# Boardman: Amtrak Commits to End Food and Beverage Losses



## afigg (Oct 3, 2013)

This announcement from Boardman is going to stir things up, given how railfans argue about how to reduce F&B losses or complain about service cuts. Amtrak posted a news release today: Amtrak Commits to End Food and Beverage Losses (2 page PDF). Boardman is defining a bold goal of eliminating food service losses on the LD trains in 5 years by utilizing technology and getting more efficient. Obviously trying to head off cuts and damaging micro-management rules from Congress. If Amtrak management pulls it off, what will Mica do for Congressional hearing topics?

Content of the news release because there is much in it to discuss:



> WASHINGTON Amtrak is moving forward with a plan to eliminate its food and beverage losses over five years. It builds on successful initiatives implemented since FY 2006 that have increased the cost recovery rate from 49 percent to 65 percent.
> 
> We have made steady and consistent progress, but it is time we commit ourselves to end food and beverage losses once and for all, said President and CEO Joe Boardman. Our plan will expand initiatives that have worked, add new elements and evolve as updated information and opportunities lead us to better solutions.
> 
> ...


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## Big Iron (Oct 3, 2013)

Boy oh Boy, this won't end well for Amtrak pax. Whenever the words "align" and "enhance" are used in corporate speak someone is in for a hosing.


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## Ryan (Oct 3, 2013)

Good on them if they can pull it off. Going electronic will be a nice change in the dining car.


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## Eric S (Oct 3, 2013)

So, on the whole, cafe cars are a break-even affair, while dining cars are the money-losers. Have we ever had confirmation that was the case in the past?


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## Blackwolf (Oct 3, 2013)

I, for one, look forward to how this plays out. Food quality should not suffer from this, in fact it may even improve and become more consistent (gasp!) I live and breathe "Single Point Ordering" in my career, and consolidating everything for food and beverage into a single department that has a clear organization for tracking the winners and losers will be very good. This goes for costs per unit (food item,) revenue per train and route, revenue/loss per employee tracked, and greater ease for the passenger.

Could you imagine a system of being able scroll through an interactive menu while riding your train, be able to order food items through a phone app, pay for them, get a e-reciept with a barcode that is used by the OBS to track an order, and simply pick-up your meal or even get it delivered to your seat? I know, incredibly far-fetched for Amtrak... Then again, in the past month we've seen the Company suddenly lurch into the 21st century quite massively, so nothing is too far-fetched.

I think it will cut down on the losses substantially, though it may not fully eliminate them. All quite good for Amtrak in the long-run, and by osmosis, good for the passenger because it helps insure that food service remains a staple amenity to us travelers.

Nostalgic as they may be, the hand-written paper order tickets for meals should have been scrapped 15 years ago.


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## rickycourtney (Oct 3, 2013)

The big question here is: will Amtrak continue to include meals in the cost of sleeping accommodations?


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## Ryan (Oct 3, 2013)

That may be a quick fix- allocate more money from sleeping car ticket revenue to the dining car. Boom, instant revenue increase.


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## jis (Oct 3, 2013)

Remember that meal was added to the cost of sleeping accommodation in the first place to make sure that enough money flowed into the Dining Car account from Sleeping Car passengers to try to save the Dining Car in the first place. I don;t think that calculus has changed any since then.


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## benjibear (Oct 3, 2013)

This won't make people happy here based on the discussions about Amtrak deserts.

I think they should be able to turn a profit in the cafe cars.


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## The Journalist (Oct 3, 2013)

How do allocations work for the included meals for sleeper passengers? Is it based on what they order or is there a flat amount of the accommodation charge that goes to the diner revenue? For that matter, how are costs allocated for on-board staff taking meals in the car? Is that cost assigned to the diner or is there some benefit account that it's charged to? That would make the diner seem more cost-efficeint by moving that expense to labor benefits-which would make sense anyway since without the diner they still have to get food somehow.

In any case, digitalizing inventory makes loads of sense, as does cashless. Anyone know what the tablet mentioned on the Meteor is?


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## OlympianHiawatha (Oct 3, 2013)

Over history Railroad Dining Cars have never made money and even the _*New York Central*_ considered it a winning event whenever the _*20th Century Limited*_ Diners returned above 50 cents for every dollar spent.

Talk is one thing-results are another. And I hope this does not mean the quality of the Dining Car fare declines to slop.


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## The Davy Crockett (Oct 3, 2013)

Could there be Spam on our future travels by rail?


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## yarrow (Oct 3, 2013)

OlympianHiawatha said:


> Over history Railroad Dining Cars have never made money and even the _*New York Central*_ considered it a winning event whenever the _*20th Century Limited*_ Diners returned above 50 cents for every dollar spent.
> 
> Talk is one thing-results are another. And I hope this does not mean the quality of the Dining Car fare declines to slop.


that is also my understanding, dining cars never made money. good dining car service, especially for traveling business people, supposedly increased freight business by showing the road in a good light. since amtrak isn't in the dining car game to attract freight business the only way to break even is to get rid of diners and go to cafe cars for all food service. maybe an auto-mat diner like on the sunset limited when sp was trying to get rid of the train


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## Michael061282 (Oct 3, 2013)

I have no idea how to fix Amtrak's food issues, but charging $16.25 for what amounts to a little more than Barilla instant Mac & Cheese with a salad and a cold roll certainly doesn't help. Especially when the mac & cheese is available for about $10 LESS in the lounge car.....


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## Michael061282 (Oct 3, 2013)

also $3 + for a tiny cup of sorbet or sherbet... too much, especially for somebody traveling on a budget in coach


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## Ispolkom (Oct 3, 2013)

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, so I guess we'll see. I'd think that there is a lot of room for technological improvements, given that present system breaks if you sign your chit with blue ink, and the poor LSA has to carry a ton of cash (something I always found nerve wracking). I can't imagine that any efficiencies will result in lower dining car prices. Instead, they will show that the inherent subsidy in running dining cars is reduced.

I just hope that the end result isn't instant oatmeal for breakfast. The two stalwarts of the Amtrak dining car menu, in my mind at least, are the old-fashioned oatmeal for breakfast, and the steak for supper.


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## MiRider (Oct 3, 2013)

Mr. Boardman is soliciting comments on this post of his on Amtrak's Blog.

You have to create an account to comment though.

IMPROVING OUR FOOD AND BEVERAGE SERVICE


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## John Bobinyec (Oct 3, 2013)

Harvey House stops.

Vending machines (automat).

Food trucks.

One of the best meals I ever had was a sandwich. Sandwiches were brought on board in Wilmington because the diner had been shopped in New York (fumigated for mice) and there was no replacement. Good sandwich.

The worst meal I ever had was a tuna fish sandwich from one of the turbo trains. Thought I was going to die. Evidently, that baby had spent just a little bit too long in that refrigerated vending machine or else the train lost power for a while and the food started to spoil.

jb


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## Train2104 (Oct 3, 2013)

MiRider said:


> Mr. Boardman is soliciting comments on this post of his on Amtrak's Blog.
> 
> You have to create an account to comment though.
> 
> IMPROVING OUR FOOD AND BEVERAGE SERVICE



One of the comments has an interesting idea: offer a more expensive variety of coach ticket that includes meals.

I wonder what the financial performance of the Auto Train diners are. They could make Coach pay for food.

What is VIA's policy on complimentary meals for sleeping car passengers? Do they offer it to coach passengers on some runs?


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## Anderson (Oct 3, 2013)

I don't think Amtrak can necessarily get the diners to break-even, but if they could force three full seatings at dinner (and use of at least 44 of 48 seats on the single-level trains, and 68 of 72 seats on the bilevels) and some similar efforts (maybe an "all will be served" policy of some sort), they could probably take enough of a bite out of the losses there to let the cafes offset those losses, at least on a direct operating basis. Of course, I also expect some overhead shenanigans...

Train2104: I've wanted such a ticket (or something like that, maybe an intermediate accommodation class) for quite some time.


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## Texan Eagle (Oct 3, 2013)

benjibear said:


> This won't make people happy here based on the discussions about Amtrak deserts.


True, I won't be happy if Amtrak got rid of the deserts, especially the ones in Arizona and Nevada.


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## NorthCoastHiawatha (Oct 3, 2013)

"Also in 2014 Amtrak plans to test “cashless” sales for food and beverage on certain
routes. The elimination of cash reduces transaction time and significantly reduces
accounting expenses and the risk of fraud or abuse"
"This model is very popular in the airline industry and has
been seen as a favorable change by travelers."



I never been one for this whole push for going cashless, yeah I have cards, but that doesn't mean I always want to use them. I also don't get where there getting the idea that cashless cabins have been popular with airline passengers, they have probably just gotten used to it. I don't think going cashless would be all that well received on Amtrak.


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## Trogdor (Oct 3, 2013)

NorthCoastHiawatha said:


> "Also in 2014 Amtrak plans to test “cashless” sales for food and beverage on certain
> 
> routes. The elimination of cash reduces transaction time and significantly reduces
> 
> ...


They said it was popular with the airline industry, not passengers. If it's popular with the airline industry, that means the airlines have determined that the benefits of not accepting cash (i.e. reduced losses due to theft) outweigh whatever downsides there are of people not having credit cards. That said, it's almost a given that an airline passenger is going to have a credit card. The same may not be true of an Amtrak passenger.

But, on the other hand, the type of passenger who is likely to spend money in the dining car is probably more likely to have a credit card than the average LD passenger overall.


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## NorthCoastHiawatha (Oct 3, 2013)

Trogdor said:


> NorthCoastHiawatha said:
> 
> 
> > "Also in 2014 Amtrak plans to test “cashless” sales for food and beverage on certain
> ...


The quote says "has been seen as a favorable change by travelers" but I agree not all Amtrak passengers may have a card.


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## CHamilton (Oct 3, 2013)

There are three aspects to the Amtrak food experience:


The food itself, together with preparation and presentation. Amtrak does pretty well here. Presentation of the desserts has gone downhill (see the other thread), but dining car food, and even some cafe food, is significantly better than anything one can find on airplanes. I am encouraged by the reference to "regularly refreshing menus," which is a good idea.
Inventory, personnel and cash management. The press release suggests that a lot of Amtrak's efforts will be focused in these areas, which may be a good thing. Chain restaurants have perfected these systems without sacrificing quality (well, some of them have). The comments others have made about ditching Amtrak's antiquated paperwork and cash-handling systems are key. (I'm not too troubled by the idea of going "cashless," but that will take careful experimentation and planning.)
"Front of the house" customer service and management. This is inconsistent at best and can be downright awful. If food-service staff can get rid of the time they waste dealing with the problems described in 2, they can focus on improving the comfort, friendliness and speed with which customers are served. Train riders will cheerfully pay reasonable prices if they know they'll get good meals, served in a friendly manner.
In the past, attempts to reduce food-service deficits have focused on item 1 -- substituting paper plates and whatnot -- and were not successful. The press release seems to suggest that this time, the focus will be on area 2, which could a good thing. But for the project to be successful, improvements to area 2 must be combined with efforts to improve area 3 as well.


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## battalion51 (Oct 3, 2013)

Train2104 said:


> MiRider said:
> 
> 
> > Mr. Boardman is soliciting comments on this post of his on Amtrak's Blog.
> ...


It would be an interesting concept to allow passengers to "pre-order" meals before they board the train, maybe offering a small discount or other incentive for doing so. For those that do pre-order this could allow you to guarantee your specific choice would be in stock. Every restaurant always has a challenge with predicting what will move on a particular day, and I'm sure its even more challenging with the Dining Car. But if your stock was able to be better approximated by receiving orders in advance that would help your cause. It would also help speed kitchen production, order accuracy, etc. Tie it in with your rail reservation, and the LSA or SA scans your ticket, your order pops up, they confirm it with you, and then it gets fired to the kitchen. If you're a coach passenger, payment could be taken care of during the pre-order process, so the LSA doesn't even have to handle the payment processing. Of course you'd have to still have additional stock on board for those who don't pre-order, but this could definitely help control spoilage, running out of items, etc.


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## henryj (Oct 3, 2013)

Trogdor said:


> NorthCoastHiawatha said:
> 
> 
> > "Also in 2014 Amtrak plans to test “cashless” sales for food and beverage on certain
> ...


When I rode the Alaska RR in July, they were cash-less in the dining cars. It's just the trend.


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## Ted C (Oct 3, 2013)

I'm old enough to remember the days when airlines served hot meals in coach and we all know what happened over the next decades. Nowadays you're lucky to get a bag of pretzels on a four-hour flight. Amtrak is in a bind because they have to provide food service on the longer routes, but their overhead and cost structure mandates prices that are high/ridiculous given the fare served. Anyone who thinks they can keep the existing menus and have the dining cars break even is smoking rope.


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## cirdan (Oct 4, 2013)

Eric S said:


> So, on the whole, cafe cars are a break-even affair, while dining cars are the money-losers. Have we ever had confirmation that was the case in the past?


 Seeing the NEC has cafe cars, and the NEC cannot possibly be resposnible for losing any money at all, it is quite logical really.

I suggest rebranding LD trains as NEC Extended Edition and losses would evaporate instantly.


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## Shanghai (Oct 4, 2013)

*It would be interesting to know how much the Congressional Cafeteria's losses are*

*compared to Amtrak's Long Distances food services.*


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## zepherdude (Oct 4, 2013)

rickycourtney said:


> The big question here is: will Amtrak continue to include meals in the cost of sleeping accommodations?


Or, will the Sleeper Accommodations go up even higher to offset the meal service and other amenities?


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## cirdan (Oct 4, 2013)

zepherdude said:


> rickycourtney said:
> 
> 
> > The big question here is: will Amtrak continue to include meals in the cost of sleeping accommodations?
> ...


 Or will the next story be that meal services are highly profitable but that Amtrak is making huge losses on sleeper accomodation and other amenities.

And when somebody shouts anout that, the accounts will yet again magically find something else to offload the costs onto. The locomotive fuel budget maybe?

It's what happens when you get people without a clue making absurd micromanagement demands.


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## The Davy Crockett (Oct 4, 2013)

NorthCoastHiawatha said:


> Trogdor said:
> 
> 
> > NorthCoastHiawatha said:
> ...


And there are times the machines won't work. What then? No food? Free food?

I prefer to use cash - no fraud worries and cash is one of the most recyclable things ever invented! I actually avoid buying on airlines ever since they went cashless.

And oh -

I'm not suggesting it, but he could bust the union and pay the LSA and Chef minimum wage with no benefits, pay the SAs $2.00/hr and have them 'live' on tips. Then there is the old buffet style of food service...


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## cirdan (Oct 4, 2013)

CHamilton said:


> Inventory, personnel and cash management. The press release suggests that a lot of Amtrak's efforts will be focused in these areas, which may be a good thing. Chain restaurants have perfected these systems without sacrificing quality (well, some of them have). The comments others have made about ditching Amtrak's antiquated paperwork and cash-handling systems are key. (I'm not too troubled by the idea of going "cashless," but that will take careful experimentation and planning.


If I may care to differ, I know of virtually no chain restaurants (other than maybe top-end expensive ones) that I would consider quality (food-wise). However there are many mom & pop type places that do excellent yet affordable home-made food that beat any chain.

However, Amtrak are obviously not seeking to compete that in category. So my point is sort of pedantic but moot.


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## Anderson (Oct 4, 2013)

battalion51 said:


> Train2104 said:
> 
> 
> > MiRider said:
> ...


It's interesting you should mention pre-ordering. In BC, VIA apparently allowed you to do so up until recently, but it wasn't well-advertised. They just dumped this recently (though again, it may have been a flop due to lousy promotion).

The biggest issue I see with pre-ordering is long trip passengers. I'd rather not be committed to 2-4 days' worth of meal orders a week out.


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## battalion51 (Oct 4, 2013)

That's where it comes down to what's the incentive for going through the process. Its unreasonable to expect someone who is doing a long haul trip (say LAX to NYP) to commit to three days of meals ahead of time, but there may be cases where it makes sense. For example, if I were getting on the TE I can promise you I'd be wanting a steak for dinner and French Toast with bacon for breakfast. So what does Amtrak provide for the incentive, is it maybe a cocktail with dinner? An upgraded cut of meat? A broader menu selection? For those that are traveling on a multi-night trip having a broader menu selection available if you pre-order could be an excellent incentive. If you've got someone that wouldn't eat Chicken Cordon Bleu (presuming that's the poultry option) but would eat a BBQ Boneless Chicken this could be a huge advantage. The other person that comes to mind is the vegetarian crowd. This could open the door for them to not have to have the same small number of selections on a daily basis. One of the meals I always struggle with on the train personally is lunch because I don't eat hamburgers, and that's almost always one of the options. If you told me I could get a Chicken Sandwich simply by pre-ordering, I'd ask where do I sign up?


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## Anderson (Oct 4, 2013)

battalion51 said:


> That's where it comes down to what's the incentive for going through the process. Its unreasonable to expect someone who is doing a long haul trip (say LAX to NYP) to commit to three days of meals ahead of time, but there may be cases where it makes sense. For example, if I were getting on the TE I can promise you I'd be wanting a steak for dinner and French Toast with bacon for breakfast. So what does Amtrak provide for the incentive, is it maybe a cocktail with dinner? An upgraded cut of meat? A broader menu selection? For those that are traveling on a multi-night trip having a broader menu selection available if you pre-order could be an excellent incentive. If you've got someone that wouldn't eat Chicken Cordon Bleu (presuming that's the poultry option) but would eat a BBQ Boneless Chicken this could be a huge advantage. The other person that comes to mind is the vegetarian crowd. This could open the door for them to not have to have the same small number of selections on a daily basis. One of the meals I always struggle with on the train personally is lunch because I don't eat hamburgers, and that's almost always one of the options. If you told me I could get a Chicken Sandwich simply by pre-ordering, I'd ask where do I sign up?


That's actually a good point: You could arguably allow someone to select any meal coming out of the relevant commissary.

There's one other thing Amtrak could do that would probably be a sharp move: On trains like the Adirondack/Empire (longer corridor trains with little or no ability to restock at the back end), find ways to better manage the cafe to reduce food shortages on the return. A cafe that sells out at the end of a trip is successful, but one that starts running out of food options hours before the end of a trip is an utter disaster. I'm particularly thinking of my trip back from MTR in August...we were held up at the border, and about all I could get by Albany was the burger.


