Can we make "contemporary dining" better?

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I think the skewed facts and outright lies about the SWC speaks volumes of Anderson’s motives.

As far as the egg Mc muffin type sandwich. As long as the egg is cracked on board and not a liquid egg product  I’d be good. English muffin, slice of cheese and a fresh egg, ham optional.
 
Although, none of the "lies" used by the Anderson regime were new. They were all picked up from existing Amtrak documentation. They have been part of the Amtrak narrative about the LD segment for quite a while now.

Indeed precisely those were used in the course of writing PRIIA 2008, separating out the three accounts into three separate sections. They appear over and voer again in the Amtrak five year plans that drive the Authorizations. The common factor in all this was Stephen Gardner, who according to some, was placed in Amtrak by Congress and the Board to help write PRIIA. Boardman pretty much admitted that Gardner went off working on PRIIA relatively unsupervised. And guess who was leading the charge on the SWC affair until he was brought to heel by Congress.

I view Anderson as mostly an abrasive and admittedly wilful pawn in a bigger game involving the likes of Gardner and Coscia and presently Chao, each with their own agenda. Anderson came from outside the industry, and inevitably he has to depend on insiders - both those that report to him and those that he reports to, that's the way things work in the executive suite, always. My conjecture is that removing Anderson will have minimal impact on the course being taken by the Board and management of Amtrak. There are others that are the true influences.

The way to fix the problem is to start with writing a better balanced Authorization Bill that this Congress will get to write removing all the Mica and a few earlier nonsense from the narrative. No matter how some may fantasize no CEO in his right mind will ignore a law, unless s/he has the very broad support of the political establishment, a sort of support that Amtrak has never had, due to the political machinations that created it.
 
Although, none of the "lies" used by the Anderson regime were new. They were all picked up from existing Amtrak documentation. They have been part of the Amtrak narrative about the LD segment for quite a while now.

Indeed precisely those were used in the course of writing PRIIA 2008, separating out the three accounts into three separate sections. They appear over and voer again in the Amtrak five year plans that drive the Authorizations. The common factor in all this was Stephen Gardner, who according to some, was placed in Amtrak by Congress and the Board to help write PRIIA. Boardman pretty much admitted that Gardner went off working on PRIIA relatively unsupervised. And guess who was leading the charge on the SWC affair until he was brought to heel by Congress.

I view Anderson as mostly an abrasive and admittedly wilful pawn in a bigger game involving the likes of Gardner and Coscia and presently Chao, each with their own agenda. Anderson came from outside the industry, and inevitably he has to depend on insiders - both those that report to him and those that he reports to, that's the way things work in the executive suite, always. My conjecture is that removing Anderson will have minimal impact on the course being taken by the Board and management of Amtrak. There are others that are the true influences.

The way to fix the problem is to start with writing a better balanced Authorization Bill that this Congress will get to write removing all the Mica and a few earlier nonsense from the narrative. No matter how some may fantasize no CEO in his right mind will ignore a law, unless s/he has the very broad support of the political establishment, a sort of support that Amtrak has never had, due to the political machinations that created it.
Agreed. I think that while Anderson has done some questionable stuff, it's almost all based on infrastructure and mandates that were already there. 
 
Amtrakfflyer said:
I think the food and beverage mandate is a moot point. It was from a previous Congress and specifically one congressman from Florida. I honestly don’t think this Congress cares just reallocate the costs to the sleepers.To take it a step further this Congress might actually be happy if Anderson and company did SOMETHING/ANYTHING positive to stimulate ridership such as  place in service new diners with real dining service and at least pretend to want to run the national network.
A law passed by Congress isn’t moot until another law, also passed by Congress, makes it so. Changes in administration or Congress people don’t make laws moot.
 
I stand by my point. All Anderson has to do is reallocate costs to sleepers/ premium customers if he wanted. No one would care and the issue would be “legally” mitigated. 

The point I  left out earlier about skewed facts and lies with the SWC debacle,  I will concede the gist of the report pre dates Anderson (written by Gardner). But how can we condon Anderson and Co getting in a shouting pissy fit with members of Congress and local professional groups when they were just trying to show the opposing view. Ten years ago a civil servant like Anderson would have been shown the door for such unprofessional behavior.  Yes he’s abrasive but that outburst alone shows evidence of an agenda. 
 
You can stand by your point until you are blue in your face. That is not going to happen LOL!
Obviously it won’t happen because  Anderson doesn’t want it to.  It could be fixed today by reallocating the costs. At the same time cost cutting and efficiencies SHOULD continue to find a system that’s a happy medium. Break even is a pipe dream that will never happen unless they just run a snack car.
 
That is why the law needs to be changed to remove the break even requirement. I think we are chasing our tails trying to placate those that foisted this ridiculous law on us instead of focusing on fixing the core problem, i.e. change the law. The upcoming re-authorization of Amtrak presents us with such an opportunity. If a sufficient coalition canbe found the specific food service related law can even be rescinded through an Appropriation Bill. It is not like this has not been done before. There was a time when it was written into the law that Amtrak shall not lose any money by date xyz, leading to Warrington's ridiculous moves. When it came time, the law was quickly buried. Of course, not having a overly pliant new CEO helped too, and arguably that CEO did get fired eventually too.

