Privatization of Dining Car Service may be the answer

[Manny T]

It may be that the problem on Amtrak is choice. Don't get me wrong, I love to choose from a menu, and customize to my taste as much as possible. But this is how one night train trip in Europe went:

All the passangers came into the dining car and were seated at the same time. Drink orders were taken and brought. Then a waiter came through with a first course--same for everyone, honestly I don't remember if it was soup or salad--and set it down in front of everyone. After a while, dishes were cleared and a new plate placed in front of each passenger. Then the chef came through with a pot and walked down the center aisle ladling out veal stew onto each person's plate. After a decent interval he came back with the pot and offered everyone seconds. Then the plates were cleared and a dessert was set down in front of everyone. End of meal. Back in the sleeping carriage, the attendant made coffee or tea and dispensed liquors.

In my shaky memory, it was all fine. Everyone realized--and accepted--it was a night train with a small kitchen and limited capacities. Could it work in the USA?? Ha. But the cost savings would be enormous.

 

[jebr]

I have no objection to anyone making a decent living based upon education, skill, talent and a good work ethic. Except for the kitchen staff the people working the dining cars are unskilled labor and should be compensated as such. In the private sector table servers are paid less than minimum wage but make a decent living by providing quality service that results in good tips.

If the private sector moved into the dining cars they would use restaurant labor that is paid the going rate and they will earn what they are capable of earning. Like it or not, fair or not, this is the way of the world. The janitor just doesn't get paid as well as other workers in a business.

First, I hate the tipping culture and wished it would be abolished. There should be no reason that an employer should be able to skirt minimum wage laws by relying on the generosity of other people. (I'm glad that, at least in Minnesota, they're still supposed to be paid minimum wage even if they're a tipped employee.) I'd also like a source that many table servers make "a decent living" off of tips. There may be a few edge cases, but I'd be surprised if there's many that are working 40 hours a week and making a wage (even with tips) that they can sustain a family on.

Secondly, what defines what someone is capable of earning? To say that an Amtrak server's job is equivalent to a server at your local neighborhood bar and grill denies a very fundamental difference between the two jobs: the intrinsic full-time, only-job-I-can-reasonably-hold nature of an Amtrak long-distance server's position. I can't hire someone who goes to high school or college during the day and is looking for a 20-hour-a-week job that can only work evenings and weekends. That person can fit the bill nicely at a land-based restaurant where many of the patrons are wanting to go on nights and weekends, and I may not have to pay as much as my pool of candidates is larger and there's not as many positions that are open and flexible to that sort of employee. However, I can't hire that person to work the dining car for Amtrak as I need someone who's able to travel at least overnight (in fact, I think the shortest round-trip that would be available would be three nights away from home,) willing to work long hours all day (no 8 hour shifts here,) and also has to be able to be trained in the nuances of the job (how to serve on a moving train, probably has to be trained on many of the details of train safety, etc.) Suddenly your pool of candidates becomes a lot smaller, and in order to convince them to endure the numerous overnights away from home you're going to have to pay quite a bit more.

Frankly, someone (or some organization) that thinks that a land-based model can "just work" on a train and be paid the same wage probably wouldn't be able to find anyone to work on that train. And so we're back to no dining service at all.

 

[FormerOBS]

.............and they have to pass the drug screen. Not such a small thing nowadays, and the lack of suitable candidates has been known to set back the scheduling of training classes. That's reality. A fast food franchise can tolerate a person who parties to excess on his/her time off. The railroad can't.

T

 

[Anderson]

*sighs*
The tipping situation bugs me to no end for a whole raft of reasons, not least because (1) on the one hand it is often a "hidden" 15-20% on one's bill; (2) it is used to effectively stiff workers; and (3) workers rather often get smacked for the tax bill of their presumed tips whether they earned them or not. At the very least I'd like to see the law state, in so many words, "Your servers' paychecks will equal at least the minimum wage for the worked hours. Whether part of this comes out of a tip pool or not is your problem, but failing to provide payment for at least minimum wage (whether from tips or wages) in their paycheck shall be illegal, and arguing that they received part of it in cash as tips shall not be an excuse to avoid this". The last point (the tax bill bit) is probably even more evil...I have heard of at least a few chain restaurants/bars where management simply reports, say, 15% of a server's tables' gross revenue as tip income to the IRS. I'd be angrier at the companies, but I strongly suspect this is an effort by management to cover their ASCII (I suspect legal counsel told them to do that lest they be hit for potential tax evasion...after all, I know tips are taxable and they may be subject to payroll taxes...which would mean that an employer under-reporting tip income for employees would be dodging taxes they would be required to forward along every pay period). Basically, this is a policy disaster area.