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## battalion51 (Oct 4, 2013)

Another great point. The move to a Point of Sale system should help that cause tremendously. I've got a lot of knowledge into POS through the hotel world, and the data you can get from it is tremendous. If you have the right analysts looking at the data you can find a lot of trends based on time of day, weather conditions, clientele conditions. I've worked a lot with my F&B partners to analyze data on groups to determine hot and cold sellers during a group's history. In the case of application to the Cafe Car you can look back at what PAR was loaded onto the train and how quickly it moved. Sure the train sold out of Cheeseburgers, but did that spike in sales happen at a certain point in time? If it did was it right after another item sold out? Were customers forced into the alternate selection, or was there just a late run on them because the train was empty until it got to Albany and then it went to standing room conditions? Predicting people's buying patterns is huge in terms of your ability to not only serve your customer, but make profit as well. Ahem, Wal Mart...


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## Anderson (Oct 4, 2013)

Good point there. If you compare the POS data with inventory, you should be able to deduce when you ran out of X without too much difficulty and adjust accordingly. For the Adirondack example, I know that salads and sandwiches are wont to run out while still pretty far north, while you'll still usually be pretty good on burgers and noodle cups until after ALB.

And of course, adjusting for seasonality and weekends would be another _big_ measure there. The Adirondack isn't going to do nearly as much business on a Wednesday in February as it does on a weekend in July.


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## SubwayNut (Oct 4, 2013)

The solution to the Adirondack is to reopen the Albany Comissary so the cafe car can actually be restocked there on trains like the Adirondack and Maple Leaf. I still remember when Albany had a Comissary before the non-through Empire Service trains went foodless. The trick was to visit the cafe car just after Albany in either direction and they always had a great selection.

Also does NFL have a Comissary or are the through Empire Service trains only stocked once per round-trip in NYC?


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## jis (Oct 4, 2013)

Ted C said:


> I'm old enough to remember the days when airlines served hot meals in coach and we all know what happened over the next decades. Nowadays you're lucky to get a bag of pretzels on a four-hour flight. Amtrak is in a bind because they have to provide food service on the longer routes, but their overhead and cost structure mandates prices that are high/ridiculous given the fare served. Anyone who thinks they can keep the existing menus and have the dining cars break even is smoking rope.


Just to set the record straight....
Most legacy airlines still serve hot meals in domestic First Class (at your seat) just like Amtrak does (either at your seat as in Acela or in the Diner in LD trains), and most sell a short list of cafe stuff in domestic Economy Class (at your seat) just like Amtrak does (in the cafe car). The non-alcoholic beverages are still free in Economy Class of most airlines unlike in Amtrak Coach Class. So strictly speaking most legacy airlines don't have anything that resembles Amtrak Coach Class as far as food service goes. Amtrak Business Class (except on Acelas) is like legacy airline Coach Class. OTOH in Acela First Class alcoholic beverages are free, which is not the case in most domestic airline First Classes.


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## dlagrua (Oct 4, 2013)

The dining cars are necessary for LD travelers. There is also a limit to the amount of passengers that one dining car can serve. In view of the necessity and the limitation here is an idea. Have sleeper and other passengers place their order and make their reservation for breakfast. lunch and dinner when they are ticketed or even a few days before boarding. Everyone pays and orders in advance. This way food can be loaded that would be enough to serve everyone at their chosen meal time with only a small amount of overage. As it stands right now, the dining car must carry enough extra food to have all menu options available to everyone, but is food waste the biggest expense, or the fact that a dining car carries five employees? I see no way to make a dining car profitable and if Amtrak reverted to stopping along the way, they could do it but they would have to be very well coordinated. Currently some of the longer station stops are in the middle of the night.


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## PRR 60 (Oct 4, 2013)

jis said:


> Ted C said:
> 
> 
> > I'm old enough to remember the days when airlines served hot meals in coach and we all know what happened over the next decades. Nowadays you're lucky to get a bag of pretzels on a four-hour flight. Amtrak is in a bind because they have to provide food service on the longer routes, but their overhead and cost structure mandates prices that are high/ridiculous given the fare served. Anyone who thinks they can keep the existing menus and have the dining cars break even is smoking rope.
> ...


At least on US domestic F, alcoholic beverages are free. I assumed the same would be true on the other legacy's since US is seldom a leader in on board service.


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## jebr (Oct 4, 2013)

dlagrua said:


> The dining cars are necessary for LD travelers. There is also a limit to the amount of passengers that one dining car can serve. In view of the necessity and the limitation here is an idea. Have sleeper and other passengers place their order and make their reservation for breakfast. lunch and dinner when they are ticketed or even a few days before boarding. Everyone pays and orders in advance. This way food can be loaded that would be enough to serve everyone at their chosen meal time with only a small amount of overage. As it stands right now, the dining car must carry enough extra food to have all menu options available to everyone, but is food waste the biggest expense, or the fact that a dining car carries five employees? I see no way to make a dining car profitable and if Amtrak reverted to stopping along the way, they could do it but they would have to be very well coordinated. Currently some of the longer station stops are in the middle of the night.


What happens, then, if someone buys a ticket last-minute after the time they stock the train? Are they relegated to the cafe car, do they only get to eat what's available in the "small overage", or something else?


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## OBS (Oct 4, 2013)

SubwayNut said:


> The solution to the Adirondack is to reopen the Albany Comissary so the cafe car can actually be restocked there on trains like the Adirondack and Maple Leaf. I still remember when Albany had a Comissary before the non-through Empire Service trains went foodless. The trick was to visit the cafe car just after Albany in either direction and they always had a great selection.
> 
> Also does NFL have a Comissary or are the through Empire Service trains only stocked once per round-trip in NYC?


No commissary in NFL. What you start with is all there is...


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## OBS (Oct 4, 2013)

battalion51 said:


> Another great point. The move to a Point of Sale system should help that cause tremendously. I've got a lot of knowledge into POS through the hotel world, and the data you can get from it is tremendous. If you have the right analysts looking at the data you can find a lot of trends based on time of day, weather conditions, clientele conditions. I've worked a lot with my F&B partners to analyze data on groups to determine hot and cold sellers during a group's history. In the case of application to the Cafe Car you can look back at what PAR was loaded onto the train and how quickly it moved. Sure the train sold out of Cheeseburgers, but did that spike in sales happen at a certain point in time? If it did was it right after another item sold out? Were customers forced into the alternate selection, or was there just a late run on them because the train was empty until it got to Albany and then it went to standing room conditions? Predicting people's buying patterns is huge in terms of your ability to not only serve your customer, but make profit as well. Ahem, Wal Mart...


You would think... The Acela's have had POS for, what, 2-3 years? And there have literally been zero adjustments to Par levels based upon the information that COULD be extracted from the POS data...very disappointing.


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## me_little_me (Oct 4, 2013)

battalion51 said:


> It would be an interesting concept to allow passengers to "pre-order" meals before they board the train, maybe offering a small discount or other incentive for doing so. For those that do pre-order this could allow you to guarantee your specific choice would be in stock. Every restaurant always has a challenge with predicting what will move on a particular day, and I'm sure its even more challenging with the Dining Car. But if your stock was able to be better approximated by receiving orders in advance that would help your cause. It would also help speed kitchen production, order accuracy, etc. Tie it in with your rail reservation, and the LSA or SA scans your ticket, your order pops up, they confirm it with you, and then it gets fired to the kitchen. If you're a coach passenger, payment could be taken care of during the pre-order process, so the LSA doesn't even have to handle the payment processing. Of course you'd have to still have additional stock on board for those who don't pre-order, but this could definitely help control spoilage, running out of items, etc.


There should be no reason to have to pre-order more than a day ahead. During the day, Amtrak on-board personnel could take orders for the next day via a in-car device (with help by on-board personnel for those unable to do it themselves). This would be transmitted to a private company (anti-Amtrakers would love it) who would meet the train and restock it.


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## Nathanael (Oct 4, 2013)

If by "ending food and beverage losses, Amtrak means electronic accounting and Point-of-Sale, along with proper electronic inventory tracking, and efficient use of space in the dining car (maximum number of seatings), then great!

If by "ending food and beverage losses", Amtrak means means worse or more expensive food, then terrible!

(Regarding what I just wrote: Look up "if by whiskey" in Wikipedia.  )


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## Nathanael (Oct 4, 2013)

Train2104 said:


> One of the comments has an interesting idea: offer a more expensive variety of coach ticket that includes meals.


There's an interesting idea here and I'd like to explore it further.

Sleeper passengers get a "fixed price" meal. Coach passengers have to buy stuff a la carte.

The accounting problem is reduced greatly if coach passengers also buy a fixed-price meal.

Now, I think that it's important to make it *possible* to buy meals in the diner with cash.

So, in addition to offering a coach ticket with meals included... I would suggest that Amtrak also allow the onboard purchase of literal "meal tickets" to coach passengers. If this were done, the diner could still accept cash payments, but Amtrak would gets most of the simplification benefits of "cashless" operation; the cash handling would be much, much smaller and the accounting would be a lot simpler. Perhaps the meal tickets could even be done in the cafe car, which very definitely needs to continue accepting cash for impulse purchases.

It's an interesting idea.


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## battalion51 (Oct 4, 2013)

The challenge with doing any prix fixe menu is getting your menu engineered to where all meals are at a relatively similar price point. Granted its virtually impossible to get it exactly the same, but you want it to be relatively similar so that your yield is relatively even. If you look at restaurants that participate in "Restaurant Week" usually their menu is restricted to two or three entrees that would all cost out about the same. For example you might see Fish, Chicken, and Short Ribs. That generally fits in with a portion of the dinner menu. However, what about the Vegetarian crowd? Or the Signature Steak crowd? You're getting into multiple price points now. Also, don't forget that you've got the beverage issue. Sodas and alcohol service are a huge piece of your yield. Based on the current price points I'd guess a soda is about 10% cost. Talk to any Chef, they'll tell you they love what soda sales do for food cost.


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## AKA (Oct 4, 2013)

cirdan said:


> Eric S said:
> 
> 
> > So, on the whole, cafe cars are a break-even affair, while dining cars are the money-losers. Have we ever had confirmation that was the case in the past?
> ...


GREAT idea.


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## SarahZ (Oct 4, 2013)

It's so interesting to me that the "no cash" option is getting argued against. Whenever we go to a deli/restaurant/coffee stand and there's a sign that says "Cash Only", people groan, turn away, and head off to find the nearest ATM (or just leave altogether). I can't remember the last time I paid cash for something, so I only carry $10-20 at any given time, especially when we're traveling.

On the other hand, I realize there are people who don't have bank accounts and can't get a credit card, and they may not think to buy one of those Visa gift cards before the trip, so that could potentially affect those passengers who don't have a lot of money/credit and only deal with cash and checks. I may be showing my younger age, but cash is such a foreign concept to me now. I write two checks per month (rent and parents); everything else goes on my debit or credit cards. (I'm not saying everyone should do that; it's just common among my friends/generation.)

It's strange to think that there'd be such a big difference between those people who get upset when a place is "cash only" and then to think that people would be upset about "credit only" on the train, like the train is its own little society. It's just interesting, that's all.


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## haolerider (Oct 4, 2013)

Nathanael said:


> If by "ending food and beverage losses, Amtrak means electronic accounting and Point-of-Sale, along with proper electronic inventory tracking, and efficient use of space in the dining car (maximum number of seatings), then great!
> 
> If by "ending food and beverage losses", Amtrak means means worse or more expensive food, then terrible!
> 
> (Regarding what I just wrote: Look up "if by whiskey" in Wikipedia.  )


If Amtrak can accomplish two things with the electronic changes, it would avoid the threat of "missing cash" , but most importantly, it would help to eliminate the huge waste of food that has to be thrown out at the end of a LD train trip. I have witnessed the tremendous waste with outdated food, packages that have been opened, but not fully consumed, spoilage, etc. it all goes into the garbage and cannot be given to a food bank or even taken home by employees. It is waste and it is huge!


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## The Davy Crockett (Oct 4, 2013)

Ever notice the little 'fine print' on the front of all US bills? "THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE" What is amazing is that people can get away with not accepting cash. Amtrak has stated that using only electronic transactions will cut down on fraud. While true it will protect Amtrak from its own employees, it puts its customers who prefer to use cash at greater risk for fraud.


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## rrdude (Oct 4, 2013)

Guys and Gals:

I "can't not" weigh in here.


Been involved in selling and installing POS for restaurants for over 30 years, worked for: (NCR, Aloha, Micros, Panasonic, now ASI which writes the POS software called "Restaurant Manager" .

Worked OBS for Amtrak for almost 3 years. SA-Diner, TA-C, TA-S, LSA

Ran my own restaurant and two dinner trains for five years. (Michigan & Maryland)

Sold Amtrak NCR POS, back in mid-80's to the-then "Long Distance" Vertical Business Unit. (Since abolished and re-structured)

Investigated thoroughly Amtrak's previous aborted attempts/fiasco's at installing ECR's and POS. (Electronic Cash Register) 

Battalion51's ideas/comments are sound, anything to do with POS *is great, *_as long as *someone* in mgmt does the "data mining" and them makes decision based on that info!_

Amtrak Dining Car service is _*so overdue for POS*_, it boggles my imagination. Granted, when we tested back in the 90's wireless was in it's infancy, but let's forget about "what Amtrak has tried/failed in the past, and focus on the today.


Wireless (LAN, not WAN) is simple, inexpensive, secure, robust, and operationally stable, all it has to do is cover the dining car.

TODAY, Amtrak can implement HandHeld devices, or (as the company I work for is now testing, *B*ring *Y*our *O*wn *D*evices, BYOD) in said dining cars, and the servers can either input the orders for the customer, or have the customer do it them self. E-Signature capture is proven, solid, mature, and secure.

As soon as the SA-Diner confirms the order, *BOOM!* The order is electronically sent to the kitchen down below. (doesn't matter if the train is in a tunnel or in the middle of nowheresville, it's only LAN at this point) SA-Diner then spins on his/her heels, greets the next table, and repeats the process. Add-on orders are done the same way.

HandHeld tablets (iPad, Mini, or any of the Android varieties) are cheaper now, and there are a multitude of inexpensive shock-resistant cases for them 

When closing the check, for sleeper pax, they could go one of two ways. 1) The POS server could be updated with actual occupancy, and the POS could check against that, (Like a Room Charge in a hotel, Batallion51) to verify. Or, 2) Could simply input the car and room number, without any verification, like they do manually now.

For coach customers, could go one of several ways: 1) If accepting CC, POS Server in Diner would connect to WAN or Cell network (like the CC machines they have now do) and process CC that way. 2) If accepting cash, EZ-Pee-Zee, just settle to cash, kick out the receipt. (if requested) 3) If Amtrak goes to "Coach-Meal Included" could operate like sleeper option number 2 above. 

CC tips will be calculated and tracked by server electronically. (guess who is gonna *really like* the $2 Bill tips then!) This is one major reasons that servers, Amtrak or land-based restaurants, HATE IT when a POS system is installed in a restaurant that didn't have them before.

The Metrics one can can from a POS system blow the mind, and I will only highlight a few, as other posters have touched on some


Average check calculated

Average TIME from open to close check calculated

Time that entrees are ordered calculated

Average sales per SA-Diner are calculated. (so could Ave Sales per crew, but I'd be shocked if they weren't tracking that now)

Peak and valley meal times are 100% accurate, and are calculated

POS Systems all allow for multiple pricing periods, so "early Bird Specials" and "Late Owl" service, with diff pricing could be easily implemented. 

Minimum Drinks per check can be enforced. (Did the SA-Diner enter a drink? No big deal is sleeper, but BIG deal is coach)

Orders get to kitchen MUST FASTER, and are easily read by kitchen staff/chef. Individual abbreviations and "chicken scratch" is history.

Faster Table-Turns result from many of the above points

Data transmitted from POS server to Amtrak CNOC, or wherever the Hell it needs to go to, or to specific commissaries, enroute.

LSA-Diner and SA-Diner check out and "down-time" is greatly reduced, as the POS does everything but count the remaining stock. 

The dreaded "896 Form" becomes 'nuttin but a memory.............As it is produced electronically, (after the count) and transmitted to the cloud.

Stop me now, I got thirty years of experience, and unless you are in my industry, you don't care...............


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## rrdude (Oct 4, 2013)

The Davy Crockett said:


> Ever notice the little 'fine print' on the front of all US bills? "THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE" What is amazing is that people can get away with not accepting cash. Amtrak has stated that using only electronic transactions will cut down on fraud. While true it will protect Amtrak from its own employees, it puts its customers who prefer to use cash at greater risk for fraud.


It *Is Legal Tender,* but I don't think that implies the merchant/service provider HAS to take cash..............just saying..


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## The Davy Crockett (Oct 4, 2013)

rrdude said:


> The Davy Crockett said:
> 
> 
> > Ever notice the little 'fine print' on the front of all US bills? "THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE" What is amazing is that people can get away with not accepting cash. Amtrak has stated that using only electronic transactions will cut down on fraud. While true it will protect Amtrak from its own employees, it puts its customers who prefer to use cash at greater risk for fraud.
> ...


I here you, and Terms of Service postings would work against me, but if I've already eaten and all I have is cash, being hauled off the train and possibly spending some 'quality' time at a local police department seems a bit much, when all I want to do is pay with legal tender...


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## National Limited (Oct 4, 2013)

Doesn't Boardman's statement sound suspiciously like the infamous "glidepath to self-sufficiency?*"*


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## amtrakmichigan (Oct 4, 2013)

IMO...If Amtrak wants to make the dining cars profitable, the first thing that needs to go is the waitstaff who make $50,000+ per year between union benefits and wages. I believe that if you cut salaries and benefits in half to all Amtrak food service employees, then Amtrak would turn a profit without changing menu prices or lowering the quality of products.

There are many simple things that could be changed too in the dining cars like I observed on my last 2 trips. If making a profit is such a issue, why is Amtrak offering premium name brand products? Instead of Newmans Own dressings, Heinz ketchup, Hellmens mayo..etc....Why not generic brands such as Sysco, Sams club brands....etc? To me this could save a million $ plus a year by just switching to generic brands like most restaurants serve now days anyway.


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## John Bobinyec (Oct 4, 2013)

amtrakmichigan said:


> IMO...If Amtrak wants to make the dining cars profitable, the first thing that needs to go is the waitstaff who make $50,000+ per year between union benefits and wages. I believe that if you cut salaries and benefits in half to all Amtrak food service employees, then Amtrak would turn a profit without changing menu prices or lowering the quality of products.


