Amtrak explicitly stated the other month in their five year plan that they were looking at having sleeper passengers pay for meals in the diner, as they ought to. Currently their ticket prices are set without consideration of meal expenses.
Amenities Being Eliminated from Long Distance Routes
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neroden
Engineer
And if the dining cars were providing even the level of service they were last year, I'd happily pay for on-board meals.
The cuts to the menu, however, mean that I'll probably be packing my own meals for lunch and dinner, and asking the attendant to find space for my ADA-required cooler. People who don't hate flying and driving as much as I do will just stop riding.
This is really, really stupid.
Amtrak hasn't even bothered to fix the actual, previously-identified problem with the dining car service, which severely hampers its ability to produce revenue -- namely, all the time spent by the employees on paperwork and inventory rather than on serving customers. "Point of Sale" in the dining cars was supposed to fix that, but I haven't heard a peep for years about the implementation.
Many people have suggested implementation of pre-reserving / pre-ordering for meals, which is a great idea. Amtrak isn't doing that either.
Implement those and it would be interesting to see the results. I'd guess they'd be good.
Instead, Amtrak is doing things, like slashing the already tiny menu, which will substantially reduce revenue -- and things like making it unclear what's on the menu, which will increase costs. (As everyone spends lots and lots of time asking what the heck the menu items are.)
This is administrative sabotage. I don't know what idiot proposed these changes, but that idiot doesn't belong in Amtrak administration.
The cuts to the menu, however, mean that I'll probably be packing my own meals for lunch and dinner, and asking the attendant to find space for my ADA-required cooler. People who don't hate flying and driving as much as I do will just stop riding.
This is really, really stupid.
Amtrak hasn't even bothered to fix the actual, previously-identified problem with the dining car service, which severely hampers its ability to produce revenue -- namely, all the time spent by the employees on paperwork and inventory rather than on serving customers. "Point of Sale" in the dining cars was supposed to fix that, but I haven't heard a peep for years about the implementation.
Many people have suggested implementation of pre-reserving / pre-ordering for meals, which is a great idea. Amtrak isn't doing that either.
Implement those and it would be interesting to see the results. I'd guess they'd be good.
Instead, Amtrak is doing things, like slashing the already tiny menu, which will substantially reduce revenue -- and things like making it unclear what's on the menu, which will increase costs. (As everyone spends lots and lots of time asking what the heck the menu items are.)
This is administrative sabotage. I don't know what idiot proposed these changes, but that idiot doesn't belong in Amtrak administration.
Or it a administration plan to eliminate the trains.
Moves, patterns, retirements, and then bye bye trains.
yarrow
Engineer
doesn't all this come down to our friend, smilin' joe boardman?
jis
Permanent Way Inspector
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Administator
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It actually comes down to a lot of very fertile imagination on all sides 
At what point does the imagination become real?
When we, as taxpayers, demand more and better service from our elected officials. Please, take a minute out from complaining here, and write to your Congressional representatives. They need to hear from you.
Green Maned Lion
Engineer
Charlie, don't be Naive. The politicians don't listen to us.
They won't if we don't even try! I can be as cynical as anyone, but c'mon, that's a pretty defeatist attitude.
JoeBas
Conductor
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Dunno... at this point unless I'm working for a fat cat lobbyist I think I have a better chance wishing for the Blue Fairy to show up... ... ...
Green Maned Lion
Engineer
You have to work much harder than a letter recycling campaign. The motto in Washington is that what the mail man bringeth the trash man taketh away.
Instead we should be pushing for 1) more face to faces, 2) pressure put onto major factors (like campaign contributors) to side with us on the issues, and similar, hands-on action.
Letter writing is a feel good thing that helps the lazy feel like they are doing something and misleads those who can and might do more into thinking they are actually working on the problem.
Instead we should be pushing for 1) more face to faces, 2) pressure put onto major factors (like campaign contributors) to side with us on the issues, and similar, hands-on action.
Letter writing is a feel good thing that helps the lazy feel like they are doing something and misleads those who can and might do more into thinking they are actually working on the problem.
Devil's Advocate
⠀⠀⠀
And yet you apparently think he should listen to you. I liked it better before you came back to spread your why bother nobody cares attitude.
Green Maned Lion
Engineer
You totally missed the point, DA. Retread my last post. Angle of attack, not futility of effort.
Instead of trading personal jabs, let's talk about something real. On April 29, a couple of hundred folks convened at the NARP Council meeting in Washington, DC, and spent the day visiting our Congressional representatives, in person. Since I reside in Washington state, I met with the staffs of Senators Murray and Cantwell, and almost all of our state's Congresspeople, including Rep. Rick Larson [WA-2], who is on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. And I met face-to-face with Rep. Jim McDermott [WA-7].
