Elimination of diners on western Amtrak long distance trains?

[CCC1007]

Tables were set and ready for arrival, train stops, everybody off, 45 minutes to eat, off we go. Of course, at that time the trains arrived on time...

I think that should be the law. A long distance train without an on-board diner, would be required to stop once every 4 hours, for 45 to 60 minutes, at a food station (ie restaurant) so that passengers can enjoy a meal.

Welcome back to 1870!

 

[jis]

They should just have two sets of train service. One that caters to the needs of those that must have a Restaurant setting for their meals. These cross country trains would take seven days to cross the country following what Cho Choo suggest. The other set would be for those who can survive on Cafe and boxed meals and actually take less than 3 days to cross the country. Then everyone can take their pick

I really need an emoji for "tounge in the cheek"

 

[Mystic River Dragon]

How about a compromise? A fresh and contemporary experience--plastic-wrapped junk food in a grade school cafeteria-like setting (long lines, no tablecloths, and throw away your own trash (or "plate waste" as some school nutrition reports vividly call it

) on routes/stretches where there are no long stops. But a Fred Harvey-type sit-down meal (perhaps at an extra cost, even for sleeping car passengers) in places where the train is going to be stuck there forever anyway. For example, you could perhaps get such a meal in during the engine swap in WAS, which takes a long time, and always longer than they say it will. Or that place on the Empire Builder out there in the middle of nowhere where we stopped forever, where the coffee and hot chocolate truck lady was doing a brisk business.

Or in Tampa--doesn't the Star sit there for a while between going in and backing back out?

I really am serious--it wouldn't work everywhere, but there are a few places where it could.

 

[tricia]

They should just have two sets of train service. One that caters to the needs of those that must have a Restaurant setting for their meals. These cross country trains would take seven days to cross the country following what Cho Choo suggest. The other set would be for those who can survive on Cafe and boxed meals and actually take less than 3 days to cross the country. Then everyone can take their pick

Perhaps add a third type of train to the mix: one that doesn't stop for meals, but DOES provide a good selection of reasonably fresh and varied foods, with options suitable for most dietary restrictions and preferences. There's quite a gap between this fairly modest proposal and the current cafe and boxed meal offerings.

I LOVE long-distance train travel, but several days of nothing but the highly processed cafe and boxed options currently on offer would be punishing for me. Especially if I'm starting far from home, limiting my options for bringing food on board with me.

And the massively wasteful packaging marketed as "sustainable" adds insult to injury. Altogether a hard sell for me--and I'm a long-time Amtrak devotee.

 

[Mystic River Dragon]

tricia--

Your suggestion is sensible, as I find all your posts to be.

I think the Downeaster (and perhaps some other state-supported trains?) have tried to improve the quality of their café food, and I think you are right that it could be done on the long-distance trains.

My biggest disappointment is the socializing going away. (I am not a social butterfly in my normal life, but I like meeting the variety of people in the dining car.) It is possible to get into conversations in the SSL on the Superliners, but the Viewliners don't have anywhere else but the dining car to meet others and have interesting conversations.

On the other hand, the last few times I have been in a dining car, people have pulled out their phones and just stared at them like they do everywhere else, so maybe the old-fashioned idea of a conversation with a real person is doomed everywhere anyway.

 

[tricia]

My biggest disappointment is the socializing going away. (I am not a social butterfly in my normal life, but I like meeting the variety of people in the dining car.) It is possible to get into conversations in the SSL on the Superliners, but the Viewliners don't have anywhere else but the dining car to meet others and have interesting conversations.

On the other hand, the last few times I have been in a dining car, people have pulled out their phones and just stared at them like they do everywhere else, so maybe the old-fashioned idea of a conversation with a real person is doomed everywhere anyway.

You could try traveling out west and timing your dining car meals for places where there's likely no cell signal.

 

[jis]

You don't really need cell signal to watch movies that you have brought along downloaded on your pad.

But then a again, a silent person is probably better than the infernal gasbag that we had as our Breakfast table mate on the Meteor the other day.

 

[pennyk]

But then a again, a silent person is probably better than the infernal gasbag that we had as our Breakfast table mate on the Meteor the other day.

You are kind referring to the tablemate as an infernal gasbag. I am trying to out of my way to be kind, so I will not say what I thought about that truly awful woman.

 

[Cho Cho Charlie]

Welcome back to 1870!

Oh, now you are going to make drool. Old time Pullman Porter cars... parlor cars... bring back the golden days of rail travel.

