"Just for You" was tested on a few trains. It's a pre-selected boxed dining car meal available for purchase by coach passengers. The LSA walks the coaches and takes order and payment, the coach attendant is responsible for delivering the meals. The meals are prepared by the chef. They are all served at the same time.
I had this meal on the Sunset Ltd several times, it was Excellent!
Amtrak offers kosher meals on the long-distance trains. You need to give them 72-hour notice (by phone.) The meals are OK, basically flex meals with more food. A major problem is that the whole thing is stored frozen, which means that it has to be prepared just right, or you end up with frozen pasta salad, even if the main is heated up correctly.
We once asked our SCA if we could, as sleeping car passengers, request a “Just for You” meal in place of what was on the regular long-distance menu and she thought that we could. (Although we didn’t order it, we were tempted.)
They do so even now, in addition to Low Cholesterol meal and so called Hindu meal (which rightfully probably should be called a Jain meal, since many Hindus are non-vegetarians and there is absolutely no requirement for vegetarianism or prohibition of non-veg in general in Hinduism) in flights to India etc.
The hot water already on board has been sufficient for me. YMMV.
Clearly a person who takes pride in his work.
The Cafe car attendants on the Downeaster generally do this when I have ordered a cheeseburger. Note that they are employees of the contractor (NexDine) and are not Amtrak employees.
I've seen them do that, too. I think it's what they're supposed to do all the time. I also recall that the Amfleet 1 cafe have two ovens, they both looks like microwaves, but at least one also can be a convection/toaster over, thus you can get the bun toasted.
My solution is just to get cold sandwiches in the cafe car.
No thanks. I'll take flex over that.
I mean... it's more healthy and can't taste any worse! haha.
Amtrak Food and beverage service always comes down to the employee who is serving - however hot water and ice are generally available by request in the cafe car. I would plan on keeping it reasonable though, asking for multiple cups of hot water, multiple times per trip, is more likely to get denied. Same with ice.
Shame there is no way to rely in advance of boarding on these things being available. No worries, I always bring my travel kettle on my trips.
Solves that issue.
Do you bring a device to heat water on the train or do you get hot water from train attendants - if you do does it require 1 or 2 cups of water?
You can get hot water directly from the cafe attendant.
Amazon has a Norpro immersion heater that draws 2.5A or 300W - is that too much?
Not by itself, that is pretty low for such a thing. But bear in mind that the room outlets are on a 15A circuit that is shared with at least some other rooms. While I don't know this for certain, I understand that crews are only supposed to reset a tripped breaker at most twice, if it trips again, they are not supposed to reset it. So use of high draw devices could result in a block of rooms having their power cut (which is of concern to me as a CPAP user).
