Where I live Amtrak sleeper service is a product for retired Boomers with the odd Gen X here and there. In the US Amtrak sleepers are the most expensive way to travel via scheduled carrier service, both in terms of time and money, and they're only getting slower and more expensive over time.
This sounds a lot like The Canadian, where the views are indeed gorgeous but glowing reviews tend to gloss over questionable service standards.
As a coach passenger on Train 6 (Apr 6) I shaved and cleaned up to be respectable for breakfast on the 7th. As I suspected, there was no rationing and I was served well like anyone else. The steward did announce the rationing for coach passengers for other meals and asked that coach passengers come to see him (as I also suspected, to have the defrib gadget ready when the price would be announced). Although the train was sold out, the staff worked smoothly and didn't complain.
The hubby and I always ask for tables instead of booths at restaurants due to the "gut-squishing" issue. Hopefully eating healthy and walking the dog more this summer will help us both have smaller guts to get squished on the California Zephyr come the end of September!
While I dislike the overall car layout of the Diner-Lounges, I do like the table seating in the dining section better than the the standard tables in the regular diners.
When the Superliner Diners were Remodeled to become Cross Country Cafes ( CCC), it was planned to have them serve as a Combination Diner and Cafe Car, and for Service to be continuous, which never happened.
Nearly all travel guides recommend having some English ability when visiting America and most countries with easy access offer or require English lessons in school. I'm not saying everyone needs to know English, but if you come here with no understanding that's on you. Just like it was on me to deal with French-only, German-only, or Japanese-only announcements in those countries. You have to either get by or make do, and if I ever visit Quebec I'll remember Hannibal Buress' warning about Montreal.
I’m just wondering on what you don’t like? I think they are very nice cars that can easily serve multi-purposes in an attractive way.
The look nice but the layout is inflexible. Traditional diner lounges did not split the interior space. Basically, the service bar was at one end, and the steward's buffet at the other. The tables could be set up for a combination of dining or lounge service in proportion to demand. See SP's Pride of Texas Coffee Shop/Lounges or Lark or Cascade Club triple units. Amtrak's are inflexible and provide insufficient lounge space. I recognize some of this was enforced by the basic structure of the cars converted, galley downstairs and dumbwaiter in the middle, but that does not alter the fact that this was a poor implementation of what was traditionally a very successful car type.
During Anderson's regime they also had a plan to gut the Viewliner II Diners to make them lord only knows what. Fortunately the whole thing stopped after they trashed the interior of one car as Anderson got the boot, or rather was not retained.
I don't know which specific one. I do have a suspicion that it may be the Indianapolis since it does not appear in any roster list anymore.
I feel like the CCC is the best "flexible" food service car amtrak designed. If you had a larger lounge space the dining area would be too small to work as a full diner. If the car is being used only as a lounge, it has plenty of space.
I have no disagreement with the CCC service concept,and thought it was a great idea. However, it really could be done in any food service car. It does no good to conflate a service model with a physical car type.
When you say "flexible," are you talking about the ability to move tables and chairs around or something else? I would think that for safety reasons, the tables and chairs will need to be fixed in place. Thus, any car layout will have a fixed number of "dining tables," and a fixed number of "lounge seats." In general, I would prefer not to have to sit and eat meals at lounge seating, as the tables are usually too small for dining, and sometimes not placed conveniently. I've also had no problem using table seating for lounging about -- on the sightseer lounges I actually prefer to sit at the table seating, which allows views from both sides of the car.
I am talking about repurposing tables, not moving them around. While about 1/3rd of the Lark Club was regular diner seating, with movable chairs then, which would be booths now. The rest was banquettes that could be used for either dining or lounge service.
They have started allowing coach Pax on the western LDs since March! I have indulged as traditional dining as a coach passenger twice so far!
No. Only the routes with traditional dining (excluding the silver star) are included.
