I actually tend to agree with you in general on this Philly. All that I would like to see is a little improvement in the Cafe service as I have mentioned in one of the threads (I forget which). Given the choice and a reasonable cafe car (even something like the Cascades or Downeaster) I'd occasionally use the Dining Car but mostly use the Cafe.
Downeaster's the only Amtrak service where I've gotten an acceptable breakfast in the Cafe. (The Oatmeal.)
It's actually breakfast where I find I have to go to the dining car on the other trains. I don't know if this is typical, but I'd expect it; the breakfast selection is dismal even in the Regional and Empire Service cafes.
I've stated before that sleepers are a profitable and worthwhile market; Paulus and I hashed out the math on this, and they seem to be slightly less profitable than coaches on most of the eastern routes, but more profitable on the Lake Shore Limited. But of course on all these routes they're attracting riders who *wouldn't ride coach*, mostly longer-distance riders, so they're a profitable area period. I haven't dug into the western trains but I would be surprised if the math is significantly different.
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Dining cars are another matter; it's just necessary to provide good-enough food service for passengers travelling far enough to need to eat. There are two aspects to this:
(1) Food quality and selection. Since I started travelling Amtrak, the dining cars have declined in quality and selection a lot; the cafe cars have risen in quality a little, but not *enough*. Since the food costs are insignificant compared to the labor, this is *not* the place to skimp.
(2) Service. Both the dining cars and the cafe cars suffer from excessive lines and very bad stocking practices. (The stocking could be improved with a POS inventory tracking system.) The dining cars suffer from poor space usage (some OBS have described this as due to understaffing). The cafe cars suffer additionally from badly-planned closure schedules which lose business.
On trains where the volume of passengers is low enough to avoid major lines at the cafe car, the cafe car is probably sufficient. On trains where it isn't, something more needs to be provided: at-seat cart service is something Amtrak could try instead of a dining car.
Amtrak says that the cafe cars are all profitable already, so they're gonna keep running. If cafe car service can be improved enough, and additional forms of service (cart service, at-seat service) can be added to prevent the formation of long lines, a "super-cafe" offering (with two staff members operating the cafe, much-expanded selection, and restocking at multiple points on the route) might be sufficient even for the longest trains. Unfortunately Amtrak has shown no signs of doing that.