 

[dogbert617]

You don't really need cell signal to watch movies that you have brought along downloaded on your pad.

But then a again, a silent person is probably better than the infernal gasbag that we had as our Breakfast table mate on the Meteor the other day.

That sucks you ran into someone like that. I'd sure like to think that the art of being able to have good conversations with others hasn't totally gone away, but who knows. And of course, that others are respectful and not totally rude to others. I do wonder, what ways was that 'infernal gasbug' of a person being rude like?

 

[jebr]

Tables were set and ready for arrival, train stops, everybody off, 45 minutes to eat, off we go. Of course, at that time the trains arrived on time...

I think that should be the law. A long distance train without an on-board diner, would be required to stop once every 4 hours, for 45 to 60 minutes, at a food station (ie restaurant) so that passengers can enjoy a meal.

This type of micro-managing would be worse than Mica's micromanaging. If trains have to stop every 4 hours just so people can go eat at a diner for an hour, Amtrak would be significantly less time-competitive than they are now! Imagine if you're taking a trip that today is two hours, but now suddenly is three hours because the stop along the way is the food break? It seems like a recipe for losing ridership and making Amtrak less relevant for transportation needs.

 

[jebr]

How about a compromise? A fresh and contemporary experience--plastic-wrapped junk food in a grade school cafeteria-like setting (long lines, no tablecloths, and throw away your own trash (or "plate waste" as some school nutrition reports vividly call it

) on routes/stretches where there are no long stops. But a Fred Harvey-type sit-down meal (perhaps at an extra cost, even for sleeping car passengers) in places where the train is going to be stuck there forever anyway. For example, you could perhaps get such a meal in during the engine swap in WAS, which takes a long time, and always longer than they say it will. Or that place on the Empire Builder out there in the middle of nowhere where we stopped forever, where the coffee and hot chocolate truck lady was doing a brisk business.

Or in Tampa--doesn't the Star sit there for a while between going in and backing back out?

I really am serious--it wouldn't work everywhere, but there are a few places where it could.

There might be a couple places, but timing it, overhead (especially if the diner has to be sit-down and near the train, and able to feed a large portion of the train quickly) and having enough time without delaying the train would be pretty rare instances. Even a 30-45 minute timeframe would be quite rushed to order, cook food, eat it, and settle bills.

What could work is having specific vendors able to sell (or have delivered on-board) local food from their menu. Basically a GrubHub, Uber Eats, or similar delivery service, just set to deliver to the train instead of your home. Have people order ahead and have the food waiting trackside for people to pick up. It would still have the same social element changes that the contemporary meals have, but it would allow for more variety and likely fresher options. Plus, it'd be an easy way to have people sample the cuisine of the areas they're traveling through!

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

Except if the train is delayed, you'll have to pick another store or have dinner at 2am.

 

[cpotisch]

There is the "Lakeland hack" on the Starvation. Get off the train when the Star first stops at Lakeland, get food, and re-board when the train comes back around 1h 40m later.

 

[Cho Cho Charlie]

Tables were set and ready for arrival, train stops, everybody off, 45 minutes to eat, off we go. Of course, at that time the trains arrived on time...

I think that should be the law. A long distance train without an on-board diner, would be required to stop once every 4 hours, for 45 to 60 minutes, at a food station (ie restaurant) so that passengers can enjoy a meal.

This type of micro-managing would be worse than Mica's micromanaging. If trains have to stop every 4 hours just so people can go eat at a diner for an hour, Amtrak would be significantly less time-competitive than they are now! Imagine if you're taking a trip that today is two hours, but now suddenly is three hours because the stop along the way is the food break? It seems like a recipe for losing ridership and making Amtrak less relevant for transportation needs.

Ah, you got the point. There is indeed a "cost" to eliminating on-board dining.

Remember, this is the way long distance rail travel worked years back. There was even a network of restaurants which emerged to service the passengers at these food stops.

Having an on-board dining car, added an overall efficiency to long distance rail travel.

 

[Grandpa D]

Remember, this is the way long distance rail travel worked years back. There was even a network of restaurants which emerged to service the passengers at these food stops.

Ah yes. The Fred Harvey chain. The good old days.