What about quality of the service? How long are you willing to wait for your meal to be delivered to you?

jb


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## OlympianHiawatha (Oct 4, 2013)

amtrakmichigan said:


> There are many simple things that could be changed too in the dining cars like I observed on my last 2 trips. If making a profit is such a issue, why is Amtrak offering premium name brand products? Instead of Newmans Own dressings, Heinz ketchup, Hellmens mayo..etc....Why not generic brands such as Sysco, Sams club brands....etc? To me this could save a million $ plus a year by just switching to generic brands like most restaurants serve now days anyway.


That is a valid point and often the "house brand" products are just as good as the name brand but somewhere poor Fred Harvey is going 'round and 'round in his grave at the thought.....


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## Bus Nut (Oct 4, 2013)

But customers respond to brand names. For example, I'm more likely to order salad knowing they stock Newman's own, which is tasty, as opposed to Kraft, or, worse, some of the more common food service varietys (Hain's, etc), which taste disgusting to me. As for some of those other items where customers maybe don't perceive a difference you may find that Sysco's broadline isn't that much of a savings. Sysco carries different quality points of items and the good quality (good tasting) items are not inexpensive! Remember, to get Sysco they would probably have to contract with Sysco and presumably they have reasons for contracting with the suppliers that they use now. Sysco is by no means the cheapest.


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## PRR 60 (Oct 4, 2013)

I don't think that economic reform of Amtrak Food and Beverage will live or die with the brand of salad dressing purchased.

When you use an Amtrak dining car and see your order recorded by hand on a large, multi-part paper form (that you have to sign, in black ink only, of course), you know there is considerable room for improvement on the process side of F&B business. The degree to which that visible side of the operation reflects what happens behind the scenes can only be imagined. Whether Amtrak means business with this pronouncement or is just creating a diversion remains to be seen.


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## MikefromCrete (Oct 4, 2013)

amtrakmichigan said:


> IMO...If Amtrak wants to make the dining cars profitable, the first thing that needs to go is the waitstaff who make $50,000+ per year between union benefits and wages. I believe that if you cut salaries and benefits in half to all Amtrak food service employees, then Amtrak would turn a profit without changing menu prices or lowering the quality of products.
> 
> There are many simple things that could be changed too in the dining cars like I observed on my last 2 trips. If making a profit is such a issue, why is Amtrak offering premium name brand products? Instead of Newmans Own dressings, Heinz ketchup, Hellmens mayo..etc....Why not generic brands such as Sysco, Sams club brands....etc? To me this could save a million $ plus a year by just switching to generic brands like most restaurants serve now days anyway.


What do you do for a living? Give me your boss' name and I'll suggest he cut your salary and benefits in half.


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## MikefromCrete (Oct 4, 2013)

SarahZ said:


> It's so interesting to me that the "no cash" option is getting argued against. Whenever we go to a deli/restaurant/coffee stand and there's a sign that says "Cash Only", people groan, turn away, and head off to find the nearest ATM (or just leave altogether). I can't remember the last time I paid cash for something, so I only carry $10-20 at any given time, especially when we're traveling.
> 
> On the other hand, I realize there are people who don't have bank accounts and can't get a credit card, and they may not think to buy one of those Visa gift cards before the trip, so that could potentially affect those passengers who don't have a lot of money/credit and only deal with cash and checks. I may be showing my younger age, but cash is such a foreign concept to me now. I write two checks per month (rent and parents); everything else goes on my debit or credit cards. (I'm not saying everyone should do that; it's just common among my friends/generation.)
> 
> It's strange to think that there'd be such a big difference between those people who get upset when a place is "cash only" and then to think that people would be upset about "credit only" on the train, like the train is its own little society. It's just interesting, that's all.


I find the idea of using credit or debit cards for every single purpose a bit silly. The finest restaurant in Chicago -- Hot Doug's -- accepts only cash and people stand in line for an hour to get in and enjoy his great offerings. Besides, I don't like to think that my every purchase and movement in life can be traced.


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## MattW (Oct 4, 2013)

SarahZ said:


> It's so interesting to me that the "no cash" option is getting argued against. Whenever we go to a deli/restaurant/coffee stand and there's a sign that says "Cash Only", people groan, turn away, and head off to find the nearest ATM (or just leave altogether). I can't remember the last time I paid cash for something, so I only carry $10-20 at any given time, especially when we're traveling.
> 
> On the other hand, I realize there are people who don't have bank accounts and can't get a credit card, and they may not think to buy one of those Visa gift cards before the trip, so that could potentially affect those passengers who don't have a lot of money/credit and only deal with cash and checks. I may be showing my younger age, but cash is such a foreign concept to me now. I write two checks per month (rent and parents); everything else goes on my debit or credit cards. (I'm not saying everyone should do that; it's just common among my friends/generation.)
> 
> It's strange to think that there'd be such a big difference between those people who get upset when a place is "cash only" and then to think that people would be upset about "credit only" on the train, like the train is its own little society. It's just interesting, that's all.


But how many "no cash" places do you know? I've seen many cash only places, but never a no cash place, so I don't have a point of comparison. Cash is better for small transactions, you don't have a bunch of tiny recipts to keep track of, and you reduce the risk of credit card fraud by using it for less transactions. Yes, your cash could get stolen too, but it's a one-time thing, taking someone's $10 bill means all they get is $10. Taking someone's credit card means they could run up thousands of dollars of charges, then the victim has to go through the hassle of identifying legitimate charges, possibly have to go to court, file reports, etc. The option should be left to pay either way.


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## SarahZ (Oct 4, 2013)

MikefromCrete said:


> SarahZ said:
> 
> 
> > It's so interesting to me that the "no cash" option is getting argued against. Whenever we go to a deli/restaurant/coffee stand and there's a sign that says "Cash Only", people groan, turn away, and head off to find the nearest ATM (or just leave altogether). I can't remember the last time I paid cash for something, so I only carry $10-20 at any given time, especially when we're traveling.
> ...


I don't care about that one bit. I have nothing to hide.


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## SarahZ (Oct 4, 2013)

MattW said:


> But how many "no cash" places do you know? I've seen many cash only places, but never a no cash place, so I don't have a point of comparison.


True enough. I've seen them, but it's very rare.


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## zepherdude (Oct 4, 2013)

i have looked for these thoughts I am holding, but no one has brought this concept up. What if Amtrak gets out of the food service business completely? Amtrak hires a professional contractor to handle food and beverage on board. Its not impossible to do and make money from the deal. Many corporations have greater buying power than Amtrak. The vendor comes in and redesigns the lower lobe kitchens, sets up provisioning stations, point A to B to C. Places its own crew inside, handles its own cash, liquor, beer and wine. Amtrak does not need to be in the food service business.

There are many smart operators that could make this all work. Limit the dining car selections to that of a Dinner Train, three or four entrees, all with salad, entree, dessert. Years of Amtrak numbers will reveal how much steak, pasta and seafood is served. So, meal planning is an equation based on past passenger selection. Easy to obtain passenger load factors and how many used the long distance dining car.

Actually, an airline kitchen would be great at this type of catering. Have no idea who caterers anymore, I did for 40 years. There were many independent airline caterers around in my time. I was one of those guys. It was all about numbers and percents of the passenger load factor. Examples, coffee creamers were boarded and 70% for a morning kickoff flight. Milk on a meal flight, 1-8 passengers, OJ Quarts, 1-10 passengers. Some amounts were standard, coffee, sugar PCs, bev naps.

This is a form of airline catering as meals are based upon a percent of passengers who will eat chicken at 30%, steak at 60%, cold plate at 10% for 16 first class passengers. On long haul flights, passenger counts are much higher but the same percents apply. Appetizers in first class are based on 60-40% choice. Chocolates at 110% and so on with wine and beer. Airline liquor kits are packed with maybe 40 units and based on 1 full kit for 30 passengers. The same percents were followed in coach when meals were served in the back. An airline would board a hot meal at 70%, sandwich/snack at 30% for 130 coach passengers.

Just tossing this out, an independent caterer who has the brains, bucks, rolling stock and a hefty amount of insurance could pull this off nicely. Just a thought. Entrees, pre-made, blast frozen fresh and hot could produce an outstanding, quality, inexpensive meal..

Trains could be serviced for the entire trip based on historical numbers, the way Amtrak does it now. Sound too hard? When I started in the business, I catered Braniff International, and Eastern Airlines from an old pizza parlor, 5 miles from the airport and through 3 school zones. Anything is possible with a vision, a little money and friends in high places. Just my thoughts.


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## boxcarsyix (Oct 4, 2013)

Zephyrdude please don't take offense. Airline food is ok for one inflight meal, but three times for 2-3 days would not suit my taste.


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## chakk (Oct 4, 2013)

The Davy Crockett said:


> Could there be Spam on our future travels by rail?


If Amtrak adds service in Hawaii, this would most certainly be the case -- and expected by the customers.


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## battalion51 (Oct 4, 2013)

SarahZ said:


> MattW said:
> 
> 
> > But how many "no cash" places do you know? I've seen many cash only places, but never a no cash place, so I don't have a point of comparison.
> ...


Ever been to Sam's Club gas station? Ever bought anything from an online merchant like Amazon? Redbox? QuikTrak machine?

I don't think we're going to solve all the potential problems here for sure. There's definitely room for improvements, that much we can all agree on. How it will all take shape there's no telling. But I would say that given the success of the E-Ticket program Amtrak seems to have turned the corner on using technology in on board applications.


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## MattW (Oct 4, 2013)

Sam's Club requires membership, and the online stores are a remote transaction which aren't the cases on the train.


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## WoodyinNYC (Oct 4, 2013)

PRR 60 said:


> Whether Amtrak means business with this pronouncement or is just creating a diversion remains to be seen.


I don't think Joe Boardman runs his mouth. So if he says Amtrak will eliminate losses on food and beverage, it will. He has been shown the plans to make it work -- with a margin of error just in case.

It's all good. As someone commented above, now Cong Mica will have to find some other petty something to try to make into a big something.


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## SarahZ (Oct 4, 2013)

battalion51 said:


> SarahZ said:
> 
> 
> > MattW said:
> ...


Oh, I was speaking of brick-and-mortar merchants, not online merchants.  I can think of a zillion things that are credit-only, but I was going along the path of restaurants and things like that.


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## Anderson (Oct 5, 2013)

The biggest issue I see is two-fold:
(1) Someone wants to break a bill to leave a tip; and

(2) Someone realizes at the end of a meal that they don't have a card on hand (or that their card has been unexpectedly frozen...been there, done that more than once).

#1 is annoying; #2 is a potential problem. The "quick fix" to #2 is if someone else in the room is willing to swap, say, a $20 bill for an $18 charge (or something like that)...I've been in the reverse of this at the border and made a small differential (i.e. $10 USD for $10 CAD) on offering out-of-country passengers change to clear the agents with. But if there's nobody handy, that could be an issue.


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## amtrakmichigan (Oct 5, 2013)

MikefromCrete said:


> amtrakmichigan said:
> 
> 
> > IMO...If Amtrak wants to make the dining cars profitable, the first thing that needs to go is the waitstaff who make $50,000+ per year between union benefits and wages. I believe that if you cut salaries and benefits in half to all Amtrak food service employees, then Amtrak would turn a profit without changing menu prices or lowering the quality of products.
> ...


If my boss said one day either take a pay and benefits cut or don't bother showing up anymore...well I guess I will have to take the cut. If I don't like it then I'm free to look elsewhere.

When a business operates with a loss, one of the first things that has to be looked at is salaries and benefits of employees to see what can be cut. Not long ago a sleeper attendent told me that the dining car wait staff on the train I was riding makes $100,000 + a year when they factor in there tips. If this is true and there is no reason not to think it is, this is a big issue! Service in Amtrak dining or lounge cars is fair to good at best. I find that the college age girl at my local diners provide more cheerful and friendly service than most Amtrak food service employees do. In that case, why should these employees make more then a lot of college graduates do, especialy when Amtrak is in the hole by millions in the food service department?

UAW workers now start out at a fraction of what they did just 10 years ago and with lower benefits. This had to be done in order for the big 3 to survive. I'm suprised Amtrak hasn't done something about this years ago.


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## amtrakmichigan (Oct 5, 2013)

PRR 60 said:


> I don't think that economic reform of Amtrak Food and Beverage will live or die with the brand of salad dressing purchased.
> 
> When you use an Amtrak dining car and see your order recorded by hand on a large, multi-part paper form (that you have to sign, in black ink only, of course), you know there is considerable room for improvement on the process side of F&B business. The degree to which that visible side of the operation reflects what happens behind the scenes can only be imagined. Whether Amtrak means business with this pronouncement or is just creating a diversion remains to be seen.


I agree It won't put Amtraks food service back in the black again on it's own. But just like when amyone that is trying to ballance a budget at home for example, every little bit adds up and helps. Just getting rid of the newspaper subscription alone most likely won't put someones personal finances in the black again. However when you add that savings to 8 other items that seem meaningless it could equal a nice chunk of money


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## jebr (Oct 5, 2013)

amtrakmichigan said:


> PRR 60 said:
> 
> 
> > I don't think that economic reform of Amtrak Food and Beverage will live or die with the brand of salad dressing purchased.
> ...


But would the changes command enough savings to even make the transition worth it? It could be that the "name-brand" products they use allow them to command a higher price for their meals than they would otherwise. Maybe they have an arrangement with those name brands which makes them equal to or less than the price of off-brand products.

As for the wage argument, while I tend to think that they are well compensated for what they do, they do have to pay a premium due to the nature of the job, in that Amtrak employees must have schedules that allow them to be away from home for a few days at a time. This creates a premium for a couple reasons:

1. Amtrak cannot hire part-time help at the low wages that go along with most server positions. Arguably, part of the reason part-time help is paid less than full-time help is that the restaurant must pay more overhead for each employee (scheduling, training, etc.) with less return. Not that that justifies the below-minimum-wage wages many servers make, but it does drive down wages.

2. Going along with part 1, Amtrak must compete for people looking for full-time work. They're not going to be able to hire a teenager who's looking for a job for 10-20 hours a week after school, which many stationary restaurants can (and do) hire. They're going to be hiring people who are willing to work long hours, full-time, and also be away from home for a few days at a time. Each of those commands a premium over an equivalent stationary job.

Assuming your $50,000/year figure, an Amtrak SA would be making the equivalent of $25/hr. if they're working 40 hour work weeks 50 weeks a year, including benefits. While not a bad wage, lowering that wage too much could easily make Amtrak have no choice but to hire bottom-barrel employees (as they may be the only ones that would apply at a lower wage level.)


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## EB_OBS (Oct 5, 2013)

amtrakmichigan said:


> MikefromCrete said:
> 
> 
> > amtrakmichigan said:
> ...


How about this then. Your boss cuts your wages in half AND in addition you begin to work average 15-16 hours days and when you're off, you spend your unpaid off-time in a closet at work, unable to go home and spend time with family & friends or do anything else.


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## OBS (Oct 5, 2013)

EB_OBS said:


> amtrakmichigan said:
> 
> 
> > MikefromCrete said:
> ...


Not to mention, literally working EVERY weekend and EVERY holiday (with very little holiday pay) for the first 10-15 years of your career...


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## Anderson (Oct 5, 2013)

amtrakmichigan said:


> MikefromCrete said:
> 
> 
> > amtrakmichigan said:
> ...


Trying to guess what tip income looks like is a bit tricky. I'll throw some assumptions against the wall and we'll see what sticks:

(1) For a Western train, I assume two days with three meals on each day. I assume that 16 tables are in use, and I assume that each table turns over twice during each meal. This would provide 32 tables per meal. I assume $20/table in tips per day. That gives:

$20/table*32 tables=$640/day*2 days on a one-way and four on a round-trip=$2560/trip to split. Assuming they do the trip twice per month, that's 24*$2560=$61,440 split between them. Assuming three OBS upstairs and that the kitchen gets nothing, that would be about $20k/person in tips.

(2) For an Eastern train, I assume one day of three meals, $20/table/day, and 10 tables in use. That comes to about $800 for a round-trip, but I also assume that they can do more round-trips per year. 40 round-trips is $32,000/yr to split between the team, which would probably come to about $10-15k depending on whether it's split two ways or three.

None of that is getting towards covering the gap I'd expect between salaries and $100k/yr.


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## The Davy Crockett (Oct 5, 2013)

From what I've seen in the dining cars Anderson's numbers are at the very high end of tips per table.


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## OBS (Oct 5, 2013)

The Davy Crockett said:


> From what I've seen in the dining cars Anderson's numbers are at the very high end of tips per table.


Agreed, and also most crews make sure the kitchen staff gets a portion, to insure good service from the kitchen...


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## Bob Dylan (Oct 5, 2013)

Edited: Never mind, when People can't see the Forrest for the Trees it's Hopeless!


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## Anderson (Oct 5, 2013)

OBS said:


> The Davy Crockett said:
> 
> 
> > From what I've seen in the dining cars Anderson's numbers are at the very high end of tips per table.
> ...


And my point is further illustrated. I was basically tossing together rough figures to see if the claims had any merit. It seems clear that a claim of $100k tips+salary doesn't hold water.


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## John Bobinyec (Oct 5, 2013)

Glide Path to Self Obscurity.

jb


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## Rule G (Oct 5, 2013)

The best way for Amtrak to make money with its food service cars is to sell them to private operators. I don't know how many diners Amtrak owns, but selling them for 500K to 1M each, would be a nice start.

Then Amtrak could charge the new owners the same rate that they charge the owners of other private cars to haul their new rolling restaurant between cities.

The new owners are now responsible for maintenance and inspections, as well as staffing stocking and securing the car.

Amtrak makes a couple grand per trip for simply moving the car, and someone else has to figure out how to make a profit with them.

When the new business fails, Amtrak could offer to buy back the cars...at a much reduced price.


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## JoeBas (Oct 5, 2013)

Sell perpetual money pits for $1M each? I think you're in violation of your screen name...


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## MiRider (Oct 5, 2013)

The Davy Crockett said:


> From what I've seen in the dining cars Anderson's numbers are at the very high end of tips per table.


Seriously.

I've seen very few people leave a decent tip and quite a few leave absolutely nothing.


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## Nathanael (Oct 5, 2013)

SarahZ said:


> I don't care about that one bit. I have nothing to hide.


