Dinner Times on 20

[Anderson]

I'm on #20 out of ATL tonight (DragonCon wrapped last night). The train is down over two hours out of TCL (arr 1454 vs scheduled arr 1244). I suspect this will be irrelevant by the time the train actually gets here, but when should I expect dinner service to cut off? (Right now Amtrak is estimating it'll be here about an hour late, but we all know how useful those estimates tend to be...)

 

[Hytec]

My experience has been that under normal circumstances they like to stop serving dinner about 9:30, preferably before. If 20 is still running 2 hours down out of ATL, they may extend that a bit. Your car attendant will know for sure.

 

[Anderson]

9:30 would be fine. The main issue I'm dealing with is the "Do I eat dinner beforehand?" dilemma.

 

[crescent-zephyr]

I've boarded in Atlanta 2 hours late and still been offered dinner in the diner. With Amtrak, one never knows for sure.

 

[Anderson]

Fair, and if I can at least get a cup of hot water I can at least make do with some ramen my brother grabbed for me from the D*C con suite.

 

[Anderson]

So, I'm on 20. It arrived in Atlanta just before 2200. The diner was (obviously) closed, but they sent sleeper pax to the cafe for comped food. I'd sort-of planned for the worst and got an extra bowl of soup while relaxing at my hotel (as the train got later and later) so I've just got a chicken caesar and a ginger ale...but that was a bit of a kabuki dance of "I have no idea what I am reasonably entitled to", so I just went for something to graze on for the next half hour or so.

 

[RSG]

That was great that they did that; is this a new policy I wonder or just something particular to the Crescent? I can't count the number of times that I've boarded a late California Zephyr and been told the diner is closed, even when the arrival has been within an hour (or less) of the diner scheduled close.

I can understand not wanting to overwhelm the cafe attendant within the last 30 minutes of their shift in the case of a train that's three hours late for an evening boarding, but they would buy a lot of goodwill by allowing comped items in the cafe car for just-missed-it diner service. (Yes, I know that AMTK isn't typically in the goodwill business.

)

 

[Anderson]

I think it probably had/has something to do with the size of the Atlanta-based market. The other time I've been comped a meal around a late LD train, it was a late Meteor out of WAS that had an engine problem...so we all got $25 to use at WAS to grab food (the train ended up being like four hours late, so the cafe wouldn't have been an option in that case).

 

[cpotisch]

I think it probably had/has something to do with the size of the Atlanta-based market. The other time I've been comped a meal around a late LD train, it was a late Meteor out of WAS that had an engine problem...so we all got $25 to use at WAS to grab food (the train ended up being like four hours late, so the cafe wouldn't have been an option in that case).

It sounds like standard practice at WAS for passengers who missed a meal due to a late train, is to just give everyone a $25 voucher. I've never seen that happen in any other station, but they basically always do it in WAS.