Back on the train worker point, there's also the issue of spending a lot of nights away from home. Yes, there are some crews on some short corridors which wind up at their origin station at the end of the day...but there are plenty of cases where a crew goes out one day and back the next, often looking at a straight 8-12 hour run (for the Hampton Roads-Boston, Washington-Boston, or Hampton Roads-New York trips). There are also, as far as I can tell, cases where you can get two nights away from home if the work cycle goes odd (e.g. there's at least one day each week where a train leaves Boston, goes to Norfolk/Lynchburg, and then returns only as far as New York the next day; either the crew is overnighting in New York northbound [return to Boston] or in Boston before the southbound leg [originating in New York]). You don't have a lot of restaurants which have that in their work schedules.

 

[fulham]

The problem with the conventional dining car is that there is no incentive to work more than the crew wants to. Anyone who rides Amtrak can agree that dining car hours, service, quality, etc. are all over the board, and it has been that way since May 1, 1971. Unlike a standard restaurant, the diner closes and opens for every meal...it is not open from say 6 AM to 10 PM continuously. This is understandable given that there is only one crew working the diner as opposed to shifts at standard restaurants. The problem is that if the diner crew is tired and doesn't want to work, they will close down at the earliest possible time regardless if everyone on the train that wants to eat has. I don't think Amtrak has any way to monitor this other than customer complaints.

My solution, for the east coast LD trains where you are serving no more than 4 meals per trip is to get rid of the diner and just run a lounge/snack car. To do this right Amtrak would need to run 2 LSA's per car (to keep the car open from 6 AM to 10 PM), increase the items on the menu, and increase storage to prevent outages. Sure, some passengers would not like this but we have to face reality...traditional dining cars are never going to be cost effective, besides most travelers today are used to eating fast-food or semi fast-food when traveling. It is not that big a deal and given the ever expanding variations of food available at C-stores and high end grocery chains menus can consist of much more than soggy hamburgers and hot dogs, and cardboard pizzas. I think this is the way to go.

 

[jphjaxfl]

The problem with the conventional dining car is that there is no incentive to work more than the crew wants to. Anyone who rides Amtrak can agree that dining car hours, service, quality, etc. are all over the board, and it has been that way since May 1, 1971. Unlike a standard restaurant, the diner closes and opens for every meal...it is not open from say 6 AM to 10 PM continuously. This is understandable given that there is only one crew working the diner as opposed to shifts at standard restaurants. The problem is that if the diner crew is tired and doesn't want to work, they will close down at the earliest possible time regardless if everyone on the train that wants to eat has. I don't think Amtrak has any way to monitor this other than customer complaints.

My solution, for the east coast LD trains where you are serving no more than 4 meals per trip is to get rid of the diner and just run a lounge/snack car. To do this right Amtrak would need to run 2 LSA's per car (to keep the car open from 6 AM to 10 PM), increase the items on the menu, and increase storage to prevent outages. Sure, some passengers would not like this but we have to face reality...traditional dining cars are never going to be cost effective, besides most travelers today are used to eating fast-food or semi fast-food when traveling. It is not that big a deal and given the ever expanding variations of food available at C-stores and high end grocery chains menus can consist of much more than soggy hamburgers and hot dogs, and cardboard pizzas. I think this is the way to go.

I, for one, will not travel on a long distance train without a dining car. The snackbar is fine for cocktails and hors d'oeuvres, but not as a substitute for regular meals. Amtrak needs to look at the Dining Car deficit as a business cost of operating trains. Even some of the longer distance trains such as the Palmetto needs a Dining Car. I think the "Silver Star experament" will show that passengers want dining cars. If I am not going to be able to eat a normal meal, I will fly so I have time for dinner after I arrive.

 

[Ryan]

Agreed, that is a horrible "solution".

 

[andersone]

What I can't understand is why isn't the actual cost charged? If the steak costs $35 to prepare and serve then charge that. If the French toast is $12 then charge that. Anybody been to breakfast at Bob Evans lately? Try and get out of there for $8. Offer two prices on sleepers - American (no meals) or European (meals) ,

 

[Ryan]

Because Amtrak (correctly) realizes that nobody would pay that price for that quality of food.