People who think they have nothing to hide.... have something to hide. Always. Perhaps you don't have to hide your record of food purchases, but as I always tell people who say they have nothing to hide, if you have nothing to hide, how about publishing your credit card number, birthdate, social security number, home address, full legal name, etc. etc. etc.? Identity theft is an issue, for one thing.

If you haven't published all of that stuff in a public forum you have something to hide.


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## Nathanael (Oct 5, 2013)

battalion51 said:


> The challenge with doing any prix fixe menu is getting your menu engineered to where all meals are at a relatively similar price point. Granted its virtually impossible to get it exactly the same, but you want it to be relatively similar so that your yield is relatively even.


You can always price it to cover the most expensive meal, and anyone who orders a cheaper meal... well, you make more money. Given Amtrak's prices, the people eating in the diner are not terribly price-sensitive anyway, and the price variation isn't that high anyway. It must be viable; after all, sleeper passengers are already getting a prix fixe menu.


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## Nathanael (Oct 5, 2013)

rrdude said:


> The Davy Crockett said:
> 
> 
> > Ever notice the little 'fine print' on the front of all US bills? "THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE" What is amazing is that people can get away with not accepting cash. Amtrak has stated that using only electronic transactions will cut down on fraud. While true it will protect Amtrak from its own employees, it puts its customers who prefer to use cash at greater risk for fraud.
> ...


I know the legal tender rules.
If you pay after the meal is eaten, then you owe a "debt". If the price of the meal is set in dollars, it is a debt denominated in dollars. In that case, the merchant is *required* to accept cash -- that's what "legal tender" means. (Interestingly, they're not required to give *change*. If you owe $5 and you "legally tender" a $20 bill to them, they're required to accept it -- they're not required to give you any change.)

If you pay *before* getting your food, then it's not a "debt", and so the merchant is not required to accept cash. Got the picture? A merchant can, legally, go cashless if and *only* if the customers pay *before* receiving the goods.


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## SarahZ (Oct 5, 2013)

Nathanael said:


> SarahZ said:
> 
> 
> > I don't care about that one bit. I have nothing to hide.
> ...


I just meant I don't care if someone knows what I purchased on iTunes or what I buy at the grocery store. Of course I don't want people to have my credit card number, so I take steps to protect it.

By "nothing to hide" I meant that I've done nothing wrong and really don't care if the NSA or CIA or FBI know that I eat a Subway breakfast sandwich on Tuesdays and Thursdays and play World of Warcraft on the weekends. I haven't done anything illegal, so they can waste all the time they want spying on me.


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## gmcguire (Oct 5, 2013)

Nathanael said:


> rrdude said:
> 
> 
> > The Davy Crockett said:
> ...


I'm not sure this is true. According to the treasury department businesses can set their own policies for what they accept as payment. I don't see anything about paying in advance or after services are rendered.


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## Bob Dylan (Oct 5, 2013)

The Belief that US Currency Has To Be Accepted is an Urban Myth just like Big Foot, Visiting Aliens and Honest Politicians that just want to Serve!!


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## Bob Dylan (Oct 5, 2013)

SarahZ said:


> Nathanael said:
> 
> 
> > SarahZ said:
> ...


I hear you Sarah, but the thing is they aren't Supposed to do this by LAW! and were Spending Billions on the Huge Homeland Security Department! (and have Congressmen that want to Gut Amtrak over a few Million Dollars Expense in the Food Service Cars!) 

If you give Government an Inch they will take a Mile!! Just Say No to Domestic Snooping by ALL Agencies of Government AND Corporations!!


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## OBS (Oct 5, 2013)

Bus Nut said:


> But customers respond to brand names. For example, I'm more likely to order salad knowing they stock Newman's own, which is tasty, as opposed to Kraft, or, worse, some of the more common food service varietys (Hain's, etc), which taste disgusting to me. As for some of those other items where customers maybe don't perceive a difference you may find that Sysco's broadline isn't that much of a savings. Sysco carries different quality points of items and the good quality (good tasting) items are not inexpensive! Remember, to get Sysco they would probably have to contract with Sysco and presumably they have reasons for contracting with the suppliers that they use now. Sysco is by no means the cheapest.


I am pleased to announce we no longer carry chopped onions and dijon mustard as condiments in an effort to save money...


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## Bob Dylan (Oct 5, 2013)

OBS said:


> Bus Nut said:
> 
> 
> > But customers respond to brand names. For example, I'm more likely to order salad knowing they stock Newman's own, which is tasty, as opposed to Kraft, or, worse, some of the more common food service varietys (Hain's, etc), which taste disgusting to me. As for some of those other items where customers maybe don't perceive a difference you may find that Sysco's broadline isn't that much of a savings. Sysco carries different quality points of items and the good quality (good tasting) items are not inexpensive! Remember, to get Sysco they would probably have to contract with Sysco and presumably they have reasons for contracting with the suppliers that they use now. Sysco is by no means the cheapest.
> ...


Rep. Mica will be Thrilled!  Wonder if he'll Hold a Press Conference and Hearings to Announce the "Huge' Savings for the American People! I want my Chopped Onions and Dijon for the $5 Microwave Hot Dogs in the Cafe! Now Grey Pupon (sp??)and Diced Onions would be Another Story! :giggle:


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## Nathanael (Oct 5, 2013)

gmcguire said:


> I'm not sure this is true. According to the treasury department businesses can set their own policies for what they accept as payment. I don't see anything about paying in advance or after services are rendered.


Well, I'm quite sure it's true, because I've actually done the legal research. The Treasury Department doesn't like to explain the legal tender laws to people, for some reason.

Now, there are all kinds of weird caveats -- did you notice that I said "denominated in dollars", for instance? You can run a store where you demand payment only in Canadian dollars, or only in ounces of gold, or something equally bizarre. So the situation where legal tender laws apply is really very specific. But it does apply to restaurants where the menu lists prices in US dollars; you pay nothing in advance; and then you eat. At that point you, legally speaking, *owe a debt denominated in dollars to the restaurant*. If at that point you offer Federal Reserve Notes of the correct amount or more, that is a "legal tender".

If the restaurant refuses the legal tender, *then you do not have to pay anything at all and the debt has been wiped out*. This is very old black-letter law. There's a fun short story from the 1920s about it, called, uh, "Legal Tender", written by a lawyer, Arthur Train. Back in the '20s, Federal Reserve Notes *weren't* legal tender, which forms the gimmick for the story, actually. Reading the story is what caused me to be curious enough to actually do the law review research.


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## jis (Oct 6, 2013)

That is perhaps the reason that in cashless airlines cabins you always get to pay first and then partake whatever it is that you paid for. So you run up any debts only with the credit or debit card company and not with the airline - technically speaking. Then that debt gets settled in the native currency of the credit or debit card.

If Amtrak truly wants to go cashless, it could do the same. You pay in the Diner when the order is taken, before the food is delivered. Not suggesting that would be a good things. Just saying that there are ways to make it fully legal.


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## dlagrua (Oct 6, 2013)

I've read suggestions here that to save money the diner car should privatize, that the help should be paid less and that somehow computerized ordering is going to solve the problem of losses.

There are undoubtedly some small things that can help cut losses in the dining car but can anyone believe that a railroad dining car can be made profitable? Private companies don't want the dining car. If help can be hired for less then will anyone work a job for a low salary that keeps them away from home a few days a week? Can computerized ordering provide more than a 10% savings? In the history of passenger rail a dining car has always lost money. Even if Amtrak sold microwave TV dinner style meals in a café car that people will bring back to their rooms or seats they would still lose money. Having meals all over the train is bound to increase cleanup and sanitation costs. Will travelers accept eating TV dinners for three days on a coast to coast trip or will they bail? I wouldn't do it.


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## Railroad Bill (Oct 6, 2013)

dlagrua said:


> I've read suggestions here that to save money the diner car should privatize, that the help should be paid less and that somehow computerized ordering is going to solve the problem of losses.
> 
> There are undoubtedly some small things that can help cut losses in the dining car but can anyone believe that a railroad dining car can be made profitable? Private companies don't want the dining car. If help can be hired for less then will anyone work a job for a low salary that keeps them away from home a few days a week? Can computerized ordering provide more than a 10% savings? In the history of passenger rail a dining car has always lost money. Even if Amtrak sold microwave TV dinner style meals in a café car that people will bring back to their rooms or seats they would still lose money. Having meals all over the train is bound to increase cleanup and sanitation costs. Will travelers accept eating TV dinners for three days on a coast to coast trip or will they bail? I wouldn't do it.


Me either! The dining car experience is one of the highlights of riding Amtrak and I hope they are able to continue with good meals. Perhaps a few less choices for entrees would be o.k. And it seems like 75% of the people eat Angus Burgers for lunch. And why have scrambled eggs and omelets? Not sure if any of that would save money, but would be worth looking into.


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## Nathanael (Oct 6, 2013)

jis said:


> That is perhaps the reason that in cashless airlines cabins you always get to pay first and then partake whatever it is that you paid for. So you run up any debts only with the credit or debit card company and not with the airline - technically speaking. Then that debt gets settled in the native currency of the credit or debit card.
> 
> If Amtrak truly wants to go cashless, it could do the same. You pay in the Diner when the order is taken, before the food is delivered. Not suggesting that would be a good things. Just saying that there are ways to make it fully legal.


Yep. This is all correct according to my research.


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## Guest (Oct 6, 2013)

dlagrua said:


> I've read suggestions here that to save money the diner car should privatize, that the help should be paid less and that somehow computerized ordering is going to solve the problem of losses.
> 
> There are undoubtedly some small things that can help cut losses in the dining car but can anyone believe that a railroad dining car can be made profitable?


Oh, probably not. You still need diners for really long train runs, period.



> Private companies don't want the dining car. If help can be hired for less then will anyone work a job for a low salary that keeps them away from home a few days a week? Can computerized ordering provide more than a 10% savings?


Well, actually, maybe it can. The dining car staff spends a truly unreasonable amount of time on paperwork (both bills and inventory), just as the conductors spent an unreasonable amount of time on paperwork prior to "e-ticketing". If those hours can be spent serving customers instead, then for the same worker pay, Amtrak could generate quite significantly more revenue. Advance ordering could make sure that people get what they want (rather than running out) and that could improve customer satisfaction and thereby improve revenue as well -- and it could also reduce spoilage and wasted inventory at the same time.
All told, I could imagine very significant improvements in the diner "bottom line" if the dining car staff spent all their time (except for their breaks) serving customers, rather than closing the dining car more than half the day in order to do paperwork and inventory. I don't know whether that would be enough to break even, but it might be enough that the cafe car profits would cancel it out.


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## Golden grrl (Oct 6, 2013)

One of the problems with advance ordering is - what meals will a specific passenger eat on a multi-day long distance train that is significantly late? On my EB last week, #8(2) arrived in MSP at 11:25 am - darn close to lunch time. But it was scheduled to arrive at 7:05 am, which sounds like breakfast. So which meal would the passenger pre-order? Would the pre-ordered breakfast still be served to the passenger around noon, or would it be wasted?


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## Larry H. (Oct 6, 2013)

I have scanned most of this topic. I am sad to say I see little if any thing about the reason diners are on board. Feeding people meals and making it part of a great experience amtrak seems to try to sell. Since we know from all the comments and past experience that diners even well run in the day never produced profits then the real question is why its being pushed on the traveling public in the first place. Yes I know Congress is the problem, no change there. And of course nothing will change on that end. But its pretty sad to see amtrak constantly trying to juggle unrealistic cost structures by basically downgrading the rail experience.

I do think that if Applebees can turn out a fine meal using mostly pre made meals and using somewhat inexperienced workers to accomplish it, then an operation of that quality might be able to run a dinning system better than the current one is run.. But as long as amtrak is charging thousands of dollars for sleepers I think that making the food hostage to the demands of people in politics who haven't a clue is a sad day..

Larry


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## amamba (Oct 6, 2013)

All I have to add is that like Sarah, I rarely have cash. My guess is that she and I are of similar ages. We are used to being cashless and would welcome a cashless train.

I would even love something like they do on the cruises, where you get a card/account on your trip. Your gratuities get added to the account just like anything that you purchase while on board.

Today my H and I wanted to take this adorable little three car ferry across the Connecticut River. We were like ohhhhhhhh we need cash for that. Hrmm. Then we had to find an ATM, etc etc.


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## yarrow (Oct 6, 2013)

Larry H. said:


> I have scanned most of this topic. I am sad to say I see little if any thing about the reason diners are on board. Feeding people meals and making it part of a great experience amtrak seems to try to sell. Since we know from all the comments and past experience that diners even well run in the day never produced profits then the real question is why its being pushed on the traveling public in the first place. Yes I know Congress is the problem, no change there. And of course nothing will change on that end. But its pretty sad to see amtrak constantly trying to juggle unrealistic cost structures by basically downgrading the rail experience.
> 
> I do think that if Applebees can turn out a fine meal using mostly pre made meals and using somewhat inexperienced workers to accomplish it, then an operation of that quality might be able to run a dinning system better than the current one is run.. But as long as amtrak is charging thousands of dollars for sleepers I think that making the food hostage to the demands of people in politics who haven't a clue is a sad day..
> 
> Larry


nicely put, larry


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## EB_OBS (Oct 6, 2013)

Guest said:


> All told, I could imagine very significant improvements in the diner "bottom line" if the dining car staff spent all their time (except for their breaks) serving customers, rather than closing the dining car more than half the day in order to do paperwork and inventory. I don't know whether that would be enough to break even, but it might be enough that the cafe car profits would cancel it out.


The dining car is not closed half the day. On most LD trains the hours of service are as follows;

breakfast - 6:30am - 10:00am

lunch - 11:30am-3:00pm

dinner - 5:00pm - 9:30pm

So that's open for 11.5 hours during the day and closed for cleanup, setup and breaks only 3.5 hours.


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## OlympianHiawatha (Oct 6, 2013)

Let us hope _*Amtrak *_does not venture down the same path the _*Espee*_ and _*Santa Fe*_ did with the Automatic Buffet Cars or the _*New York Central*_ did with the Meal-A-Mat cars. These were cost saving attempts made in the 1960s that replaced staffed Diners with Vending Machines and many believe they actually were an attempt to drive passengers away from a particular route so the railroad could petition to close it out.

Admittedly pre cooked ready-to-reheat meals today have gotten a lot better but when I'm on the train I want the personal touch of being able to sit down at a table and be properly served. Even in the Cafe where the food is offered 7-11 style, at least the Attendant is there to give it some hands on attention.


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## Bob Dylan (Oct 6, 2013)

EB_OBS said:


> Guest said:
> 
> 
> > All told, I could imagine very significant improvements in the diner "bottom line" if the dining car staff spent all their time (except for their breaks) serving customers, rather than closing the dining car more than half the day in order to do paperwork and inventory. I don't know whether that would be enough to break even, but it might be enough that the cafe car profits would cancel it out.
> ...


Ya'll are Hard Workers and Worth Every Penny! Thanks for making LD Travel a Great Way to Travel! :hi:


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## Gratt (Oct 6, 2013)

OlympianHiawatha said:


> Let us hope _*Amtrak *_does not venture down the same path the _*Espee*_ and _*Santa Fe*_ did with the Automatic Buffet Cars or the _*New York Central*_ did with the Meal-A-Mat cars. These were cost saving attempts made in the 1960s that replaced staffed Diners with Vending Machines and many believe they actually were an attempt to drive passengers away from a particular route so the railroad could petition to close it out.
> 
> Admittedly pre cooked ready-to-reheat meals today have gotten a lot better but when I'm on the train I want the personal touch of being able to sit down at a table and be properly served. Even in the Cafe where the food is offered 7-11 style, at least the Attendant is there to give it some hands on attention.


I honestly do not think vending machines would be a bad idea depending on where they go. I dont think vending machines could replace diners, that would be a mistake. But, if they replaced the snack bar on the lower level of the lounge car with a set of high end vending machines I would not mind.


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## SarahZ (Oct 6, 2013)

I can't remember who suggested to cease including the cost of meals in a sleeper ticket, but I, along with many others, would probably stop paying for a sleeper if meals were no longer included. Amtrak would be shooting themselves in the foot if they did this.


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## amamba (Oct 6, 2013)

SarahZ said:


> I can't remember who suggested to cease including the cost of meals in a sleeper ticket, but I, along with many others, would probably stop paying for a sleeper if meals were no longer included. Amtrak would be shooting themselves in the foot if they did this.


I would probably continue to pay for the sleeper, but I would take more advantage of getting food from the cafe and bringing my own snacks.

And if the dining cars were no longer getting the revenue from the sleeper pax, that is a hit for the diner.


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## Bob Dylan (Oct 6, 2013)

As a Veteran of the SP "Automat" Trains I'm Not in Favor of Vending machines, you would still have to have an Attendant (they expected Tips for making Change in the Old Days, sort of like Tip Jars @ the Register in Self Serve Joints!!  :angry: )Even during the "Golden Days" of Rail Travel when Everyone Paid for their Food and Drink in the Diners and Cafe/Lounges, the RRS Lost Money on Food and Drink Service!

If the Right Catering Company could be Found to run the Cafe/Lounges on Amtrak Trains, I could see that that might Improve what was served as Well as Save Money for Amtrak!!! (I'm not saying the LSA should Lose their Jobs, they could Move to the Diners or Sleeping Cars but the Inventory/Commissary Hassle wouldn't be on Amtrak Anymore!)


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## Ispolkom (Oct 6, 2013)

jis said:


> That is perhaps the reason that in cashless airlines cabins you always get to pay first and then partake whatever it is that you paid for. So you run up any debts only with the credit or debit card company and not with the airline - technically speaking. Then that debt gets settled in the native currency of the credit or debit card.
> 
> If Amtrak truly wants to go cashless, it could do the same. You pay in the Diner when the order is taken, before the food is delivered. Not suggesting that would be a good things. Just saying that there are ways to make it fully- legal.


I know that I don't fly anywhere near as often as you do, but in my experience with cashless flights (American and Southwest, mostly) I rarely pay the flight attendant before I get my drink. Occasionally I don't end up paying at all, which is why I notice this. Mileage may vary, of course. I remember with fondness a United trip from Minneapolis to Halifax. The flight from Minneapolis to Chicago was cashless, while the flight from Chicago to Halifax was cash only (though they accepted either currency).

