1950's Zephyr food V Boxed Meals...

[caravanman]

Enjoy those new boxed meals...

https://youtu.be/oYNQmI2m_iQ?t=16m50s

Quite a downgrade, methinks, but not too sure about "the recorded dinner music".

Ed.

 

[Grandpa D]

Notice how the passengers are well dressed. Nothing even close to that on today's trains.

 

[ehbowen]

Notice how the passengers are well dressed. Nothing even close to that on today's trains.

This is me in March 2015, ready for my first dinner aboard the Southwest Chief. I dressed up specifically to pay homage to the tradition of the Chief and the Super Chief.

 

[Seaboard92]

If I'm traveling with a suit I will generally put it on for the diner actually. We can't make the food any better or classier. Nor can we control how others dress. But we can definitely make ourselves look classier.

 

[cpotisch]

If I'm traveling with a suit I will generally put it on for the diner actually. We can't make the food any better or classier. Nor can we control how others dress. But we can definitely make ourselves look classier.

Agreed. I also feel like if you dress up well and look presentable that they might not put you with terrible table-mates. That's probably not true, but I like to think that it is, and isn't that really all that matters?

 

[AmtrakBlue]

If I'm traveling with a suit I will generally put it on for the diner actually. We can't make the food any better or classier. Nor can we control how others dress. But we can definitely make ourselves look classier.

Agreed. I also feel like if you dress up well and look presentable that they might not put you with terrible table-mates. That's probably not true, but I like to think that it is, and isn't that really all that matters?

Sounds snobbish to me, IMHO.

 

[Seaboard92]

I don't do it to be set aside. I do it because you never know who you will meet. For instance I met Paul McCartney's North American Tour Manager on the Coast Starlight out of Portland a few years back in the diner. Ended up talking to him for four hours about music in the parlor car.

 

[Skyline]

Enjoy those new boxed meals...

https://youtu.be/oYNQmI2m_iQ?t=16m50s

Quite a downgrade, methinks, but not too sure about "the recorded dinner music".

Ed.

The food and service, yes! The "costumes" people wore back then, hell no!

 

[Skyline]

I don't do it to be set aside. I do it because you never know who you will meet. For instance I met Paul McCartney's North American Tour Manager on the Coast Starlight out of Portland a few years back in the diner. Ended up talking to him for four hours about music in the parlor car.

Are you suggesting if you had been wearing jeans and a t-shirt he wouldn't have spoken to you?

 

[Seaboard92]

No I'm just saying you never know who you might meet. So I always dress for success. But that's me.

 

[cpotisch]

If I'm traveling with a suit I will generally put it on for the diner actually. We can't make the food any better or classier. Nor can we control how others dress. But we can definitely make ourselves look classier.

Agreed. I also feel like if you dress up well and look presentable that they might not put you with terrible table-mates. That's probably not true, but I like to think that it is, and isn't that really all that matters?

Sounds snobbish to me, IMHO.

I was mostly joking. I will say that ever since we were seated with a guy who kept shouting profanity and had a very long and loud phone call with his friend to get advice on what to order, while the waiter stood there waiting, I'm often just a tad concerned about who I'll be seated with. But I do not actually go to the trouble of making myself look presentable, just so that I can possibly be put with a better tablemate. That would be dumb and unnecessary.

 

[caravanman]

I tend to go for the hobo look, either I get a table to myself, or "interesting" seating companions.

 

[jis]

I tend to go with my everyday look, and it is not clear that it has any effect on the random variation of table mates I get. Has been the same for the last 40 years that I have ridden Amtrak.

 

[railiner]

When I travel, I like to just blend in with whatever seems to be the norm, so as not to stand out...

When I first went to work for an airline, we had strict dress regulations for pass travel, and if we hoped to upgrade into first class, we had to wear a tie and jacket. As time passed, the airline relaxed those rules, because we would 'stand out' (unless on business heavy flights, like New York/Chicago), and the airline did not want people to be 'recognized' as pass traveler's.