 

[jis]

Just like for the transportation ticket there is revenue maximization using the swett point of fares, similarly there is a such a sweet spot for costs for food service. If you charge more than that your net revenue actually goes down. The costs to buyers needs to be set around the sweet spot in order to maximize revenue taking into account all price and demand elasticities.

 

[Lonestar648]

I agree that with NO Dining Car on LD trains, I would STOP traveling on Amtrak. I do think that who ever is managing the Service staff on the LD trains is not holding the LSA and the rest of the staff accountable for proper operation. In the DC they are paid the same whether they run two seating's or four, the difference is that they get to sit around and make fewer tips so they can complain more. No one in management monitors or seems to care. By serving fewer and fewer people the cost per person rises since the labor is fixed per trip. The DC needs more volume to bring the cost per person down, may not be profitable, but the food cost loss per trip would be reduced.

 

[dlagrua]

Quite frankly the way the food service was before the cuts was fine with me. Just for the record, I don't want to see the food service staff put out of work, but back to work.

Boardman's promise to congress to have the service at the break even point or profitable within two years is a lie. He committed Amtrak to something that is not possible to achieve. His speech subtlety included a caveat that needs no further explanation. The result is that food service is on the decline and will continue to be. Workers will be laid off and cuts will continue. Boardman promised that change is coming. In two years it will come down to delivering on a goal that is impossible to achieve. That change could include some form of privatization or it could be that Boardman is just riding his last two years out before retirement. Whatever the case, the situation stinks.

 

[Eric S]

I'm not sure what I think the solution is, or whether there is a single solution (probably not). I do tend to believe that without some pretty significant changes that the dining car services will continue to decline in both quality and availability. I have a hard time imagining a likely scenario where Amtrak receives stable and increased funding specifically to provide enhanced dining car services on long distance trains.

To me at least, Amtrak has seemed unwilling or unable to provide consistent service in dining cars (in terms of hours of service, options available, and so forth). The ability to hold a contract operator more accountable is certainly appealing. However, as others have mentioned, there are significant challenges with such an approach on a long distance train. So, can those challenges be overcome and if not can Amtrak's food service operation be held more accountable? And, is the traditional dining car (sit down, order at table, delivered by wait staff restaurant style) operation the best choice going forward? Is some sort of counter service (with tables still available for seating) compatible with full meals and not just a cafe car style menu? What would it take for service to be offered from roughly 0600-2100 hours, and would longer/all-day hours improve profitability/reduce losses?

As I mentioned at first, I don't really know what the "right" approach is to the issues surrounding Amtrak's dining car services. It seems to be a much tougher problem to work out than dealing with the challenges facing cafe car services.

 

[Peter KG6LSE]

part of it is the unions Not in a bad way but they do get in the way . Read on ..

Here is my take .

GUT every snack car..

GUT the diner cars...........

ditch the lower bar in the shack car in to the OBS office. I they SHOULD be useing the transdorm but they dont enough.

THEN

ditch the traditional diner service ....... GASP!( the unions are not gonna like this )

OK so now we have a clean slate.( gutted cars)

the Diner IS now the snack car.... Yea it smells like diner Lite but its not .

the diner is now open from 6 AM to 10 PM . Like a dennys sans 24H .

you pay Up top and the dumwaiter sends the grub up to you . the staff bellow cooks and does lite prep.

its a human Automat .

think of a drive trugh that has the screen at the top of the elevator and you pay up top via cash slots or card readers .

I dont care how long my trip is . Ill settle for fast food IF it is good .

just a little better then the bar car and more options and I would be happy . and I Am more then happy to bus my own table .

it works OK on the barcar. why not on the full diner.

best part is you can * dine * in the the diner or take it where you want .

Panda express is my best analogy of the price Vs qualaty and service a univerrsal diner could use .

 

[Bob Dylan]

Not a bad idea Peter, but I'd rather see Chipotle or a similar more midscale food provider doing the prep!

The Amtrak OBS could be reassigned to other OBS duty ( new hires are being crossed trained) so no-one Losses their jobs! ( the problem might be the Chefs since they are in a different craft IINM)

The current "Cut and Lie" MO is a reicepe for disaster leading to the disappearance of Diners on Amtrak trains!

 

[Manny T]

...menus can consist of much more than soggy hamburgers and hot dogs, and cardboard pizzas.

But will they? Hence relying on the cafe car is no solution.

I did read a congressional hearing on Amtrak F&B cover-to-cover a while back, and if I had the link I would post it. Great reading and I hope someone has the link. A couple of points stick out:

1. There is no agreement on what food served aboard Amtrak "costs." Why? Because no-one is sure whether to factor in labor costs. Obviously that makes a big difference.