I like the dining car, but I agree with *Amamba*. I'd take a sleeper even if meals weren't included, since for me the key aspect of sleeper travel is privacy. My most common route (St. Paul - Minot) includes only breakfast, and back when the train was less crowded and I traveled in coach I'd often just pack a couple of granola bars and buy coffee in the Sightseer Lounge rather than pay for breakfast. Longer trips would take a trifle more ingenuity, but I've traveled for two nights in a sleeper without a dining car (Moscow-Brussels).

I'm curious, what could you buy from the Espee Automats? Was it just potato chips, candy bars and those horrible cheese crackers with peanut butter? Or were the more choices?: Nasty dried-out sandwiches?


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## SarahZ (Oct 6, 2013)

I suppose, for me, it would depend on the cost of the sleeper. Our main reasons are privacy/quiet and a real bed, but we like that the meals cushion the blow of paying for one. When they're low-bucket, it's not so bad, but the higher the bucket goes, the more I'd have to weigh privacy against our budget (especially since we'd have to tack on the cost of food from the cafe/groceries in addition to the room).


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## OlympianHiawatha (Oct 6, 2013)

Here is a sample_* Southern Pacific*_ Automatic Buffet Car Menu currently up on eBay. The offerings borderline on being nasty, especially if this was the only option on a long haul:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/railroad-menu-Southern-Pacific-1970-Automatic-Buffet-Cart-Whiskeys-1-00-/370911615904?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item565c0e1ba0


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## Bob Dylan (Oct 7, 2013)

OlympianHiawatha said:


> Here is a sample_* Southern Pacific*_ Automatic Buffet Car Menu currently up on eBay. The offerings borderline on being nasty, especially if this was the only option on a long haul:
> 
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/railroad-menu-Southern-Pacific-1970-Automatic-Buffet-Cart-Whiskeys-1-00-/370911615904?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item565c0e1ba0


Thanks for Posting, I was looking for something like this! The Prices might Seem Low Compared to Today but I Assure You This Was Pricey in 1960s Dollars and it Tasted Bad and was of Very Poor Quality compared to what used to be Available in the Diner and the Lounge/Cafeteria Cars! Even in the old Candy Butcher Days they Better stuff than this Swill!!


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## OlympianHiawatha (Oct 7, 2013)

And after seeing Prunes in Syrup I think I'll take the bus


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## SarahZ (Oct 7, 2013)

OlympianHiawatha said:


> Here is a sample_* Southern Pacific*_ Automatic Buffet Car Menu currently up on eBay. The offerings borderline on being nasty, especially if this was the only option on a long haul:
> 
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/railroad-menu-Southern-Pacific-1970-Automatic-Buffet-Cart-Whiskeys-1-00-/370911615904?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item565c0e1ba0


Sanka!  I haven't seen that in _ages_. My grandmother used to drink Sanka in the morning and tea in the evening.


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## The Davy Crockett (Oct 7, 2013)

jimhudson said:


> EB_OBS said:
> 
> 
> > Guest said:
> ...


I second this! I look forward to the whole 'dining car experience' before every LD trip I take- THANKS to y'all! :hi:


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## jphjaxfl (Oct 7, 2013)

OlympianHiawatha said:


> Here is a sample_* Southern Pacific*_ Automatic Buffet Car Menu currently up on eBay. The offerings borderline on being nasty, especially if this was the only option on a long haul:
> 
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/railroad-menu-Southern-Pacific-1970-Automatic-Buffet-Cart-Whiskeys-1-00-/370911615904?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item565c0e1ba0


I remember the Espee Automatic Buffet Car on the Coast Daylight. The train had a beautiful tear drop Parlor Car where I had seat in the tear drop end, a beautiful Dome Lounge car where you could get beverages and snacks, but for food the only option was the Automat. Many negative comments in the Parlor Car. A year later, Amtrak had restored full dining service on the route on the Coast Starlite. No Parlor car, but at least you could get a decent meal to accompany the beautiful scenery.


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## Jason McHuff (Oct 7, 2013)

Regarding cashless diners, it shouldn't be that hard to either do pre-payment in the cafe, or offer gift cards where the balance can be refunded from a ticket agent after the trip.

Also, if it wouldn't cost that much to stock different meals in the commissaries, offering a greater variety of selections for those willing to pre-order would be an interesting idea.

In addition, if trains could ever be guarenteed to be roughly on-time, would it be cheaper to eliminate dorm space for the crew by having them detrain at the end of the day (or sfift) for land-based lodging, then work the other direction?


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## Anderson (Oct 7, 2013)

I'm not convinced that an automat-type car _couldn't_ be done well. It might be impossible, but it seems possible that something could be done on that front...particularly if you used it as an augmentation to a cafe on a particularly long corridor train. For a quick example, I could see one having a place in the context of a 12-or-more-car Regional, since at that point you're facing three bad options: Add a second cafe (expensive), make BC passengers walk about 5 cars for their drinks (inconvenient), or start looking at 7-8 car walks for folks at the wrong end of the train. Both of the latter options also run the risk of an overwhelmed cafe.

I'd also point out two things: First, food (and vending) technology is a lot better now than it was in the 1950s/60s. Second, and possibly more importantly on the automat point, is that SP was specifically trying to wreck its passenger business and so likely gave them lousy food on purpose.


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## cirdan (Oct 7, 2013)

Guest said:


> Well, actually, maybe it can. The dining car staff spends a truly unreasonable amount of time on paperwork (both bills and inventory), just as the conductors spent an unreasonable amount of time on paperwork prior to "e-ticketing". If those hours can be spent serving customers instead, then for the same worker pay, Amtrak could generate quite significantly more revenue. Advance ordering could make sure that people get what they want (rather than running out) and that could improve customer satisfaction and thereby improve revenue as well -- and it could also reduce spoilage and wasted inventory at the same time.


Maybe not.

People do tend to want to eat at mealtimes. That's why they're called mealtimes. Keeping the dining car open from morning till night will not necessarily generate more revenue. If people want a snack or a drink in between, that's what the cafeteria car is for. Although there may be some potential in looking into joining these two functions into one.

I agree that the paperwork think isn't appropriate in the modern day and age where this could easily be automated. But the business case for making the change only really adds up if the staff can be employed elsewhere outside mealtimes. The risk is just that they will enjoy having less work without actually decreasing costs or creating additional revenue. And in that case the step isn't really worth it. On long-haul airlines, cabin staff will sell duty free items outside meal times, and so create a positive revenue stream for the airline. Is there a train equivelent for that? A casino maybe? I doubt that would work.


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## Anderson (Oct 7, 2013)

Jason McHuff said:


> Regarding cashless diners, it shouldn't be that hard to either do pre-payment in the cafe, or offer gift cards where the balance can be refunded from a ticket agent after the trip.
> 
> Also, if it wouldn't cost that much to stock different meals in the commissaries, offering a greater variety of selections for those willing to pre-order would be an interesting idea.
> 
> In addition, if trains could ever be guarenteed to be roughly on-time, would it be cheaper to eliminate dorm space for the crew by having them detrain at the end of the day (or sfift) for land-based lodging, then work the other direction?


The issue with the last point is that trains don't always have "days" that end at the same point. A good example here would be the Silver Meteor: Breakfast isn't going to start before Washington most days (arguing for a Richmond crew to allow for setup time), but dinner often runs right up to Richmond due to boardings in DC, arguing for putting the crew turn at Rocky Mount. The LSL is another example here: WB, you've got food service times that could argue for the crew disembarking at (or at least by) Buffalo, and the next one boarding at Cleveland or Toledo. EB, there's no real need for a crew until Cleveland...so what do you do there?

Moreover, schedules aren't static and occasionally go way off to one side (witness the Star over the next month), so to tinker with a schedule you'd have to move crews around.


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## yarrow (Oct 7, 2013)

Anderson said:


> Second, and possibly more importantly on the automat point, is that SP was specifically trying to wreck its passenger business and so likely gave them lousy food on purpose.


well, there are those who would like to wreck amtrak's long distance passenger service both in congress and, i for one, am not too sanguine about smilin' joe's motives


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## jphjaxfl (Oct 7, 2013)

I met an older gentleman years back who had retired from Espee as the head freight and passenger agent in a major city. Management would advise him to discourage passengers from buying passenger train tickets especially expensive Pullman Tickets. If they sold too many passenger train tickets, they were reprimanded. In a way Amtrak is doing the same thing by limiting Sleeping Car capacity and buying very little new equipment. Spartan dining service will kill the sleeping car business for anything except overnight.


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## Ryan (Oct 7, 2013)

How does Amtrak "limit sleeping car capacity"?

I'm not sure that it's a fair comparison. Amtrak can't buy cars with money they don't have. If they were given the funding and the commitment from Congress to support LD train service, they'd be all over it.


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## The Davy Crockett (Oct 7, 2013)

Eureka! Why didn't anyone think of this sooner? Use ebay to auction off overnight lounge car space to the highest bidding lounge lizards! :giggle:


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## AmtrakBlue (Oct 7, 2013)

The Davy Crockett said:


> Eureka! Why didn't anyone think of this sooner? Use ebay to auction off overnight lounge car space to the highest bidding lounge lizards! :giggle:


I better not find you snoozing in the SSL on #30. h34r:


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## The Davy Crockett (Oct 7, 2013)

AmtrakBlue said:


> The Davy Crockett said:
> 
> 
> > Eureka! Why didn't anyone think of this sooner? Use ebay to auction off overnight lounge car space to the highest bidding lounge lizards! :giggle:
> ...


Maybe some boozing - but no snoozing!


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## afigg (Oct 7, 2013)

yarrow said:


> well, there are those who would like to wreck amtrak's long distance passenger service both in congress and, i for one, am not too sanguine about smilin' joe's motives


What damage or cutbacks to the LD trains has Boardman done during his tenure? His claim that with investments in IT and better management that Amtrak could eliminate losses from F&B sales in 5 years is clearly aimed at blocking defunding moves in Congress and protecting the LD trains. Odds are that Boardman won't be Amtrak President in 5 years, so the end of the 5 year period will fall on his successor. Who could blame Boardman for being too optimistic if Mica is still in a position to make trouble for Amtrak on F&B losses.
In 5 years, if the cafe cars on the busier corridor services are returning a solid surplus, the cafe and food services on the medium range and lower frequency corridor services are generally running at break-even or a small surplus (not counting state subsidies), and the diners on the LD trains still lose money but the losses have been greatly reduced, that will effectively block off a major avenue of attack on Amtrak funding. Easy for the politicians and press to take cheap shots at Amtrak on food service by holding up a burger and shouting how the taxpayer funded Amtrak loses so many dollars for every burger sold.

According to last week's news release, in inflation adjusted dollars, Amtrak lost $105 million on F&B sales in FY2006 and projects to lose $74 million in FY2013. If in 5 years, the total F&B loss is, to pick a number, down to $25 million, while the total ticket revenue is $2.5 billion, then the F&B losses would be 1% of ticket revenue. Small enough that it should be easy to brush off attacks on F&B sale losses.


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## jphjaxfl (Oct 7, 2013)

Ryan said:


> How does Amtrak "limit sleeping car capacity"?
> 
> I'm not sure that it's a fair comparison. Amtrak can't buy cars with money they don't have. If they were given the funding and the commitment from Congress to support LD train service, they'd be all over it.


Compare the amount of sleeping car space available on Amtrak trains in 2013 with early 1990s and early 1970s. Yes, not enough new sleeping cars have been built to handle perceived demand. It may not be just Amtrak cutting capacity.... It's a combination of Amtrak management, Congress and even passengers not communicating with Congress asking for more service. I contact my Senators and Representative s every year, but it doesn't help because there is no strong lobby for passenger trains.


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## Anderson (Oct 7, 2013)

afigg said:


> yarrow said:
> 
> 
> > well, there are those who would like to wreck amtrak's long distance passenger service both in congress and, i for one, am not too sanguine about smilin' joe's motives
> ...


Moreover, in such a situation, let's take FY13's operating support requirement as $350m. Remove $50m in F&B losses and $80-100m in PRIIA 209 loss reductions (I assume that the capital charges will bring in a bit more in the medium term, though I also suspect that number will slide a bit as the multi-state bilevels come on line), and your annual operating losses are already in the $200-220m range. Add in the Viewliner IIs, which should help margins on the eastern LD trains at least somewhat, continued improvement on the NEC (both with freed-up cars from the Midwest and just the steady march of ticket sales), and hopefully some impending capacity bumps on the Acela front, and there's a good chance that Amtrak is either at or close to $0 in nominal operating losses.


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## VentureForth (Oct 7, 2013)

A major problem is that they run out of food. If you're losing money and you run out of food, you've maxed out your revenue stream and cannot improve. There should NEVER be an excuse not to feed every single person in the diner who wants to eat there - especially paying coach passengers - and they should never run out of food in the Cafe car.

As for the diner, I think that the POS should improve this problem dramatically. Let people stay as long as they want to finish their meal. Most folks are reasonable. The problem comes when folks are sitting at the table still for 10, 15, 20 minutes after all consumption is complete and they are waiting for paperwork processing to complete. "Come at your will" vs seating times would help, too, as this would prevent all the stages of a meal happening at the exact same time.



jphjaxfl said:


> Ryan said:
> 
> 
> > How does Amtrak "limit sleeping car capacity"?
> ...


I dunno - but the sleepers are not ALWAYS selling out. They are hitting 100% capacity frequently, but I wonder if more sleeping cars would really make a huge dent in revenue. I would actually have to research the actual occupancy rate. Would it be worth hauling an additional sleeper for 30 nights per year if it goes empty for the other 330 days? What's the breaking point?


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## Anderson (Oct 7, 2013)

On reservations, there are obviously a couple of options. I think doing reservations for sleeper passengers and come-at-will/wait listing for coach passengers would probably work best. The risk you run into without reservations is folks facing a 30-60 minute wait list at every meal, which is also a bad thing. Unreserved breakfast times can lead to a bit of a scramble-to-the-diner-early phenomenon (which, if I'm having a spot of trouble sleeping that night, usually means I'm getting up, going to breakfast, and crashing again).

I think it's fair for them to run out of some items, but when they're out of almost everything on a regular basis (i.e. not just on the day before Thanksgiving when the train is beyond capacity even with extra cars)? That's an issue.


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## Anderson (Oct 7, 2013)

VentureForth said:


> A major problem is that they run out of food. If you're losing money and you run out of food, you've maxed out your revenue stream and cannot improve. There should NEVER be an excuse not to feed every single person in the diner who wants to eat there - especially paying coach passengers - and they should never run out of food in the Cafe car.
> 
> As for the diner, I think that the POS should improve this problem dramatically. Let people stay as long as they want to finish their meal. Most folks are reasonable. The problem comes when folks are sitting at the table still for 10, 15, 20 minutes after all consumption is complete and they are waiting for paperwork processing to complete. "Come at your will" vs seating times would help, too, as this would prevent all the stages of a meal happening at the exact same time.
> 
> ...


It's not just "are they selling out" that you have to look at. Remember, there are five buckets for each type of accomodation. Some routes could probably move another full sleeper at one of the lower buckets but not at the high ones. In other cases (the Silvers come to mind, as does the LSL), you have enough traffic that you could probably add another sleeper and sell it out a fair share of the time at one of the higher buckets.

One thing to consider in this vein is that if Amtrak could sell the whole of coach at high bucket on some routes, you'd probably eradicate direct losses and then some. However, that sort of jump in PPR seems highly unlikely to play out well with the riding public.


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## afigg (Oct 7, 2013)

Anderson said:


> Moreover, in such a situation, let's take FY13's operating support requirement as $350m. Remove $50m in F&B losses and $80-100m in PRIIA 209 loss reductions (I assume that the capital charges will bring in a bit more in the medium term, though I also suspect that number will slide a bit as the multi-state bilevels come on line), and your annual operating losses are already in the $200-220m range. Add in the Viewliner IIs, which should help margins on the eastern LD trains at least somewhat, continued improvement on the NEC (both with freed-up cars from the Midwest and just the steady march of ticket sales), and hopefully some impending capacity bumps on the Acela front, and there's a good chance that Amtrak is either at or close to $0 in nominal operating losses.


Don't get too carried away talking about approaching break-even overall in nominal operating losses. The surplus generated by the NE Regionals will have to cover the payments for the ACS-64s. Unless Congress provides a lot of funding to buy Acela IIs, the surplus from increased Acela revenues will end up going to pay for part or all of the Acela II costs. There are also significant outstanding capital needs such as single level corridor cars and any number of NEC projects. Congress may provide some funds for rolling stock purchases once we get past the austerity gridlock phase, but not enough to pay for all of what Amtrak needs to purchase over the next 10 years.
Since costs don't remain static either, Amtrak is not likely about to reach a nominal 100% cost recovery so long as it runs LD trains. But if Amtrak can reduce F&B losses and other losses to get the annual operating subsidy down to the $200 to $300 million range, that gets it down low enough so it is a very small part of the total discretionary budget and thus less of a target.


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## yarrow (Oct 7, 2013)

afigg said:


> Anderson said:
> 
> 
> > Moreover, in such a situation, let's take FY13's operating support requirement as $350m. Remove $50m in F&B losses and $80-100m in PRIIA 209 loss reductions (I assume that the capital charges will bring in a bit more in the medium term, though I also suspect that number will slide a bit as the multi-state bilevels come on line), and your annual operating losses are already in the $200-220m range. Add in the Viewliner IIs, which should help margins on the eastern LD trains at least somewhat, continued improvement on the NEC (both with freed-up cars from the Midwest and just the steady march of ticket sales), and hopefully some impending capacity bumps on the Acela front, and there's a good chance that Amtrak is either at or close to $0 in nominal operating losses.
> ...


you guys actually seem to know something about the topic whereas i just opine. i hope you are right


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## AlanB (Oct 7, 2013)

VentureForth said:


> "Come at your will" vs seating times would help, too, as this would prevent all the stages of a meal happening at the exact same time.


If you wish to see the dining cars reduce losses, then "Come at your will" seating is a non-starter. As I showed several years ago in my analysis of the bad SDS program, the only way to maximize revenue is to fill the diner to capacity. Come at your will seating doesn't accomplish that and will leave revenue behind. Those tables need to be maximized to capacity in 3 seating's to achieve maximum revenue. Neither SDS nor Come at will can achieve that and it will only hurt attempts to cover costs.


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## Anderson (Oct 8, 2013)

There are a couple of things that could help with nudging the diners to maximum performance.

