Lake Shore Limited Diner service

[amtrakmichigan]

I booked a standard sleeper from Toledo to New York in October ( got a good price too, $110 B) ) Anyway after looking over the new national timetables I noticed what I think is a misprint. Under the dining car heading for onboard services it says the dining car is available from Chicago to Albany, and that's it. Isn't supposed to read Chicago - Albany - New York? Or is Amtrak doing something screwy that I don't know about?

 

[Anthony]

Are they referring to the Boston section?

 

[amtrakmichigan]

Are they referring to the Boston section?

The Boston section never had a diner, at least in recent history. That was always, and still is served as far as I know by a dinette or cafe'.

 

[AlanB]

No, it's not a misprint.

In the east/south bound direction, Amtrak hasn't been serving lunch in the diner south of Albany for the last year and a half or so. They do breakfast, then a quick clean up, and a quick limited lunch prior to arrival into Albany.

Going north/west bound, they generally open for one dinner seating in the dining car between Poughkeepsie & Rhinecliff. Then they close for the arrival and loss of HEP at Albany and reopen 15 - 20 minutes out of Albany for about two hours.

This differs from the SOP two or three years ago, where I could be eating diner at Croton-Harmon in the north/west bound direction and still having lunch while watching the Hudson roll by in the south/east bound direction.

 

[amtrakmichigan]

With a 3:25 arival time into NYP, it seems that there would be plenty of time to serve lunch south of Albany.

 

[Amfleet]

There's only 2' 30" between ALB and NYP. Crews need atleast 2 hours for a full clean up in the Diner ready for FDA inspections at the end of the trip.

 

[Amtrak OBS Employee]

There's only 2' 30" between ALB and NYP. Crews need atleast 2 hours for a full clean up in the Diner ready for FDA inspections at the end of the trip.

FDA inspections (when performed) are usually made just before the train is released from the yards to the station to begin its trip. Sometimes these inspections are made on a "suprise visit" basis as well, usually by an on board supervisor (once in a while an FDA inspector) stepping on in route during a meal period. Inspections are rarely performed at the end of the trip, being the dining car is sent to the yards to be cleaned and readied for FDA inspection(s). Make more sense, now?

Sounds to me as if the crew either doesn't wanna do a short lunch, or they are not kept on duty to do so. I would say NY crewbase (who handles that train the "Lake Shore") would have the answer for that. On the Florida trains when we are headed North, we are supposed to keep the last scheduled meal period to whichever that meal period's time ends or PHL, whichever comes first. And closing at PHL is cutting it kinda close being there is only about an hour and a half or so before we get to NYP. When the train is absurdly late, however, then it is on a case by case basis. Last winter on the Northbound "Meteor," we were stuck in North Carolina for 9 hours due to the winter storm (CSX definitely doesn't handle cold very well)! We ended up arriving into NYP about 11 1/2 hours late at 22:00:00 instead of 10:30:00. Prior to that we ended up serving an extended lunch till 16:00:00, but we had problems again just South of WAS. By the time we left it was 18:00:00, and the decision was made to make a call to dinner for the sleeping car passngers, and the coach passngers recieved chicken boxes put on at WAS. We still actually had some coach passengers wander up to the diner, and wanted to eat in the diner even though they still had to pay. But we were able to accomadate them, too being we followed the "open till" rule set forth by our supervisor. We had to remain open until PHL being we would arrive there prior to the end of dinner at 21:00:00. Our crewbase supervisor out of MIA expects us to be open under those guidelines which I previously mentioned, though some crews still try to cut corners. So all in all, we should have been done after a real short breakfast. But it turned out, we ended up doing a regular breakfast period, and then a full "unscheduled" lunch and dinner that trip. Our passengers weren't the most happy about being almost 12 hours late, but at least they were happy with the service this particular crew provided them for this hell of a trip!