 

[chakk]

I don't do it to be set aside. I do it because you never know who you will meet. For instance I met Paul McCartney's North American Tour Manager on the Coast Starlight out of Portland a few years back in the diner. Ended up talking to him for four hours about music in the parlor car.

I didn’t know they played music in the parlor car on the CS.

But, like Groucho, I did once shoot an elephant in my pajamas. (Someone else can provide the punchline.)

 

[ParanoidAndroid]

I don't do it to be set aside. I do it because you never know who you will meet. For instance I met Paul McCartney's North American Tour Manager on the Coast Starlight out of Portland a few years back in the diner. Ended up talking to him for four hours about music in the parlor car.

I didn’t know they played music in the parlor car on the CS.

But, like Groucho, I did once shoot an elephant in my pajamas. (Someone else can provide the punchline.)

I almost thought you were living under a rock for your entire life.

 

[caravanman]

So the elephant in the parlor car woke you up by playing music, and that was why you shot him without getting dressed?

The defence seems clear cut to me, Detective Columbo...

Ed.

 

[ehbowen]

I don't do it to be set aside. I do it because you never know who you will meet. For instance I met Paul McCartney's North American Tour Manager on the Coast Starlight out of Portland a few years back in the diner. Ended up talking to him for four hours about music in the parlor car.

I didn’t know they played music in the parlor car on the CS.

But, like Groucho, I did once shoot an elephant in my pajamas. (Someone else can provide the punchline.)

When the Superliner Is were new, the lower level of the Sightseer Lounges were equipped with an electric piano. Nobody to play them, though....

 

[cpotisch]

I don't do it to be set aside. I do it because you never know who you will meet. For instance I met Paul McCartney's North American Tour Manager on the Coast Starlight out of Portland a few years back in the diner. Ended up talking to him for four hours about music in the parlor car.

I didn’t know they played music in the parlor car on the CS.

But, like Groucho, I did once shoot an elephant in my pajamas. (Someone else can provide the punchline.)

When the Superliner Is were new, the lower level of the Sightseer Lounges were equipped with an electric piano. Nobody to play them, though....

Wait, really? (I'm surprised at the first part, not really the second part).

 

[Alexandria Nick]

There was a bit of a fad in the 70s. Malls used to have entire stores full of electric pianos. Growing up, virtually everyone seemed to have at least one relative with one that generally served as a thing to bury in a spare room.

 

[ehbowen]

When the Superliner Is were new, the lower level of the Sightseer Lounges were equipped with an electric piano. Nobody to play them, though....

Wait, really? (I'm surprised at the first part, not really the second part).

Oh, yes. I saw them while traveling on the Sunset Limited and Texas Eagle in the 1981-83 time frame. I was thinking that I ought to bring my Mom aboard as she was and is a concert-quality pianist. Unfortunately, the first time I could persuade her to come aboard an Amtrak train was 2006...and by then the pianos were long gone!

 

[Seaboard92]

I said we were talking. No had their been a piano I would have played.

I do have an ex Amtrak Le Pub car complete with piano in it still. I just restored the electric piano so I can play it after hours.

 

[cpotisch]

Is this what we're talking about?

 

[railiner]

Besides the piano, the Superliner Sightseer had a very expensive, high end Revox entertainment system. They could play broadcast radio, tapes, and there was one television on the lower level, and two on the upper level to show movies on.

The only train that IIRC, had a paid piano player, was in 'Le Pub' aboard the Montrealer during the Heritage era, although I can't be sure of that...

 

[jis]

Yeah, "Le Pub" was wonderful while it lasted. I loved the Montrealer. Slumbercoach on it was one of my favorite rides even though it was a double pain in the butt to cross the border since I was not a US citizen yet. Once I got my Green Card (which back then was not Green

) it simplified things a bit. Anyhow, whiling away the evening in "Le Pub" with some pub wood and drinks was my thing on that train. Usually there was very nice company to be had in that car.