So what is the argument against factoring in labor costs? That brings us to Point 2.

2. Like flight attendants on an airplane, food service workers made the point that their job is not entirely, nor even primarily, about serving food. They point out safety and security as their major functions, their training in this regard, and their ability and readiness to assist when circumstances call for it. They make this claim seriously, and see themselves in a very different light than normal food service workers.

If this is true--and I'm not claiming it is, I would like to hear about instances where food service personnel have performed these functions--I wonder how outsourcing F&B and bringing in untrained food workers will impact safety and security aboard Amtrak.

 

[jis]

If food service personnel in Diners are critical to safety, is it then the case that all trains without Diners are in some sense carrying fewer safety critical personnel and are necessarily less safe in some sense? I am just curious to understand the issue.

In case of airlines, they have to carry a certain number of cabin attendants even if they serve no food at all and those are for safety critical functions. The number which is related to the total number of seats in the cabin is mandated by the FAA in the US and by JAA in Europe and respective other regulatory agencies in other countries. What does the FRA mandate in the US for passenger trains. Isn't it in terms of a number of required Conductors or some such? Or is that even mandated by them? I don;t know and am curious to learn. What is such a number for trains? How many safety critical personnel must a train carry irrespective of what else they might do?

 

[sldispatcher]

I fall somewhere between the privatization and not privatization. I think the general lean towards privatization comes in the form of assumed resulting improvement in customer service/quality. I don't think either is obtainable unless one turns over the entire sleeper/food service to a private entity that then profit shares with Amtrak. I do not support anything that allows a private company to take over and expect money from Amtrak without making sure Amtrak receives funds in return.

With that being said, taking the current situation, asking people to work away from home and long hours comes with a price. A price that does need some protection from bean counters. I'm one of those "right wingers" that so many people seem to seethingly hate on this forum but quickly forget the biggest cuts seem to always come during more left leaning administrations. The OBS who sacrifice time away from family and home need to be compensated for doing so. Period. If they are going to dedicate decades for doing that, they need to be able to retire respectably. Period.

****Let's be real, you want to lower costs per passenger and raise revenue, ADD MORE CARS. If anything would help the current cost of dining service, it is not finding a vendor, it is spreading the fixed costs (employees/etc.) out over a greater number of people. It is a crying shame that the CZ or CS or CL is not running 5 - 6 sleepers EVERYDAY with ability to ramp up more during higher demand periods.

We don't have a food cost delivery problem as it is simply the supply of potential customers is too limited!

That is the ultimate travesty in this whole discussion. To paraphrase, "If you build it, they will come."

 

[Ryan]

More cars per train and more trains. The best thing for Amtrak's bottom line is more Amtrak. So many fixed costs, spread it out over more passengers and you'll be golden.

 

[Carolina Special]

Spreading fixed costs only works if there is an increased capacity to serve more passengers during the peak demand periods. Does the existing dining car setup have the ability to scale up to serving additional passengers during the peak demand periods without adding additional overhead (people/equipment)? If it doesn't, adding more coach/sleeper cars won't solve the diner problem.

I agree that adding cars in general would help the bottom line, so long as customers are not turned off by a lack of food options.

 

[railiner]

I hate to be "that guy," but the Santa Fe and Fred Harvey never operated the California Zephyr. That was the Burlington, Rio Grande and Western Pacific railroads. Santa Fe's famous trains included the Super Chief, Chief, Texas Chief, San Francisco Chief and the Grand Canyon. Putting aside the nit-picking, I would be interested in how Santa Fe and Fred Harvey worked together to provide the food services. As far as I know, the on-board staff were Santa Fe employees. Did Fred Harvey just provide the actual food stuffs and provide oversight on the preparation of the food? I don't believe any other railroad of the classic era had such an arrangement with a land-based restaurant company.

Actually, reading the history of the Fred Harvey company, Santa Fe dropped them for dining car services in the final years of service because they felt they could operate the remaining dining cars cheaper than the Harvey Company. At that time, both the company founder and his son had passed away, and the surviving family didn't have the same finesse for service that the founders had. At the same time, though, I think the problem of a private provider would only be greater now, with fewer trains, less frequencies, and the constant political bickering about funding.

For those interested, I'd strongly recommend the book Appetite for America, which does an excellent job of discussing the challenges and history of the Fred Harvey company, along with how it came to fade away.