-One thought would be to, for major stations being hit during or immediately before mealtimes (WAS on the NB Meteor, RVR on the Star both ways, ALB on the WB LSL, DEN on the Zephyr, etc.), to facilitate promoting mealtimes at the stations. This will be easier at any stations that end up with a lounge of some sort, but promoting it in general wouldn't be a bad idea. A follow-on to this would be to promote mealtimes in WAS and CHI in the waiting areas or, as discussed, to make some options available online for that and a few other trains for meals served shortly after departure.

-Promote carry-out orders and/or the placement of meal orders via the cafe car. I will at least speak for myself: As much as I enjoy the conversations I've had in diners over the years (I have made some friends there, met truly fascinating people...I really need to put my mealtime stories up somewhere), I also recognize that for a lot of folks the key is having a "proper" hot meal, and that if they're served the food in the cafe car or are allowed to take it back to their seat, that would be acceptable as well. Especially if you go to a POS system that could transmit orders between neighboring cars, it wouldn't be hard to slap a diner menu up in the cafe alongside the existing menus and put orders in during mealtimes.

--The main question is one of kitchen capacity vs. seating capacity (I'm setting aside on-board storage issues for now). I suspect you can probably get more out of the kitchen than you can out of the seats in the diner...part of this is suboptimal seat use that likely can't be smoothly rectified (witness some of the Heritage diners only having 32-ish seats used, for example), part of it is the fact that with certain patterns of seating scheduling the kitchen will end up with a pulse of orders and then downtime, part the fact that even with community seating you can't always utilize all the seats optimally, part people not eating at the "right" pace...you get the idea.


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## cirdan (Oct 8, 2013)

VentureForth said:


> I dunno - but the sleepers are not ALWAYS selling out. They are hitting 100% capacity frequently, but I wonder if more sleeping cars would really make a huge dent in revenue. I would actually have to research the actual occupancy rate. Would it be worth hauling an additional sleeper for 30 nights per year if it goes empty for the other 330 days? What's the breaking point?


 Many trains are already being varied sesonally to match different demand levels. Adding a sleeper on days that you can easily sell most of its capacity isn't the same as adding it all year round and just moving cold air from one end of the country to the other. Maintenance can be organized seasonally around demand patterns. If you do that properly you can actually provide more capacity with fewer cars.


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## The Davy Crockett (Oct 8, 2013)

VentureForth said:


> A major problem is that they run out of food. If you're losing money and you run out of food, you've maxed out your revenue stream and cannot improve. There should NEVER be an excuse not to feed every single person in the diner who wants to eat there - especially paying coach passengers - and they should never run out of food in the Cafe car.


The problem here is spoilage. If you throw food away its a complete loss. So how much do you stock? Enough to serve an additional meal if the train is running seriously late? Yes, one can stock based on ticket sales, but even if there were the same number of passengers on every run, and every run ran on time, some runs would sell more food than others, and different foods would sell on different runs. Its a balancing act.


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## Anderson (Oct 8, 2013)

The Davy Crockett said:


> VentureForth said:
> 
> 
> > A major problem is that they run out of food. If you're losing money and you run out of food, you've maxed out your revenue stream and cannot improve. There should NEVER be an excuse not to feed every single person in the diner who wants to eat there - especially paying coach passengers - and they should never run out of food in the Cafe car.
> ...


True, though there are more complexities than that. I'm not sure how long food can keep, but for a quick example I'm pretty sure that the Western trains restock at each end of the trip. With every train but the Zephyr, it would likely be feasible to stock an extra meals' worth of food druring "problem seasons" (let's face it, there are times when Amtrak ought to know that one or two trains are screwed up six ways from Sunday because of track work or lousy weather) and simply adjust what is picked up at the "other end" of the trip accordingly. I'm not sure how the supply chain works and I know everything is always more complicated than it seems on paper, but I would think there'd be some tinkering with those chains that would be feasible.

Edit: With cafes in some cases, I'd argue that the issue is "not even trying". For a quick example, the Adirondack has been salad-free far north of Albany more times than I can count. With some data mining, Amtrak ought to be able to figure out based on sales a day or two out, within at least some margin, how much food will be needed for a round trip on routes like that and adjust the supplies provided at the relevant commissary accordingly.


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## Nathanael (Oct 8, 2013)

The Davy Crockett said:


> VentureForth said:
> 
> 
> > A major problem is that they run out of food. If you're losing money and you run out of food, you've maxed out your revenue stream and cannot improve. There should NEVER be an excuse not to feed every single person in the diner who wants to eat there - especially paying coach passengers - and they should never run out of food in the Cafe car.
> ...


Hence the "order before the trip" idea. Not everyone would want to do so, but enough people would do so to make it much easier to predict usage.


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## Nathanael (Oct 8, 2013)

EB_OBS said:


> Guest said:
> 
> 
> > All told, I could imagine very significant improvements in the diner "bottom line" if the dining car staff spent all their time (except for their breaks) serving customers, rather than closing the dining car more than half the day in order to do paperwork and inventory. I don't know whether that would be enough to break even, but it might be enough that the cafe car profits would cancel it out.
> ...


Not actually the way it works. Sorry -- have you *been* on many LD trains? The number of seatings for lunch and dinner is usually significantly fewer than it would be if the diner were *actually* open that long on all the trains. With the exception of some eager-beaver crews, as I have noted before, who do an excellent job. Breakfast really does seem to run from 6:30-10:00 on most trains, though, that's true.
3.5 hours of closure is actually egregiously large in any case, given that mandated breaks amount to less than 2 hours, and "cleanup/setup" is already done on an ongoing basis during meals. An awful lot of that 3.5 hours must be paperwork.


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## Nathanael (Oct 8, 2013)

Ispolkom said:


> I know that I don't fly anywhere near as often as you do, but in my experience with cashless flights (American and Southwest, mostly) I rarely pay the flight attendant before I get my drink. Occasionally I don't end up paying at all, which is why I notice this.


Well, that will simplify the money handling, won't it! Back to the era of free meals. ;-)


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## rrdude (Oct 8, 2013)

Lots of good ideas here, and I'm quite confident that the operations and budget staff at Amtrak have considered some, if not most of them. So why no major breakthroughs?

Amtrak is "hamstrung" with a number of challenges that land-based restaurants typically are not, and airlines never had to contend with.

*Work rules and union rules trump almost every "good idea" here, that relate to outsourcing any aspect of this. *

The union(s) are fiercely opposed, and will fight to the Nth degree any change that would bring in Aramark, Sodexho-Marriott, Compass Group, Delaware North, etc., etc. _*onboard*_ the trains.

It took _forever_ for Amtrak to outsource the commissary functions to Aramark(?). Railroad Retirement, is one of the major benefits of working for Amtrak, (or _any_ RR) With each job that is transferred to an outsourced company, it's one less voting union member, one less member paying dues...........

And, I believe no matter WHO works ON a train, if that is there primary job, they will be forced to pay in to the Railroad Retirement, which in essence forces the salary upward. So it's not just an EZ switch to a third party, with lower wages, and better inventory control, to help reduce the dining car loses.

I think the installation of properly configured POS systems on all trains, and integration to inventory and ridership, *AND* proper data mining, there is probably another 2-5% that Amtrak can cut from their actual food cost. (Better purchasing, less theft, less waste, increase in sales) Additionally, another 1-2% could come off labor, but this *has to be managed*. No "control system" by itself will result in any savings, unless *some*one actually looks at the data/reports, and then takes action *based on what the data reads.*

With "order at the table" POS (either TA-Diner, or passenger ordering) dining times can be reduced, which means that table-turns can be increased, (as long as the kitchen can keep up). Tableside ordering has been able to show as much as a 25% increase in table-turns. Now, this only means something if you have people _waiting_ for the tables. But it would certainly help on LD trains, during the peak travel month.

TA-Diner employees would be able to handle proportionally more tables, (although they are stretched thin now, so the incremental increases here are smaller than normal) and *make more tips!* I've years of first-hand experience in seeing this in real life.

But technology alone will not eliminate the losses in the dining car, but it is an important contributor, and one that pays (if *managed * correctly) a fast, and real ROI.


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## CHamilton (Oct 8, 2013)

The "cashless" idea may be more feasible if services like this catch on, despite the inconvenience and cost.

American Express Serve Goes After The “Under-Banked” With Prepaid Cards You Load With Cash In Stores



> American Express’ digital wallet platform Serve, which began its life as something of a PayPal competitor online, before signing deals with operators for some sort of mobile play, is today returning to something the company knows best: plastic cards. With the newly revamped Serve launching today, consumers can purchase cards online or in-store, then add money to their card via direct deposit, free cash loads in stores, bank transfers, or by linking a debit or credit card to the service. The card will work anywhere American Express is accepted, including at point-of-sale, ATMs and on e-commerce sites.
> The physical cards themselves were previously available, but users would first have to sign up online to receive the card in the mail. While that option is still available, by placing the cards on retailers’ shelves, and allowing them to load them with cash at checkout, Serve is able to target those who don’t have regular access to a computer.
> Beginning in November, consumers will be able to load their prepaid Serve cards by taking cash to the register at over 14,000 participating CVS/pharmacy and 7-Eleven stores where the cards will be now sold, in addition to online. By the end of 2013, American Express says that number will grow to 20,000 stores, including not only CVS and 7-Eleven, but also Family Dollar, Office Depot, Walgreens and Duane Reade stores in the U.S.
> The company emphasizes that its prepaid card (purchased for $2.95 in retail stores, but free through year-end and online) can be loaded with cash for free, versus the 41% of consumers who currently pay fees of $3.00 to $3.99 to reload their cards today. Instead, Serve will charge a $1 monthly fee as of Dec. 3, 2013, which is waived for direct deposits of $500 or more.


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## Ryan (Oct 8, 2013)

Nathanael said:


> Not actually the way it works. Sorry -- have you *been* on many LD trains?


That's pretty funny, a guest poster telling the Amtrak manager of a LD train how things work on his train.


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## jis (Oct 8, 2013)

Ryan said:


> Nathanael said:
> 
> 
> > Not actually the way it works. Sorry -- have you *been* on many LD trains?
> ...


That is what I thought so too  Well it is good to have such moment of levity though.


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## OBS (Oct 8, 2013)

Ryan said:


> Nathanael said:
> 
> 
> > Not actually the way it works. Sorry -- have you *been* on many LD trains?
> ...


Unfortunately, as with many things at Amtrak, you have theory (rules) and then you have reality...


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## Ryan (Oct 8, 2013)

In some cases, sure. In dining car hours, EB_OBS pretty much has it right (except of course where a train reaches its terminal during or just after a mealtime).


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## Nathanael (Oct 9, 2013)

rrdude said:


> I think the installation of properly configured POS systems on all trains, and integration to inventory and ridership, *AND* proper data mining, there is probably another 2-5% that Amtrak can cut from their actual food cost. (Better purchasing, less theft, less waste, increase in sales) Additionally, another 1-2% could come off labor, but this *has to be managed*. No "control system" by itself will result in any savings, unless *some*one actually looks at the data/reports, and then takes action *based on what the data reads.*
> 
> With "order at the table" POS (either TA-Diner, or passenger ordering) dining times can be reduced, which means that table-turns can be increased, (as long as the kitchen can keep up). Tableside ordering has been able to show as much as a 25% increase in table-turns. Now, this only means something if you have people _waiting_ for the tables. But it would certainly help on LD trains, during the peak travel month.


Even outside peak travel months, there are frequently people waiting for the tables in the diners, for lunch and dinner anyway. (Breakfast seems less busy). I'm not 100% sure that paperwork the limiting factor in all cases -- some crews simply seem sulky -- but if it really could turn 25% more tables, that's 25% more revenue, which is probably enough to get to break-even.
As for telling the OBS manager how things work on the train -- uh, there are too many times when people trying to get lunch at 2 PM, or trying to get dinner at 8:30 PM, are simply turned away (with tables empty), and this is not just when approaching terminals. I've seen it repeatedly.

(And then there's the Lake Shore Limited, which never serves dinner eastbound to New York, even when running late, and even closes the *cafe* at *Albany*. In that case, it appears to be a management decision! A stupid one!)

Presumably EB_OBS maintains the hours he describes on *his* train. Does EB stand for "Empire Builder"? Come to think of it, when I've been on the Empire Builder, the crews *did* keep going the whole time. And they were very efficient at turning over the tables, too. But that was NOT true on the rest of the network. Have we mentioned before that there is service inconsistency across Amtrak? I think we have.


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## benjibear (Oct 9, 2013)

I know on the CL out of Chicago, they came around while still in Chicago for dinner reservations. I took the second to last reservations and the guy behind me took the last. A goup behind them were complaining and there was a an entire coach car he didn't even go into. They made announcements that the dinner reservations were full. When I went to dinner, half the car was empty. I was in there over an hour and it was very slow. The diner never did fill up. Maybe this is SOP for the CL but I could see them being able to turn more people then what they actually did.


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## The Davy Crockett (Oct 9, 2013)

benjibear said:


> I know on the CL out of Chicago, they came around while still in Chicago for dinner reservations. I took the second to last reservations and the guy behind me took the last. A goup behind them were complaining and there was a an entire coach car he didn't even go into. They made announcements that the dinner reservations were full. When I went to dinner, half the car was empty. I was in there over an hour and it was very slow. The diner never did fill up. Maybe this is SOP for the CL but I could see them being able to turn more people then what they actually did.


Number 30 has a reputation here at AU for bad Dining Car service - maybe the crew is tired after the quick turn around in CHI?

That is one of the problems Amtrak is going to smack into head first if they try to speed things up. Management can say all sorts of things and make all sorts of claims and promises, but unless they can actually implement changes on the 'front lines' nothing will change much.

BTW, I've found that 'Western based' crews generally are much more professional and care more about customer service than 'Eastern based' crews.


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## SubwayNut (Oct 9, 2013)

Nathanael said:


> (And then there's the Lake Shore Limited, which never serves dinner eastbound to New York, even when running late, and even closes the *cafe* at *Albany*. In that case, it appears to be a management decision! A stupid one!)


That's because the cafe car doesn't even go to New York, its the last car of the Boston Section! It is sent off to Boston where it reopens and provides food service (including dinner eastbound, lunch westbound to the Boston Sleeping Car Passengers).

The one time I was flat out denied a meal was trying to have Lunch on the eastbound Lake Shore when I missed the attendant (if he passed through at all) when I was enjoying an early Syracuse arrival and then went to ask about lunch to be told all slots were taken and that they didn't have enough food.


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## Bob Dylan (Oct 9, 2013)

The Davy Crockett said:


> benjibear said:
> 
> 
> > I know on the CL out of Chicago, they came around while still in Chicago for dinner reservations. I took the second to last reservations and the guy behind me took the last. A goup behind them were complaining and there was a an entire coach car he didn't even go into. They made announcements that the dinner reservations were full. When I went to dinner, half the car was empty. I was in there over an hour and it was very slow. The diner never did fill up. Maybe this is SOP for the CL but I could see them being able to turn more people then what they actually did.
> ...


I've been on the Cap Many Times in Both Directions and find that on #29, as Scott mentioned, the Service tends to be OK to Great but on #30, especially in the Diner, it's Generally Less than Good! I always Eat Dinner and Breakfast in the Diner on #30 and Sometimes have the "Secret" Brunch h34r: (Limited Menu) that isn't Announced, it seems to be for those "In the Know!"! :angry:

I'll be on #30 this Sunday (10/13) from CHI-WAS and Will Post a Review of the Service, it will be Interesting to see if they are Still Denying People Slots in the Diner and Keeping the Brunch Secret because they are in a Hurry to Clean Up and Hit the Platform Running Soon as the Train hits the Stops in WAS!!! :angry:


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## Anderson (Oct 9, 2013)

Nathanael said:


> rrdude said:
> 
> 
> > I think the installation of properly configured POS systems on all trains, and integration to inventory and ridership, *AND* proper data mining, there is probably another 2-5% that Amtrak can cut from their actual food cost. (Better purchasing, less theft, less waste, increase in sales) Additionally, another 1-2% could come off labor, but this *has to be managed*. No "control system" by itself will result in any savings, unless *some*one actually looks at the data/reports, and then takes action *based on what the data reads.*
> ...


25% won't get you close to break-even in the diners. If I'm not mistaken, CR in the diners tends to be somewhere around 50%.

Edit: The ALB situation is much the same as WAS: They lose power for a bit on the LSL, so they shut the diner/cafe. They also close cafes from NWK to somewhere north of NYP.


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## jis (Oct 9, 2013)

Has anyone at Amtrak ever tried coming up with some reasonable incentive scheme to incentivise the Diner/Cafe crew to try to sell as much as they can? Or would that be something that is highly looked down upon by the Unions or some such?


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## rrdude (Oct 9, 2013)

jis said:


> Has anyone at Amtrak ever tried coming up with some reasonable incentive scheme to incentivise the Diner/Cafe crew to try to sell as much as they can? Or would that be something that is highly looked down upon by the Unions or some such?


Some crews would certainly try to "game the system", somehow, show more sleepers than actually ate, as "eaten" for free. While in turn, pocket the cash that the coach pax pas for the meal...

many, many ways


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## I always rode the Southern (Oct 9, 2013)

The Davy Crockett said:


> benjibear said:
> 
> 
> > I know on the CL out of Chicago, they came around while still in Chicago for dinner reservations. I took the second to last reservations and the guy behind me took the last. A goup behind them were complaining and there was a an entire coach car he didn't even go into. They made announcements that the dinner reservations were full. When I went to dinner, half the car was empty. I was in there over an hour and it was very slow. The diner never did fill up. Maybe this is SOP for the CL but I could see them being able to turn more people then what they actually did.
> ...


And my experience has been the opposite. I've had good service on the western trains, but not the exceptional. On the cap westbound I have had one of the best dining service and food ever; on the cap eastbound from Pgh to Was, I have had the most exceptional conductor EVER; on the silvers I have had 2 outstanding and memorable SCA's ever, and though I love the coast starlight, the staff could learn a little about customer service from the auto train crew.

To sum it up, the western trains, meh.! All the memorable crews for me have been in the east.


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## GUEST (Oct 9, 2013)

I always rode the Southern said:


> The Davy Crockett said:
> 
> 
> > benjibear said:
> ...


I won't pick one over the other, but the service I have experienced has been anywhere from excellent to mediocre on both sides of the country.