 

[ehbowen]

You have to also keep in mind that back in the 19th and early 20th centuries the railroad was basically the only way for the rich, influential, famous and powerful to travel long distances...and these travelers wouldn't put up with bad food or poor service, not for very long at any rate. I've seen a story that Fred Harvey was given the go-ahead by the AT&SF (he had been turned down by the Burlington, which he had been an agent for) expressly because they had just been royally embarrassed by the performance of a special train they had run for Kansas legislators. But once Harvey had established a foothold...and had been invited to extend his presence down the line...and other railroads were forced to compete...then, well, the rest is history.

When dining cars came along they had to be as good or better than the station restaurants. Had to be. Then, during the years ticket prices were so closely regulated by the ICC, the quality of food service was one of the primary ways that railroads competed for market share. They were willing to bear losses in their passenger operations in order to influence the managements of their various freight shippers. But, when the managers of the shippers eventually took to the highways and the airlines, the race to the bottom started (for many).

When I took my first Amtrak trip in 1979 as a 16 year old my 20 year old traveling companion was amazed to find that they actually served fresh food on board (I had some idea as to what to expect; I had taken the Texas Eagle 12 years previously and had spent time in the library researching my trip). When I took a friend aboard at the last minute last year for a trip to St. Louis it was his first time in a sleeper and a real dining car (well, "Cross-Country Cafe!") and he commented that the airlines certainly didn't feed their passengers that well! So good food, properly prepared, can be a real selling point...if it's properly marketed so that the public is aware of it and if the quality of the product lives up to its marketing.

The bottom-of-the-barrel thought exercise we're indulging in now is grievous. If we were to go back to making train stops for meals (as my friend in 1979 seemed to expect), I can guarantee you that it wouldn't be at a worthy successor to a Harvey House...or even a Greyhound Post House. No, if we got a Burger King or a Subway we could consider ourselves lucky. I won't say exactly what my preferred way out of this dilemma is...but I will say that it requires Divine Intervention.

 

[tommylicious]

I think it's the better bet that dining car service will be eliminated systemwide. Such a shame. Just booked a trip on VIA.

 

[railiner]

While I doubt that the practice of meal stops for trains would ever return, I would make a small analogy with airline's in a way...

When they eliminated serving food on board to all but first class passenger's, the result was a large improvement in what was available in the secured side of airport terminal's, so that people could get decent food between flights, or to bring on board with them..

If the on board food service on Amtrak is cut way down, you might see similar happening in railway station's....better food, and better 'to-go' choices than are currently available.

Every 'vacuum' seems to get 'filled' one way, or another....

 

[Seaboard92]

In airports however it makes a lot of sense to have a bunch of food options because places like Atlanta service thousands of flights per day. While a place like Bryan Ohio services one train pair a day. There isn't a business model in which that works.

The way to save dining cars involves firing two people (yes I'm a broken record). Get rid of Anderson and Gardner to eliminate the larger threat. Afterwards we need to deal with congress who doesn't understand the railroad. But is far less able to hurt ridership than the two knuckleheads at Amtrak now.

The way Anderson and Gardner cut items on trains I'm rather surprised Anderson's railroad connection worked for the Santa Fe and not the Southern Pacific.

 

[jis]

But let us also remember that Dining Car elimination started with Boardman and it involved physically removing the car from the train apparently never to be restored.

 

[bpb1970]

We took the SWC a couple of weeks ago from Chicago to LA. They offered hot prepared meals for both lunch and dinner on the second day to all non-sleeping car passengers. I think the price was $12 for lunch and $14 for dinner. I forget what lunch was but the dinner was Salisbury steak that looked like bad cafeteria food.

 

[cpotisch]

We took the SWC a couple of weeks ago from Chicago to LA. They offered hot prepared meals for both lunch and dinner on the second day to all non-sleeping car passengers. I think the price was $12 for lunch and $14 for dinner. I forget what lunch was but the dinner was Salisbury steak that looked like bad cafeteria food.

From what I've heard, the just-for-you Salisbury steak is actually pretty good. Just saying.

 

[jrud]

I think it's the better bet that dining car service will be eliminated systemwide. Such a shame. Just booked a trip on VIA.

Can we learn from other countries how to make dining cars an advantage for travelers choosing rail? https://www.railwaygazette.com/news/passenger/single-view/view/fv-dosto-dining-car-unveiled.html

 

[Paul CHI]

Another thing that seems to have changed is passenger mobility, judging by the folks I see waiting for trains at CUS. A 45 minute meal stop would never work for many of them.

I've ridden EB, SWC, and CZ numerous times but will never again take a LD ride if the diner is eliminated. I've always considered the diner part of the travel package even if I had to pay for the meal.