Why are some assuming that we have to assume that the law cannot be changed and are coming up with innovative and often unworkable subterfuge of the law instead of honestly working on fixing the problem? That is what baffles me more than anything else.
 
Touché on that. The end result of our discussion is the same. How much damage will be done in the mean time though? The bigger elephant in the room is this managements apparent lack of desire to run the national network. 

Besides train offs and a selling/canceling of the V2’s the next management team should  be able to fix anything stupid Anderson does. 
 
It is quite unlikely that there will be any train offs or selling V2s.

Since this rumor keeps coming up let us at least be fully informed about it...

The source of the rumor as far as we can tell is Evan Stair. The complete rumor goes as follows:

"Schumer and Coscia have put together a plan to zero out the national network budget and transfer all of that money to the NEC to fund Gateway and other projects. This will of course mean discontinuance of the Long Distance Network. All of the equipment used on the LD network is superannuated, except the Viewliners. Therefore they are looking at selling the Viewliner to VIA Rail. The rest can be safely scrapped."

Aside from the fact that Schumer does not have the votes and Coscia does not have the authority to make any of this happen, there are so many obstacles to this that it seems quite an unlikely thing beyond the fertile imagination of a few folks in the middle of the country. Even if this had an iota of truth in it, it would take an act of Congress to make such shift of funding from one account to another in the middle of a fiscal year, and given the state of appropriations, any such drastically different appropriation cannot happen before the 2020 FY.

Perhaps a separate thread should be created to discuss the viability of this overall rumor. Suffice it to say that knowing the source and the nature of the full story behind the rumor, for now at least I do not take anyone who states this rumor as a foregone conclusion or a fact, too seriously.

RPA has asked Amtrak management about this and have been told that none of this is in the cards. They have stated in Congressional testimony that it is upto Congress to specify in the re-authorization what direction Amtrak should take relative to all its BUs for the next five years, and Amtrak will do as Congress dictates. So the ball is squarely in the Congress' court. That is why I keep harping - pay attention to the upcoming re-authorization debate.
 
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This is a direct quote from the RPA newsletter in April 2017 (sorry, I don't know how to remove the underlining or color):

"U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is pushing back against the Trump Administration’s efforts to slash budgets for critical passenger rail infrastructure, including Amtrak’s long-distance trains."

I doubt that he has done a 180-degree turn in a year and a half.

Having no clue who Evan Stair is, I looked him up--he's a local passenger rail guy out in Oklahoma? Where on earth did he get such a ridiculous idea?

Someone can obviously be in favor of both the Gateway project and a national long-distance train network at the same time, and I always considered Schumer a fairly decent proponent of passenger rail in general.
 
I think the skewed facts and outright lies about the SWC speaks volumes of Anderson’s motives.

As far as the egg Mc muffin type sandwich. As long as the egg is cracked on board and not a liquid egg product  I’d be good. English muffin, slice of cheese and a fresh egg, ham optional.
Cheese optional!  My girlfriend is allergic to dairy products, remember?
 
I view Anderson as mostly an abrasive and admittedly wilful pawn in a bigger game involving the likes of Gardner and Coscia and presently Chao, each with their own agenda. Anderson came from outside the industry, and inevitably he has to depend on insiders - both those that report to him and those that he reports to, that's the way things work in the executive suite, always. My conjecture is that removing Anderson will have minimal impact on the course being taken by the Board and management of Amtrak. There are others that are the true influences.
If you're actually right, the way to fix the problem is to get Anderson to *seriously* read the RPA White Paper on Amtrak's phony accounting, and then point out to him that Stephen Gardner has been handing him this phony accounting.  Wouldn't take long for Anderson to fire Gardner. Nobody likes being given phony information to work from; working from the phony information makes Anderson look like a fool, and the guy who gave him that information...
 
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If you're actually right, the way to fix the problem is to get Anderson to *seriously* read the RPA White Paper on Amtrak's phony accounting, and then point out to him that Stephen Gardner has been handing him this phony accounting.  Wouldn't take long for Anderson to fire Gardner. Nobody likes being given phony information to work from; working from the phony information makes Anderson look like a fool, and the guy who gave him that information...
Depends on how wilful a pawn he is in which game. It does not follow at all that his primary interest is what we would like it to be. Just IMHO of course. I am remarkably cynical when it comes to what actually motivates people to do stuff.
 
*Cough* McDonald's has changed their recipes since 1979.
Are you sure? Egg McMuffin at least doesn't look like it's changed to me. Other items, maybe. But even if so, my point is that it doesn't HAVE to be unhealthy.

Cheese optional!  My girlfriend is allergic to dairy products, remember?
And if we had real cooks preparing real food in real kitchens on board, adjustments like this ought to pose no real problems.
 