The Dining car service I remember as the least courteous was a server on the EB who slammed plates down, never looked me in the eye, and got 3 out of 4 orders for the table wrong. She was slamming things down all over the car all through the time I was there.


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## steve smith (Oct 9, 2013)

every time we have heard this refrain in the past, it meant no more china plates, no more silverware---it meant microwaved pre-made meals----it meant only one cook on duty and two waiters for the entire dining car----in short, it has meant taking everything away that made the on-board dining experience fun and pleasant.....they just do not GET IT----nice dining is a PERK for the first class passengers who pay ridiculously high rates for the sleeping cars. Or it may be a plan....make sleeping car class less attractive and then fewer people use it, and then maybe it can be eliminated. After all, THAT was teh plan followed by the private railroads in the 1960s as they sought to discourage people from taking the trians, so they could ask the ICC to let them drop routes.


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## AlanB (Oct 9, 2013)

benjibear said:


> I know on the CL out of Chicago, they came around while still in Chicago for dinner reservations. I took the second to last reservations and the guy behind me took the last. A goup behind them were complaining and there was a an entire coach car he didn't even go into. They made announcements that the dinner reservations were full. When I went to dinner, half the car was empty. I was in there over an hour and it was very slow. The diner never did fill up. Maybe this is SOP for the CL but I could see them being able to turn more people then what they actually did.


Full doesn't mean that all the tables are occupied. Full means that based upon the number of crew members working the car, they have reached the specified capacity that they can handle based upon the guidelines they're given by management.


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## AlanB (Oct 9, 2013)

Anderson said:


> They also close cafes from NWK to somewhere north of NYP.


Not any more. They're allowed to close at NWK, but they must be reopened by the time they pass Sunnyside Yard going north or RR east. Southbound they're not supposed to close until past New Rochelle, and they must be open by NWK.


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## AlanB (Oct 9, 2013)

steve smith said:


> every time we have heard this refrain in the past, it meant no more china plates, no more silverware---it meant microwaved pre-made meals----it meant only one cook on duty and two waiters for the entire dining car----in short, it has meant taking everything away that made the on-board dining experience fun and pleasant.....they just do not GET IT----nice dining is a PERK for the first class passengers who pay ridiculously high rates for the sleeping cars. Or it may be a plan....make sleeping car class less attractive and then fewer people use it, and then maybe it can be eliminated. After all, THAT was teh plan followed by the private railroads in the 1960s as they sought to discourage people from taking the trians, so they could ask the ICC to let them drop routes.


One doesn't buy new dining cars and new sleepers if one wants to eliminate them.


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## Big Iron (Oct 9, 2013)

jis said:


> Has anyone at Amtrak ever tried coming up with some reasonable incentive scheme to incentivise the Diner/Cafe crew to try to sell as much as they can? Or would that be something that is highly looked down upon by the Unions or some such?


There was a sentence in the original post stating that Amtrak would establish metrics to measure sales effectiveness of the service attendants. To me that means that there will be some sort of "sales goals" that the Diner staff will need to meet which could lead to monetary incentives or punitive measures if the goals are met/not met. Just my read of that sentence.

I'm in a sales/production role and metrics is just another term for measuring against some performance goal.


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## The Davy Crockett (Oct 10, 2013)

Big Iron said:


> jis said:
> 
> 
> > Has anyone at Amtrak ever tried coming up with some reasonable incentive scheme to incentivise the Diner/Cafe crew to try to sell as much as they can? Or would that be something that is highly looked down upon by the Unions or some such?
> ...


The challenge, as I see it, will be to get the union to go along with such a scheme. The only way I see that happening is if its all 'carrots' and no 'sticks.' Which means the good employees will make more money and the employees who have a bad attitude will just get a worse attitude. And the program wil fall short of its goals. Just MHO...


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## OBS (Oct 10, 2013)

The Davy Crockett said:


> Big Iron said:
> 
> 
> > jis said:
> ...


(Un)Fortunately, you are giving our union a little too much credit...I think many of the good, hard working employees would appreciate an incentive (reward) for their hard work.


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## Tokkyu40 (Oct 10, 2013)

EB_OBS said:


> Guest said:
> 
> 
> > All told, I could imagine very significant improvements in the diner "bottom line" if the dining car staff spent all their time (except for their breaks) serving customers, rather than closing the dining car more than half the day in order to do paperwork and inventory. I don't know whether that would be enough to break even, but it might be enough that the cafe car profits would cancel it out.
> ...


That's close enough to half. There are 24 hours in a day.

There are people who want to have a snack at midnight before they get off or after they board; there are those who usually have brunch about 10:30; there are 4 time zones where peoples normal dinner time may be anywhere from 6:00 to 9:00 pm, meaning an Oklahoman may want to sit down in California about 11:00 pm.

Amtrak marketing consultant Bruce Richardson ran a test on the Sunset Limited in 1999-2000. Certain dining cars were staffed and open 24 hours a day. The customers liked it because they could grab a meal whenever they wanted, the crews liked it because they didn't have the panic rush at meal times and the unions liked it because it meant two more workers per train. And the extra revenue and reduced overtime brought the average losses down from 9 dollars to 66 cents per meal.

The only ones who didn't like it were management. Amtrak accounting makes no connetion between costs and revenues, so the extra workers didn't equate to increased sales on the books.

Electronic ordering and modern bookkeeping on the train would help, but if you want Amtrak to become self sufficient, Amtrak needs an accounting system that accurately measures costs and revenues of each service.


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## The Davy Crockett (Oct 10, 2013)

I'm giving the union too much credit? It seems to me we are basically saying the same thing when it comes to 'carrot' based incentive programs. Notice the similarities in the added emphasis in each of our quotes below:



OBS said:


> The Davy Crockett said:
> 
> 
> > The challenge, as I see it, will be to get the union to go along with such a scheme. *The only way I see that happening is if its all 'carrots' *and no 'sticks.' *Which means the good employees will make more money *and the employees who have a bad attitude will just get a worse attitude. And the program wil fall short of its goals. Just MHO...
> ...


The problem are the 'problem' employees - the ones that can ruin teamwork and moral for an entire crew. They will look for ways to benefit from a 'carrot based' incentive program with as little effort on their part as possible. Furthermore, many employees, not just at Amtrak, who are problems tend to prefer to figure out ways to try to sabotage programs desigined to boost productivity. To make matters worse at Amtrak, your union will defend them at hearings, even if they have been accused of illegal actions which they have been caught red handed doing. That means management has a pretty high burden of proof to meet in dealing with such employees.


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## AlanB (Oct 10, 2013)

The Davy Crockett said:


> To make matters worse at Amtrak, your union will defend them at hearings, even if they have been accused of illegal actions which they have been caught red handed doing. That means management has a pretty high burden of proof to meet in dealing with such employees.


Don't be too hard on the union for this, and I used to think the same way. But as my good friend Eric (GG-1), who was at one time the treasurer of his local in Hawaii for several years, explained to me a while back; they have no choice. If the union fails to put up a proper defense, even when one is accused of egregious behavior, under Federal law the union can lose its right to remain a union. So an Amtrak employee caught stealing from a passenger or a teacher caught doing the worst possible thing to a student must still be defended in any termination hearing. And if the employer failed to properly dot the i's and cross the t's, the union is likely to win and the employee will keep their job unless they land in prison via the regular court system.

Put simply; the union must defend the employee, without regard to what morals or even common sense might otherwise dictate.


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## haolerider (Oct 10, 2013)

Tokkyu40 said:


> EB_OBS said:
> 
> 
> > Guest said:
> ...


I beg to differ with you, but the experiment did not work and the sales revenue vs the employee costs did not workout. Also, it was not popular with the employees and resulted in a need for more staff = more salaries. The idea sounds good on paper, but a passenger boarding at 11 pm really wants to get to their seat/sleeper and relax, not eat a piece of cake and coffee or a full meal. Passengers on long haul trains for the majority ofmthemtime, adjust to the time zones and are not ready to eat outside the normal hours of operation of the dining car. You need a lot of,people eating during the night time hours to justify having employees on shift and it just did not work, although Bruce Richardson continues to claim is did!


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## Bob Dylan (Oct 10, 2013)

Bruce Richardson huh?  It's not like he hasn't made a Fortune being a Rail Consultant and yet doesnt have much except Discredited Schemes and Reports to Show for it! He used to be a Favorite on Train Blogs but since NARP quit Touting his Talents You Don't see his Name as Much anymore!

I place his Credibility as a Rail Consultant on the Same Level as Sarah Palin's on Geography, Foreign Relations and Economics!


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## jis (Oct 10, 2013)

Didn't Bruce go off to start his own passenger service somewhere about four years back. The world is still waiting with baited breath I bet.


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## WoodyinNYC (Oct 10, 2013)

AlanB said:


> steve smith said:
> 
> 
> > ... nice dining is a PERK for the first class passengers who pay ridiculously
> ...


And also, too. iiuc The diners on the East Coast are a collection of

one-of or few-of-a-kind Heritage cars. They are to be replaced by 25

new diners from the CAF order. Famously, the Heritage diners,

40 years old and more, demand costly maintenance.

Presumably, the new diners will have much lower costs in this way.

There are probably other efficiencies from having a standard design,

perhaps more seats, better workspace for the chefs, and all-new

technologically modern equipment. (Certainly home refrigerators

with new design and better insulation etc are much more energy

efficient and not as heavy.)

I have no idea how Amtrak allocates the high maintenance costs

of the Heritage cars, but I could see the new cars helping to cut

the cost of food service.


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## The Davy Crockett (Oct 10, 2013)

AlanB said:


> The Davy Crockett said:
> 
> 
> > To make matters worse at Amtrak, your union will defend them at hearings, even if they have been accused of illegal actions which they have been caught red handed doing. That means management has a pretty high burden of proof to meet in dealing with such employees.
> ...


I hear you. I'm not trying to single out Amtrak. IMHO, the problem is when unions are required to defend defenseless conduct.

I've gotten the impression (anyone with more insight on this PLEASE weigh in) from a labour lawyer in Canada that even in that 'socialistic' (by American standards) country, a union is not required to defend gross misconduct in many circumstances.


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## OBS (Oct 10, 2013)

I stated this several months back, and it continues to be true to this day, I have seen more OBS people and, to a lesser degree but also true, Conductors, fired in the last two years, than I think I have seen in my 20+ year history with Amtrak.


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## guest (Oct 10, 2013)

OBS said:


> I stated this several months back, and it continues to be true to this day, I have seen more OBS people and, to a lesser degree but also true, Conductors, fired in the last two years, than I think I have seen in my 20+ year history with Amtrak.


What are the main reasons they were fired?


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## Big Iron (Oct 10, 2013)

OBS said:


> The Davy Crockett said:
> 
> 
> > Big Iron said:
> ...


Agreed, sometimes an "at a boy" just don't cut it. In my world when the company wants to promote a certain product then we are required to sell a certain amount and then get a percentage of every sale above that. The solid producers rake in a little extra cash, the company makes more money and the less productive employees pretty much stay where they are. Some of the lower producers see the monetary success of their peers and step it up.

Oftentimes the incentive plan devolves into a situation where you have to sell X amount of product or get shown the door. That might be more difficult in a Union shop but not having worked in one I can't speak to that.


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## Anderson (Oct 10, 2013)

I don't think it would make sense to run the diners all night. On the other hand, I think you could at least make a case for doing something with the cafe as an experiment...you don't have to sell_ too_ many cups of coffee to cover most of that expense. If paired with something along the lines of a diner-club, you might also be able to speed turnover as well.


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## Anderson (Oct 10, 2013)

Big Iron said:


> OBS said:
> 
> 
> > The Davy Crockett said:
> ...


To play devil's advocate here, it's a bit too easy to get into a situation where employees get pressured to produce results in "unrelated areas" with respect to their job. I'll mention the case of a friend who was working at Lowe's and who walked out for several reasons, one of which was being pressured to push the company credit card on everyone. Whatever respect may be due to Lowe's, getting employees to press customers to get a card they probably neither want nor need is likely to annoy the customer at some point.

[And of course, on the other end of the spectrum, I know I've been asked whether I work for Amtrak or not based on the fact that I promote AGR at any chance I get.]


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## Blackwolf (Oct 10, 2013)

Anderson said:


> [And of course, on the other end of the spectrum, I know I've been asked whether I work for Amtrak or not based on the fact that I promote AGR at any chance I get.]


Hah, I'm not alone! I cannot count how many times I've been asked, usually with a suspicious expression, if I'm really a reservation agent with Amtrak.


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## Trogdor (Oct 11, 2013)

Anderson said:


> I don't think it would make sense to run the diners all night. On the other hand, I think you could at least make a case for doing something with the cafe as an experiment...you don't have to sell_ too_ many cups of coffee to cover most of that expense.


Yes, you do. To run a cafe car all night would require an additional employee, who's not going to be available during the day when most people are going to want to be served.

That extra employee's wages, plus benefits, plus meal expenses, plus hotel expenses at the far end of the route, plus one more sleeper room on the train that can't be sold to a revenue passenger (more and more dorm space is now being sold to the public to generate revenue), would be nowhere near covered by the dozen or so (at most) folks who want a hot dog and a drink between midnight and 6 am.


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## GG-1 (Oct 11, 2013)

The Davy Crockett said:


> AlanB said:
> 
> 
> > The Davy Crockett said:
> ...


Aloha

A union is required to defend the employee from management action. This does not mean that the union canot accept an employer action, just defend the action to the poin of following all the rules that are spelled out in the contract.

A friend, that was the regional head of the pacific region of the NLRB, told me about a case that came before him. A worker was caught in the act by management of stealing. In the hearing with the union the employer offered to place the employee probation for 60 days. The Union accepted. A week later this worker was caught by police stealing. Again at the hearing he was offered a shortened probation of 30 days. The union agreed. To weeks later the police caught this worker trying to break into the company office. The union declined to do anything but to accept the employer termination. While this worker was in Jail he filed an action against the union for failing to represent. My friend upheld the decision of the union. So the worker filed an appeal with the Washington Office of the NLRB. The national office overturned my friends decision, and fined the union lost wages to the worker even though he was in jail. UN-officially the Washington Office attitude was at that time the was that the employee was always right, if possible rule against the union, if no cause, then file against the employer. My friend was so disgusted that he retired. He was a stanch believer in following the law. Everyone in town knew if you lost a hearing against him, you were wrong.

I won't name the year or politics at that time

btw: I was a member of that Local from 1972 to 2012 (40 years to the month), and an officer for about 25 years.


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## Trogdor (Oct 11, 2013)

GG-1 said:


> A union is required to defend the employee from management action. This does not mean that the union canot accept an employer action, just defend the action to the poin of following all the rules that are spelled out in the contract.
> 
> A friend, that was the regional head of the pacific region of the NLRB, told me about a case that came before him. A worker was caught in the act by management of stealing. In the hearing with the union the employer offered to place the employee probation for 60 days. The Union accepted. A week later this worker was caught by police stealing. Again at the hearing he was offered a shortened probation of 30 days. The union agreed. To weeks later the police caught this worker trying to break into the company office. The union declined to do anything but to accept the employer termination. While this worker was in Jail he filed an action against the union for failing to represent. My friend upheld the decision of the union. So the worker filed an appeal with the Washington Office of the NLRB. The national office overturned my friends decision, and fined the union lost wages to the worker even though he was in jail. UN-officially the Washington Office attitude was at that time the was that the employee was always right, if possible rule against the union, if no cause, then file against the employer. My friend was so disgusted that he retired. He was a stanch believer in following the law. Everyone in town knew if you lost a hearing against him, you were wrong.
> 
> ...


I see the union's role in matters like this much the same as a public defender's role in a criminal trial. In a just society, even those caught in the act of a crime must go on trial and have evidence weighed against them. Why should the same standard not apply to workplace discipline?

The idea is to protect people from wrongful termination, the same as our justice system is supposed to protect people from wrongful imprisonment.

Quite often, the reason union folks get their jobs back is because the management itself doesn't bother to properly document infractions. It's akin to a criminal having charges dropped because the police didn't follow the proper procedures in gathering evidence.


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## Anderson (Oct 11, 2013)

Trogdor said:


> GG-1 said:
> 
> 
> > A union is required to defend the employee from management action. This does not mean that the union canot accept an employer action, just defend the action to the poin of following all the rules that are spelled out in the contract.
> ...


And let's not go over all of the absurdity in New York City with the rubber rooms over the years, with the union resisting attempts to speed up the backlogged hearing process, as just one example of this process gone horridly wrong. To be fair, some of this is the fault of the contract negotiators (and/or the NRLB's processes, which probably ought to at least tend towards better contracts in this regard and/or permit unions to back out in cases of a criminal finding or plea)...but at the same time, I can't help but fault the unions for including those clauses.

On the other hand, part of the problem is probably with the structure of the boards handling these matters. IIRC, they're generally not impartial third parties (which would validate the "public defender" comparison) and/or there's not a mechanism for the employee to contest something if they don't back them up. That's a problem.


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## cirdan (Oct 11, 2013)

Trogdor said:


> Anderson said:
> 
> 
> > I don't think it would make sense to run the diners all night. On the other hand, I think you could at least make a case for doing something with the cafe as an experiment...you don't have to sell_ too_ many cups of coffee to cover most of that expense.
> ...


 But couldn't that role be combined. I guess there has to be an Amtrak employe on duty during all times that passengers are on the train. You never know if there might be a medical emergency or whatever. Rather than that person sitting somewhere and looking rather bored 90% of the time, couldn't he or she offer a reduced set of services in a cafeteria or dining car, maybe a reduced set of menu options (the stuff that one person can fix by themselves without it taking too long). That way, even if you just get one passenger an hour walking in and asking for a coke and a cheese sandwich, they can have it, Amtrak makes revenue, the passenger appreciates the good service and extra costs are very small. Of course other responsibilities would take priority, but I guess passengers will understand if they can't place an order while the train is in or approaching a station and the conductor needs to attend to more pressing matters.


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## Ryan (Oct 11, 2013)

That person is the Conductor, and there's no way they should be tasked with selling anything other than tickets, since they have a real job to do.


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## cirdan (Oct 11, 2013)

Ryan said:


> That person is the Conductor, and there's no way they should be tasked with selling anything other than tickets, since they have a real job to do.


 But was does the conductor do at night in between checking tickets and waiting for the next station?

