videos

That expedition and the material assembled in the videos was prepared in the expectation that it would be useful in a public input process for the study of resuming service. It wasn't; public input was evaded.

At RPA there are a few of us who are working on putting together our thoughts on what routes we'd like to see happen, in some detail, for use if and when an opportunity presents itself. When that will come pass is hard to tell in these wobbly times. But, notwithstanding that, this material will be exceedingly helpful to us, and with your permission I will bring it to the attention of our coffee clutch.