Great! Totally love wine and cheese! Thanks for the info, Alan!
By the way just to be clear, you won't get dinner on the train out of Chicago. You will have to buy that either in the station or someplace in Chicago on your own. Just make sure to allow enough time to get back to the lounge by the appointed time that they'll write on your pass for the lounge.
That's right...I just hope the SWC arrives on time! I noticed that yesterday it was 22 hours late and today it got in over 5 hours late! Besides, I'm packin' Luna bars!
No, no such thread exists. And it would probably take some work to keep it up to date since Amtrak keeps changing the rules frequently.
well, let's see if we can start something here. i'm hoping others will help me out here if i make any mistakes, but i believe the following is up-to-date as of this posting. just covering the overnight services:
I do care about that, so thanks for posting!
not much more to add here, really. in all three cases (full dining, SDS, and 'diner lite') most of the food is prepared prior to stocking the train from a contractor (currently gate gourmet, i believe). on full dining and the recently revamped SDS trains, steaks, eggs, and some other items are 'freshly' prepared on the grill. previously full dining meant a great deal was prepared on board, but cost cutting has taken its toll there as well. perhaps someone here with recent experience on the empire builder and/or the auto train can offer a better comparison between the two as to food prep itself?
Here is how I understand it:not much more to add here, really. in all three cases (full dining, SDS, and 'diner lite') most of the food is prepared prior to stocking the train from a contractor (currently gate gourmet, i believe). on full dining and the recently revamped SDS trains, steaks, eggs, and some other items are 'freshly' prepared on the grill. previously full dining meant a great deal was prepared on board, but cost cutting has taken its toll there as well. perhaps someone here with recent experience on the empire builder and/or the auto train can offer a better comparison between the two as to food prep itself?
the difference between full dining and SDS is mostly related to labor: to save the costs of servers and dishwashers, the reservation system (how many persons can be served in a given sitting) was modified, and 'real' dishes/tablecloths eliminated for SDS, replaced with plastic and heavy paper respectively. real metalware has been retained for both. 'diner lite' is separate case. like SDS, the goal is to again limit labor costs as well as eliminate the need for two revenue cars per train (a diner and a cafe or lounge car). so they've combined them. 'diner lite' cars, or more properly diner/lounge cars, combine the function of both. nearly all food is reheated in convection ovens and kept warm through steam tables. this doesn't necessarily mean the food is worse-off than elsewhere -- although i personally cannot attest to the quality of food on amtrak services from experience.
if you are interested in the difference that 'diner lite' brings to the table, so to speak, there are some 'reviews' of the updated menus. NARP has updates on the new SDS menu, the amfleet 'diner-lite' cars running on the lake shore limited and cardinal, and the superliner 'diner-lite' car running on the city of new orleans, and soon on the texas eagle. amtrak also has information on the superliner 'diner-lite' cars, also known as 'cross-country cafes' on its web site. and lastly amtrak has sample menus available based on its updated SDS service.
the gist of recent discussions both on this forum and others is that the recently revamped SDS offerings are much-improved, the food and service on the lake shore limited much degraded, and the cross-country cafe on the city fairly impressive but doesn't really offer too much in the way of proper lounge services. i'm sure there are folks here who can inform as to their own experiences in recent months how the 'new(er)' dining offerings on amtrak have panned out in their view. our family cannot eat the food offered on amtrak for religious reasons, but it has certainly appeared fine across the table in front of table-mates.
-- eliyahu
waterbury, ct
You're correct that the AT and the EB never went to SDS. At least initially when the other trains went to SDS, the EB and the AT did have more food freshly prepared on board although not significantly more. With the recent revision to the SDS menu, the AT and EB barely have an advantage in serving freshly prepared food. There are at most one or two items extra that the AT and EB have freshly prepared over SDS now.
Amtrak doesn't need to justify refurbishing with CCC. In fact I don't think that Congress even cares. Amtrak didn't justify the major overhauls on the Superliner I sleepers to Congress.
Not true at all. These cars received some serious modifications, including a steam table and a large freezer. Additionally the car can now function as either a dining car, a cafe car, or a combination dining/cafe car like it does on the Cardinal.
No, employee costs are cut too. It used to be that there were three SA's in the single level dining cars and two cooks. SDS cut that to two SA's and one cook. Diner-lite allows them to cut the SA's to one on certain trains, other's still require two. But I'm sure that Amtrak is looking for ways to cut it to just one SA and one LSA on all cars.
The City of New Orleans is not using "diner-lite" service. It uses "CCC" service which is considerably enhanced from "Diner-lite." Diner-lite offers no freshly cooked food, whereas the CCC does. The same is also true for the Texas Eagle as it converts to CCC.
my mistake, alan. i had thought the CCC car was one of the two 'diner lite' cars (amfleet II lounge-based and superliner diner-based) given its aim to combine diner and lounge services in a single car. i suppose the grills still extant in the lower-level kitchen allows the cooks to do more than the amfleet diner/lounges. therefore, just to clarify, you would characterize there now being four differing levels of dining services offered on amtrak long-distance trains, i.e., full service; SDS; amfleet-based 'diner lite'; and superliner-based 'CCC' service? i suppose the confusion came up because 'diner lite' previously referred to car itself, rather than the level of dining offered, at least in notices from NARP, railPAC, et al.
If that is true, that the were really modified beyond installing tables and some cooking equipment, why are the table numbers sharpied onto the wall? :huh:
Yup, major renovations. They also took out the smoking room and replaced that with tables, built an office for the LSA, and performed a major overhaul on what was the fast food prep area to allow for preparing the better SDS style meals.
Taking out the bathroom might have been the most brilliant move they've done with the change in dining concepts yet. One person backs it up and the whole car becomes bad ordered and I really wouldn't want to be eating after someone has had a "bad day" in the john.