I would actually be pleased if Anderson's desire were actually to maximize the finances of Amtrak; if it were, he would need accurate accounting, which he isn't getting.  Coming from the private sector, you'd expect him to care about such things, but you never know -- maybe he wants to waste Congressional money, in which case he would benefit from inaccurate accounting.

I like to think that he would appreciate accurate accounting.
 
Figures don't lie, but liars sure know how to figure. Like you, I hope that Mr. Anderson and those at Amtrak's throttle stand fall into the former category. Unfortunately, it's more and more beginning to seem that this is not the case.
 
The accounts at Amtrak are such an ungodly mess that I'm quite sure Mr. Anderson doesn't have access to real accounts.  It's one thing to keep two sets of books; it's another for your *only* set of books to be garbage.  This feels a lot like the story of the Milwaukee Road management before its bankruptcy.
 
  • Break your English muffins in half and place them in the toaster.
  • Brush melted butter on the grill and drop your holder with 6 or 12 stainless steel rings.
  • Crack fresh eggs into the rings of the holder and pop the yolks.
  • Lay the slices of Canadian bacon on the grill next to the eggs.
  • Remove the holder, flip the eggs (2 at a time), and lay a slice of American cheese atop each to melt.
  • Take your toasted muffins, pull the Canadian bacon from the grill and lay it down, then pull the eggs and cheese and lay it atop the bacon.
  • Cover with the top half of the toasted muffins, wrap and serve.
It doesn't have to get any more complicated than that...and it shouldn't.
Actually it can get even easier than that.  Toast an English muffin and butter it.  Break an egg into a bowl and stir it to break up the yolk.  Add a slice of Canadian Bacon and a slice of cheese.  Cover the bowl and microwave for about a minute or two.  That's it.  You don't need a grill.  Just put it all together.  I do this almost every morning.  
 
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The accounts at Amtrak are such an ungodly mess that I'm quite sure Mr. Anderson doesn't have access to real accounts.  It's one thing to keep two sets of books; it's another for your *only* set of books to be garbage.  This feels a lot like the story of the Milwaukee Road management before its bankruptcy.
According to the article in the latest Trains Mag, all this comes straight from the brains at Volpe Center, duly anointed by the FRA, neither of which can be blamed for knowing much about accounting of anything. The results, while unfortunate, are not unexpected, specially when placed in the hands of a very risk averse Amtrak management and disinterested Congress, whose only concern is to make these absurd books look good, instead of trashing them and starting anew.
 
Are you sure? Egg McMuffin at least doesn't look like it's changed to me. Other items, maybe.
According to what I've read and heard very little food is actually "made" in a McDonald's kitchen anymore.  For instance the hotcakes, McGriddles, sausage patties, and burrito eggs are factory cooked, frozen, and reheated.  The "yellow part" of many breakfast items has 16 ingredients, only one of which is real egg.  In many ways McDonald's is a master of culinary deception.  That being said, it doesn't seem to bother most people and might actually be an improvement over Amtrak's embarrassingly limited breakfast experience.
 
According to what I've read and heard very little food is actually "made" in a McDonald's kitchen anymore.  For instance the hotcakes, McGriddles, sausage patties, and burrito eggs are factory cooked, frozen, and reheated.  The "yellow part" of many breakfast items has 16 ingredients, only one of which is real egg.  In many ways McDonald's is a master of culinary deception.  That being said, it doesn't seem to bother most people and might actually be an improvement over Amtrak's embarrassingly limited breakfast experience.
I'm not saying it isn't that way now...after all, my experience was 39 years ago...but it wasn't that way back then, which means it doesn't HAVE to be that way. That's all I'm saying.
 
I would love to see Amtrak turn "Contemporary Dining" into something like the meal service with JetBlue Mint.  

With JetBlue's Mint service, you get your choice of three "tasting" sized dishes out of six different choices.  The three smaller dishes equal one meal.  Two out of the six dishes are cold.  You also get a roll and a drink of your choice.  Dinner is followed by a dessert - usually gourmet ice cream.

Here is a sample menu: https://www.jetblue.com/flying-on-jetblue/mint/menu/2018-11/MintMenu_Nov18_LD_E_LAX_V01.pdf

Here is why I like this idea: (1) You can mix and match the selections so not every meal will feel the same; (2) This is extremely easy to stock and serve.  You just need a refrigerator and a warming oven; (3) It feels much more gourmet than the current Contemporary Dining options; (4) It is a good compromise between a genuine cooked meal and something much more cost efficient.

I have been very pleased with JetBlue's product.

Here is an example:

JetBlue_Mint_Dinner_Review_2017.jpg
 
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If you're actually right, the way to fix the problem is to get Anderson to *seriously* read the RPA White Paper on Amtrak's phony accounting, and then point out to him that Stephen Gardner has been handing him this phony accounting.  Wouldn't take long for Anderson to fire Gardner. Nobody likes being given phony information to work from; working from the phony information makes Anderson look like a fool, and the guy who gave him that information...
Gardner is much more likely to become the next Amtrak CEO than be fired. He has been taking on increased responsibility on the executive team of late.
 
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