We had a very specific list of requests. Some will be difficult to achieve, given the current political gridlock, but one item was received with unanimous approval: a change to PRIIA section 207 that would give the FRA the power to set and enforce service standards for passenger rail. In other words, this change would make it possible to hold the freight railroads accountable for poor treatment of Amtrak and other passenger carriers (like commuter rail services). Rep. Larson is in an excellent position to make this happen.
We spend a lot of time on this board complaining about how poorly Amtrak is treated by the freight railroads. I know it won't be easy, but I am cautiously optimistic that the change we lobbied for might actually improve the situation.
The bottom line is this. Discussions with lawmakers are worthwhile. Not everyone can afford the time and money to go to DC, but all representatives visit their home districts regularly, and if they want to get re-elected, they do listen to their constituents. Letters and emails might not be as effective, but politicians can count. If all of the registered users of AU (almost 7,000!) contacted their elected representatives regularly, then yes, we can make a difference.
We had a very specific list of requests. Some will be difficult to achieve, given the current political gridlock, but one item was received with unanimous approval: a change to PRIIA section 207 that would give the FRA the power to set and enforce service standards for passenger rail. In other words, this change would make it possible to hold the freight railroads accountable for poor treatment of Amtrak and other passenger carriers (like commuter rail services). Rep. Larson is in an excellent position to make this happen.
We spend a lot of time on this board complaining about how poorly Amtrak is treated by the freight railroads. I know it won't be easy, but I am cautiously optimistic that the change we lobbied for might actually improve the situation.
The bottom line is this. Discussions with lawmakers are worthwhile. Not everyone can afford the time and money to go to DC, but all representatives visit their home districts regularly, and if they want to get re-elected, they do listen to their constituents. Letters and emails might not be as effective, but politicians can count. If all of the registered users of AU (almost 7,000!) contacted their elected representatives regularly, then yes, we can make a difference.
Then why do they dedicate a portion of sleeper fares to dining car revenues???
D.P. Roberts
Conductor
I would be very upset if passengers had to start paying for their own meals. If Amtrak were really about to start doing that, then the recent cuts don't make any sense.
Think about it. Currently, the prices listed on the menu are irrelevant to most dining car passengers, whose meals are currently included in their sleeper fare. "Little things" like using real china, tablecloths, flowers, etc. are irrelevant to Amtrak - sleeper passengers are going to show up at the dining car at mealtimes anyway, so you might as well cut everything that's not absolutely necessary.
But if passengers are going to have to pay for their own meals, all of those formerly-irrelevant details are suddenly going to become very important. Amtrak is now going to have to persuade passengers to eat in the dining car, and all of those details - along with freshly prepared food made from fresh ingredients - are what will bring people to the dining car. Otherwise, people will just eat a microwaved pizza from the cafe for a fraction of the price, or bring their own food.
I just think that running a dining car that's attempting to lure customers in is exactly the opposite from running a dining car on minimal losses (which is what they're currently trying to do). They may, at some point, force diners to pay for their meals, but Amtrak's current behavior doesn't make it seem imminent.
Think about it. Currently, the prices listed on the menu are irrelevant to most dining car passengers, whose meals are currently included in their sleeper fare. "Little things" like using real china, tablecloths, flowers, etc. are irrelevant to Amtrak - sleeper passengers are going to show up at the dining car at mealtimes anyway, so you might as well cut everything that's not absolutely necessary.
But if passengers are going to have to pay for their own meals, all of those formerly-irrelevant details are suddenly going to become very important. Amtrak is now going to have to persuade passengers to eat in the dining car, and all of those details - along with freshly prepared food made from fresh ingredients - are what will bring people to the dining car. Otherwise, people will just eat a microwaved pizza from the cafe for a fraction of the price, or bring their own food.
I just think that running a dining car that's attempting to lure customers in is exactly the opposite from running a dining car on minimal losses (which is what they're currently trying to do). They may, at some point, force diners to pay for their meals, but Amtrak's current behavior doesn't make it seem imminent.
It's not actually dedicated, it's just an accounting thing (Acela actually has a dedicated set out which I think cooks the books somewhat). So you're Joe Schmoe sleeper passenger and you go to the diner. The list price of whatever you chose to eat is, eventually, transferred over to F&B as part of internal accounting. But there isn't a dedicated portion of your ticket set aside for it, your ticket price isn't set with the transfer in mind (and could, theoretically, result in negative sleeper revenue) and if you don't eat anything at all, nothing gets credited to F&B.