Paperwork maybe? But surely that can be increasingly automated? Conductors could scan tickets for example, so avoiding the need to manually keep track and collect masses of tickets.

Dininig car waiters could scan the same tickets, and this would it make easier to ensure sleeping car passengers get their free meals and prevent the staff from selling the food of passengers who skip meals, while pocketing the money. All this manual administrative overhead could virtually be eliminated.

I've been served drinks by the senior train manager on a night train in Spain before. The train bar officially closed at 2am so they could kick all the drunks out, but we were told to come back 10 minutes later and they continued to serve us.


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## haolerider (Oct 11, 2013)

cirdan said:


> Ryan said:
> 
> 
> > That person is the Conductor, and there's no way they should be tasked with selling anything other than tickets, since they have a real job to do.
> ...


The Conductor has responsibility for the entire train, especially safety and it would be absurd to,have them selling food and/or drinks. They also open and close the doors for the passengers to,get on and off as well as their paperwork. One reason the cafe car/lounge closes at night is to eliminate all night drinking. No matter what happened on a Spanish train, it will not happen on an Amtrak train. You would have to sell a lot of,stuff at night to make up the salary, benefits, etc of a lounge car attendant, plus, as already been noted, this,would require an additional staff member, which means an additional non-revenue room.


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## jis (Oct 11, 2013)

Isn't the conductor also supposed to remind the engineer of slow orders and other TSRs and such? On some railroads also supposed to acknowledge receipt of signal indication calls and defect detector acknowledgements by the engineer. Believe me, they don't keep their radio on just because it is fun to hear what's going on. It's their job.

Technically, the Conductor is the Captain of the train, and has all duties that come with it, except driving the train, whcih is of course the Engineer's job.


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## SarahZ (Oct 11, 2013)

jis said:


> Isn't the conductor also supposed to remind the engineer of slow orders and other TSRs and such? On some railroads also supposed to acknowledge receipt of signal indication calls and defect detector acknowledgements by the engineer. Believe me, they don't keep their radio on just because it is fun to hear what's going on. It's their job.
> 
> Technically, the Conductor is the Captain of the train, and has all duties that come with it, except driving the train, whcih is of course the Engineer's job.


Bingo.


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## cirdan (Oct 11, 2013)

jis said:


> Isn't the conductor also supposed to remind the engineer of slow orders and other TSRs and such? On some railroads also supposed to acknowledge receipt of signal indication calls and defect detector acknowledgements by the engineer. Believe me, they don't keep their radio on just because it is fun to hear what's going on. It's their job.
> 
> Technically, the Conductor is the Captain of the train, and has all duties that come with it, except driving the train, whcih is of course the Engineer's job.


Sure, I was thinking of this one in a more visionary way, as in what would theoretically be possible, and what can be done to strive towards that situation?

Or, suppose Amtrak didn't exist, and we were charged with setting up a passenger train service, how would we go about it? What would we do the same as Amtrak, and what would we do that's different? Would we use more technology, or would we rely on manual paperwork? What safety systems would we use and how far could we automate those? Of course we couldn't decide these thing single-handedly as the FRA and host railroads would need to approve. But you get my general meaning?

In an existing organization you can't change things that quickly, but if you never lose sight of the vision, you can get there eventually through a series of small steps taken one at a time.


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## jis (Oct 11, 2013)

Yes. Changing the basic rules of the industry should be exciting. Have fun! 

Typically the problems are not technical but organizational and political. I often wish I could wish away the current world and start afresh too from time to time, for much weightier things than just running passenger trains with food service at 3am.


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## Guest Big Iron (Oct 11, 2013)

Anderson said:


> Big Iron said:
> 
> 
> > OBS said:
> ...


You speak the truth. Doing what's right for the company might not always jibe with what's right for the customer. I left my job of 29 years because of the same dynamic as your friend. Again, on the other end of the spectrum, my father was a commission salesman for 47 years and he always said that sales in 90% rejection but you can make a good living off the 10%. It's all a numbers game based on how many asks you make. The job is easier if you believe in your product.

Regarding your promotion of AGR, nothing in the world wrong with promoting something you believe in, use yourself and does offer pretty good benefits to those using Amtrak.


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## Tokkyu40 (Oct 11, 2013)

How about adding one more staff to the dining car, have three overlapping shifts and keep the dining car open from 6:30 to 9:30 so people can wander in whenever they get hungry? The costs of the extra person would be paid out of the extra revenue from people eating more food.
Not to be a cynic, but it has to be expensive to drag around the weight and rolling resistance of a car no one can use most of the time.


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## Trogdor (Oct 12, 2013)

You'd need to add at least two people: a server and a cook. I don't think the short amount of extra coverage you'd get (during off-peak meal hours) would pay the costs of two people. On some trains, the dining car staff is fairly thing as it is. Adding just a couple more people could mean a 40-50% increase in staff costs on those trains.


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## williamn (Oct 12, 2013)

I'm always amazed that 1, sometimes 2, bays of seats are taken up by staff and/or equipment such as silverware, linen etc, even when the dining care is full, and that staff would rather turn away customers rather than inconvenience themselves.


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## Tokkyu40 (Oct 12, 2013)

The problem with the current system is that people don't like being regimented into specific mealtimes but they do like between-meal and midnight snacks. The dining cars can't do that because they're barely open long enough to feed the passengers.
And you can't add more cars to bring in more revenue because the dining cars can't handle the extra demand unless they lengthen the hours. So they're abandoning revenue at the dining car because they can't handle impulse snacks and turning away passengers at the station because they can't run more cars.
That is a tough problem.


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## AmtrakBlue (Oct 12, 2013)

Tokkyu40 said:


> The problem with the current system is that people don't like being regimented into specific mealtimes but they do like between-meal and midnight snacks. The dining cars can't do that because they're barely open long enough to feed the passengers.
> 
> And you can't add more cars to bring in more revenue because the dining cars can't handle the extra demand unless they lengthen the hours. So they're abandoning revenue at the dining car because they can't handle impulse snacks and turning away passengers at the station because they can't run more cars.
> 
> That is a tough problem.


They can't run more cars because they don't have enough extras to run.


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## haolerider (Oct 12, 2013)

Tokkyu40 said:


> The problem with the current system is that people don't like being regimented into specific mealtimes but they do like between-meal and midnight snacks. The dining cars can't do that because they're barely open long enough to feed the passengers.
> 
> And you can't add more cars to bring in more revenue because the dining cars can't handle the extra demand unless they lengthen the hours. So they're abandoning revenue at the dining car because they can't handle impulse snacks and turning away passengers at the station because they can't run more cars.
> 
> That is a tough problem.


I don't know if there is any hard evidence that passengers are unhappy with the hours of service, but during my years with the company, I never heard this complaint. Sometimes coach passengers cannot get served, but that is relatively rare. As far as your previous suggestion that an extra person be added to the staff, to,allow for additional hours of service, that would mean you also would have to add an extra cook and an additional wait help person. You can't have a cook waiting around for someone to wander in for a snack or meal. The current hours seem to work for all concerned.


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## jis (Oct 12, 2013)

In places where trains are taken real seriously and very long trains cater to thousands of passengers per train, no one expects a Dining Car or two to serve each passenger on the train. Indeed in most case there is no Dining Car at all, or if there is one it primarily serves the highest class of travel on the train. The rest are served out of Pantry cars or from en-route service stops. Even if they are open for service to all, only a small fraction of the travelers can actually partake of that luxury.

This whole idea that the whole train will be served with sit down dining in Dining Cars is something that applies to only luxury tourist trains, not to mass transport providing trains. Amtrak should not be in the business of providing luxury tourist trains. But that is not to say that it should not continue providing Dining Car service as it does now. Just that it should not make very significant additional expenditures to provide more food to more people, unless it is provably the case that the additional revenues will more than cover the additional cost.


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## SarahZ (Oct 12, 2013)

Tokkyu40 said:


> The problem with the current system is that people don't like being regimented into specific mealtimes but they do like between-meal and midnight snacks. The dining cars can't do that because they're barely open long enough to feed the passengers.
> 
> So they're abandoning revenue at the dining car because they can't handle impulse snacks...


If someone wants a snack, they can go to the cafe car. The dining car menu is pretty hefty; I would never order something in there as a "snack". The cafe car is generally open until 11:00 or midnight if someone wants to eat between meals.

As far as craving a candy bar at 3:00 AM, the pax are given the cafe car hours, repeatedly, before quiet hours start. It's like last call in a bar. When I ride in coach, I usually head down there to grab something just in case I wake up in the middle of the night and want to sit in the lounge with a book. I usually see a decent line right before they close, and I hear the rustling of bags and the crunch of chips late into the night.


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## rrdude (Oct 12, 2013)

Well, slightly off topic, and crews would/did HATE it, but when I was LSA-Steward (only ran 3-4 trips as such) I kept the dining car "open" on one half for exactly that reason, (between meals, not late PM). Trains in summer were packed, I'd send chef, cook, and half servers to dorm car, keep dishwasher, and two SA. We limited to EZ items. (Sandwich, soup, salads). Made PA announcement that diner open for "early bird" dinner, or late lunch. I worked tables too, but gave100% of tips to 3 employees. Can't remember specifics on sales, but suffice to say, the three of us NEVER had time to sit.

Result was, got asked to visit "Burt", our union rep. Complaint didn't come from workers who I chose to work thru down-time, but from those I DIDN'T choose.

Demoralizing........


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## The Davy Crockett (Oct 12, 2013)

jis said:


> ...Amtrak should not be in the business of providing luxury tourist trains. But that is not to say that it should not continue providing Dining Car service as it does now. Just that it should not make very significant additional expenditures to provide more food to more people, unless it is provably the case that the additional revenues will more than cover the additional cost.


Reminds me of the old sales joke: "Yes, we lose money on every sale, but we make up for it in volume!" :blink:


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## Anderson (Oct 12, 2013)

rrdude said:


> Well, slightly off topic, and crews would/did HATE it, but when I was LSA-Steward (only ran 3-4 trips as such) I kept the dining car "open" on one half for exactly that reason, (between meals, not late PM). Trains in summer were packed, I'd send chef, cook, and half servers to dorm car, keep dishwasher, and two SA. We limited to EZ items. (Sandwich, soup, salads). Made PA announcement that diner open for "early bird" dinner, or late lunch. I worked tables too, but gave100% of tips to 3 employees. Can't remember specifics on sales, but suffice to say, the three of us NEVER had time to sit.
> 
> Result was, got asked to visit "Burt", our union rep. Complaint didn't come from workers who I chose to work thru down-time, but from those I DIDN'T choose.
> 
> Demoralizing........


(1) It would seem that in such a case, the answer would be to ask for volunteers for the "extra shift" and distribute that time as evenly as possible among those willing to volunteer (and only calling on non-volunteers if it became necessary).

-Also, I suspect the grumbling was from the fact that it sounds like on a round-trip those extra shifts might be worth somewhere between $50-100 in tip money (depending on trip length, etc.). That's nothing to sneeze at.

(2) This (and Jis' comment) has me thinking of the fact that the only train where extra diner capacity is a desperate need is potentially the Builder at the moment. Please note the qualifiers in that sentence. The rule of thumb seems to be that a diner will accommodate 3-4 sleepers plus coach passengers desiring a meal. When you get above somewhere in that range, demand becomes an issue.

-A footnote to this: I wonder, if meals weren't included, if you could handle 5-6 sleepers on a single diner?


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## Tokkyu40 (Oct 13, 2013)

The Davy Crockett said:


> jis said:
> 
> 
> > ...Amtrak should not be in the business of providing luxury tourist trains. But that is not to say that it should not continue providing Dining Car service as it does now. Just that it should not make very significant additional expenditures to provide more food to more people, unless it is provably the case that the additional revenues will more than cover the additional cost.
> ...


Actually, yes. That's exactly how it works. There's a certain unavoidable fixed overhead cost invested in the facilities on any business, and if you only offer a limited supply you can't cover the overhead, so you lose money on each sale.

By making it easier for more people to access your product you can increase your volume to spread the overhead costs over more sales, so the price to supply each item falls below the sales price and you begin making a profit.

The question is how to improve access to sell more cheeseburgers and egg, bacon and cheese sandwiches (on toast. Yum).


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## cirdan (Oct 14, 2013)

AlanB said:


> Put simply; the union must defend the employee, without regard to what morals or even common sense might otherwise dictate.


Well, even the world's greatest criminal has the right to a legal aid, but that doesn't mean he's not going to be found guilty.

So just because the union (rightly) provides legal support for employees, that doesn't mean they cannot be fired or disciplined.


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## Paulus (Oct 14, 2013)

cirdan said:


> AlanB said:
> 
> 
> > Put simply; the union must defend the employee, without regard to what morals or even common sense might otherwise dictate.
> ...


The problem is an inability to manage properly and one that seems endemic to Amtrak's culture (probably an issue with manager selection and training). It's really not that hard to create a proper paperwork trail to dot the i's and cross the t's in order to fire someone, but for whatever reason, there is a tendency not to do that.


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## jis (Oct 14, 2013)

Tokkyu40 said:


> The Davy Crockett said:
> 
> 
> > Reminds me of the old sales joke: "Yes, we lose money on every sale, but we make up for it in volume!" :blink:
> ...


As long as in the process of improving access, the overhead costs don't go up faster than the revenues accruing from added volume of sales and potentially additional ridership generated. Historically food service on rails counted separately has been a net money loser and has typically been justified in added ridership revenues. Hopefully this time around Amtrak can figure out a way to breaking from the historical trend all over the world.


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## haolerider (Oct 14, 2013)

Paulus said:


> cirdan said:
> 
> 
> > AlanB said:
> ...


Having worked in both hotel chains and Amtrak, the major difference I saw was the poor record keeping and write-ups for union infractions at Amtrak. In my hotel chain, we wrote up every infraction and followed through with the appropriate punishment and the union hated it. We had a "three strikes and you are out" in the contract and we took every infraction to the table. We were able to clean out the dead wood in a few years, but it took a determined management to do it. At Amtrak, one of the issues is that many of the line/operations managers are former union members and they are lax in enforcing the policies and middle and senior management do not follow through aggressively. Without aggressive management actually on the trains, you can never get rid of the problem employees!


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## The Davy Crockett (Oct 14, 2013)

jis said:


> Hopefully this time around Amtrak can figure out a way to breaking from the historical trend all over the world.


Indeed. :hi:

The only way to do this might be to give the books to the chef and have him 'cook' them.


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## guest in the west (Oct 14, 2013)

In the superb history of American railroads by Christian Wolmar, The Great Railroad Revolution, Wolmar writes that the Pennsylvania Railroad at the height of its passenger service (and profits) was losing $1 million a year on its dining services before WW II and at least $4 million by 1949. So Boardman must be using hyperbole to say that Amtrak can offer food and beverage on a profit-making basis if even the best private railroads in their halcyon days couldn't do it. Hopefully he just wants to pare down losses in easily-identifiable managerial and operational areas as a way to cut down on the carping from some members of Congress. To honestly run the service as a profit, he'd have to destroy the ambiance and quality of railroad dining that makes it attractive in the first place.


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## cirdan (Oct 14, 2013)

haolerider said:


> At Amtrak, one of the issues is that many of the line/operations managers are former union members and they are lax in enforcing the policies and middle and senior management do not follow through aggressively. Without aggressive management actually on the trains, you can never get rid of the problem employees!


 Then it would seem that Amtrak has a problem with its process of screening and selecting candidates for promotion. If you want good people in lower and middle management you've got to hire good people into those roles rather than expecting them to somehow grow into their responsibility even when they're not suitable. So could it be that Amtrak is just poor at talent spotting?


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## cirdan (Oct 14, 2013)

guest in the west said:


> In the superb history of American railroads by Christian Wolmar, The Great Railroad Revolution, Wolmar writes that the Pennsylvania Railroad at the height of its passenger service (and profits) was losing $1 million a year on its dining services before WW II and at least $4 million by 1949. So Boardman must be using hyperbole to say that Amtrak can offer food and beverage on a profit-making basis


 Maybe there's a question of definition here.

How do you define the loss or profiot of a dining service?

Do you, for example, take the dining car as a given, and just look at the opex of the dining service, or do you expect the dining service to actually cover the capex of the car, additional locomotive fuel for pulling that car etc. Such questions of definition can lead to vastly differing figures on loss or profit.


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## GG-1 (Oct 14, 2013)

cirdan said:


> AlanB said:
> 
> 
> > Put simply; the union must defend the employee, without regard to what morals or even common sense might otherwise dictate.
> ...


Correct Sir

Aloha


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## haolerider (Oct 14, 2013)

cirdan said:


> haolerider said:
> 
> 
> > At Amtrak, one of the issues is that many of the line/operations managers are former union members and they are lax in enforcing the policies and middle and senior management do not follow through aggressively. Without aggressive management actually on the trains, you can never get rid of the problem employees!
> ...


Agree!


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## Guest (Oct 14, 2013)

My guess is that the government subsidy per first class passenger as a % of the total fare is less than the % of the far subsidized for coach passengers, even if you factored in the amount of the dining car total cost that is attributable to first class passengers dining in the diner. By that measure, the dining car is not such a "money loser"...if we look at the Pullman charge in the '40s to '60s, from what I have seen it was around 3 times the cost of the basic train ticket. It seems to be quite a bit more than that ratio now. If so, the the dining car and sleeping cars are pulling more of their own weight than the coaches are.


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## AlanB (Oct 14, 2013)

cirdan said:


> AlanB said:
> 
> 
> > Put simply; the union must defend the employee, without regard to what morals or even common sense might otherwise dictate.
> ...


Oh, I wouldn't argue that at all. I was simply explaining to others why it is that the union defends someone who based upon all appearances should be fired.


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## AlanB (Oct 14, 2013)

Guest said:


> My guess is that the government subsidy per first class passenger as a % of the total fare is less than the % of the far subsidized for coach passengers, even if you factored in the amount of the dining car total cost that is attributable to first class passengers dining in the diner. By that measure, the dining car is not such a "money loser"...if we look at the Pullman charge in the '40s to '60s, from what I have seen it was around 3 times the cost of the basic train ticket. It seems to be quite a bit more than that ratio now. If so, the the dining car and sleeping cars are pulling more of their own weight than the coaches are.


No need to guess, NARP published a study a few years back and shortly before a dramatic price increase for sleepers, that showed even then that sleeper pax covered their extra costs and that there was then a bit of money left over to actually subsidize the railfares for those in coach.


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