So it seems the final years of the Santa Fe passenger service, dining service reverted "in house", similar to Pullman service, as railroads took over their own sleeper operations in the final years, when the Pullman Company folded....

Anyway, the history of the Fred Harvey relationship to the Santa Fe (and a few other roads), brings to mind a much earlier time....before dining cars....when long distance trains stopped at Harvey Houses located in railroad stations at meal times. They offered a choice of formal dining room, or quick counter service.

Perhaps that is the ultimate solution to the cost of running full dining cars on long distance trains....the main problem is what happens when the train is way off schedule....

Mention was made of elimination of meal service on airliner's....they apparently came to the same conclusion. Years ago, when airlines universally fed all classes on almost all flights, there was little more than bars located on airport gate concourses. Now there are mall-like food courts, as almost everyone grabs a bite off the plane....

 

[FormerOBS]

A question was asked about OBS personnel being prepared to act in an emergency, and whether there were specific examples.

Several years ago the Auto Train hit a vehicle at a grade crossing. The vehicle was thrown into a ditch with the driver hanging upside down from his seat belt. The train stopped with the diner next to the wrecked vehicle. A chef got off the train, ran to the vehicle, and noticed the smell of leaking gasoline. The chef got the driver safely out of there before any other help had a chance to arrive. Other OBS employees quickly joined the chef with first aid kits, blankets, etc. The Florida Highway Patrol gave a laudatory citation to the crew for their efforts. I was there and witnessed that one. That chef still works on the Auto Train.

When the Auto Train derailed in Florida about 14 years ago due to bad track, the report of the investigation cited the entire Crew 5 for exemplary conduct in helping passengers during the emergency. I had bid off of Crew 5 about a year previously, so I wasn't part of that, but I knew the folks on that crew,

and wasn't surprised.

Every year, Amtrak recognizes employees with awards for various things, including valor, in a large ceremony. I suppose the records of those annual awards are available in the public record somewhere. I know they have been published in internal employee news publication. As far as I know, the two incidents I mentioned above were not recognized at the awards ceremonies.

T

 

[railiner]

A question was asked about OBS personnel being prepared to act in an emergency, and whether there were specific examples.

Several years ago the Auto Train hit a vehicle at a grade crossing. The vehicle was thrown into a ditch with the driver hanging upside down from his seat belt. The train stopped with the diner next to the wrecked vehicle. A chef got off the train, ran to the vehicle, and noticed the smell of leaking gasoline. The chef got the driver safely out of there before any other help had a chance to arrive. Other OBS employees quickly joined the chef with first aid kits, blankets, etc. The Florida Highway Patrol gave a laudatory citation to the crew for their efforts. I was there and witnessed that one. That chef still works on the Auto Train.

When the Auto Train derailed in Florida about 14 years ago due to bad track, the report of the investigation cited the entire Crew 5 for exemplary conduct in helping passengers during the emergency. I had bid off of Crew 5 about a year previously, so I wasn't part of that, but I knew the folks on that crew,

and wasn't surprised.

Every year, Amtrak recognizes employees with awards for various things, including valor, in a large ceremony. I suppose the records of those annual awards are available in the public record somewhere. I know they have been published in internal employee news publication. As far as I know, the two incidents I mentioned above were not recognized at the awards ceremonies.

T

Very commendable actions, indeed. But I believe the question was whether the OBS personnel are actually trained and certified in emergency evacuation procedures. And if they are considered on board as part of the safety of the passengers, shouldn't they be subject to some sort of 'hours-of service' regulation, as are the operating train crew? Airline flight attendants are safety certified, and are subject to 'hours-of service'......

 

[Eric S]

To me, the questions regarding safety are (1) what are FRA requirements in terms of staffing on passenger trains (commuter and intercity)? and (2) how do dining car personnel figure into safety requirements. There are passenger trains operated every day that do not have dining cars and carry as many or more passengers than long distance trains with dining cars.

None of this should be taken as an attempt to disparage the great work and roles that dining car staff have played in emergency situations.

 

[FormerOBS]

Yes, they are given safety training including evacuation, fire safety, training in hazmats, First Aid, etc. Many of us wished the training had been even more intensive and frequently refreshed. Of course, periodic refresher training was rarely scheduled so that it could be convenient for those of us on "odd" work schedules, and we didn't like the inevitable disruption of our lives. Amtrak OBS employees are not considered Hours of Service employees under the Federal definition. Whether they should be is a question for somebody above my pay grade. The rules that apply to airline personnel seem not to apply.

T