My understanding is that back in the 1980s, dining cars were on the verge of being gotten rid of due to lack of patronage, so Amtrak decided to give free food to sleeper passengers in order to boost patronage numbers. If anything it increased losses, but the dining cars remained.
One should note, incidentally, that ridership on the San Joaquin hardly seems to have been hurt by the loss of the dining car back in 2002.
So the food is not being paid for? It just magically appears? There is no cost associated with it?
2002? Long way to go back to justify a position.......and the San Juaquin is a 6.5 hour trip, compared to the overnighters or double overnighters........you picked an apple to compare to grapefruit.......
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Where does this "Free Food" come from? There is no such a thing as Free Food!
Amtrak pays for it, we pay for it, the money goes into the pot and the bean counters (sorry Dick!) Juggle the numbers using their approved methods of accounting!(aka cooking the books!)
Bottom line, why pay more for less! YMMV!
Amtrak pays for it, we pay for it, the money goes into the pot and the bean counters (sorry Dick!) Juggle the numbers using their approved methods of accounting!(aka cooking the books!)
Bottom line, why pay more for less! YMMV!
jis
Permanent Way Inspector
Staff member
Administator
Moderator
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Gathering Team Member
Having lived through it, one thing I can tell you is that the inclusion of food in Sleeper ticket was anything but free. When that happened Sleeper fares went up significantly in one fell swoop and the increase did not seem to be correlated very well with food prices either. Fortunately Slumbercoaches were not included, and I rode Slumbercoaches for as long as they were available, and didn't see the inside of a Sleeper through that period. I did use the Diner usually for breakfast and dinner during that period, and the fare difference between Sleeper and Slumbercoach was way larger than the amount I had to pay to use the Diner.
Purely from my personal perspective, I would love to see food be separated from transport fares and the transport and lodging fares lowered. I would go to the Diner for maybe one or two full meals a day that I am happy to pay separately for, but certainly not for full three meals a day. That is way beyond what my body needs. But of course, expecting fares to go down is a random dream, and won;t happen. All that will happen if food is removed from being covered by the fare is that Diners will eventually fade away, unless the pricing in them become more in line with say something like Applebees at most and perhaps lower, which means more net losses, which may lead to the same end result. Consequently, overall I'd be worried if the inclusion of meal in Sleeper fares was reversed. So is you head spinning now from my about face from where I started?
As usual Jis (why does spell check insist on changing his name to his?) hit the nail on the head! I too used to frequently ride in Slumber Coaches on the WAS-ATL route of the Crescent instead of Sleeping Cars and usually had Breakfast in the Diner on the way North and Dinner on the way South! Quite a bit cheaper and on a lowly civil servants salary it made these trips possible!
If Amtrak shoots itself in the foot and eliminates meals being included in the fare for sleeper passengers I would hope that the option of renting a roomette @ a lesser fare would be offered but doubt that it would!
As I said previously if this happens I'll go back to riding Coach and taking my food and drink, riding Mega Bus etc for shorter trips and even flying for LD trips!
If Amtrak shoots itself in the foot and eliminates meals being included in the fare for sleeper passengers I would hope that the option of renting a roomette @ a lesser fare would be offered but doubt that it would!
As I said previously if this happens I'll go back to riding Coach and taking my food and drink, riding Mega Bus etc for shorter trips and even flying for LD trips!
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tricia
Conductor
I've been thinking exactly this through the last few pages of this thread. thanks for taking time to type it out.
The feeling I get from that article is more complaints about "little things." For example, the paragraphs spent on "priority unloading" and ticket prices going up feel more like Kaminer is spoiled than true complaints about Amtrak. (It sounds like Kaminer just got lucky before with getting his car fast. Now at least customers can guarantee it.)
There are legitimate complaints about the cuts. However, that article barely scratches the surface of the complaints, and the few complaints it does bring up it, for the most part, blows out of proportion. (The $8 amenity kit, for example, was never meant to replace the sleeper amenity kit. A casual reader may think that the kit is required in order for a sleeper car passenger to get a pillow, which simply isn't true.) I'd rather see the outrage over some of the true cuts that seem to be coming down the line, like more limited menu options, the probable loss of all-day beverages (other than water) in the sleepers, etc.
There are legitimate complaints about the cuts. However, that article barely scratches the surface of the complaints, and the few complaints it does bring up it, for the most part, blows out of proportion. (The $8 amenity kit, for example, was never meant to replace the sleeper amenity kit. A casual reader may think that the kit is required in order for a sleeper car passenger to get a pillow, which simply isn't true.) I'd rather see the outrage over some of the true cuts that seem to be coming down the line, like more limited menu options, the probable loss of all-day beverages (other than water) in the sleepers, etc.
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