So in one thread, we're decrying phoney accounting and fraud, based on next to nothing. But here in this thread, it's A-OK and Amtrak should be doing more of it?
Right.
I think that, fundamentally, the issue is the end more than the means. If Amtrak was clearly fudging accounting for the sake of improving service and working around a bad mandate with what amounted to a legal fiction, that would be one thing. I would note that the suggestion
has been made (somewhere) that Amtrak might consider just transferring a fixed cost amount from sleepers to the diner for the
presence of the diner (I even considered the option of doing so for all LD pax...a $7-10 "accommodation charge", maybe a bit more on longer trips, being assessed in lieu of an equivalent chunk of the fare that automatically transfers to F&B would actually basically plug the hole). That was before coach access to the diner was cut off. Bear in mind that at an RPA meeting some years ago, we had an official from Amtrak tacitly admit that mucking about with F&B transfers was Amtrak's workaround for the Mica mandate (as he cheekily encouraged us all to order the steak), and the "land and sea combo" was one such kludge as far as I could tell.
Another issue I was raising in the other thread was the obvious disconnect between costs on different trains and the (apparent) performance of food and beverage service on those trains.
For example, it is entirely probable that the Acela Cafe loses a good deal of money but inflated First Class F&B transfers (sitting in the range of $30-50 for a meal and easily $20 for drinks on a WAS-NYP run) cover for that. It's even possible that Acela First transfers are "covering" for losses on the Northeast Regionals (since IIRC the IG report on F&B only looked at the NEC as a unit rather than breaking down performance between the two trains). For what it is worth, I can at least see being "billed" $50-60 for a meal on the Acela (with at-seat service, plates, silverware, etc.). Being "billed" the same price for a glorified Chinese takeout bag bugs me (and yes, it is
partially presentation), and it gets even more insulting to realize that sleeper pax were being "billed" half the price under the old system (so we're paying more and getting less).
Finally, at least for me there was a facepalm-inducing point that
despite being able to tamper with the accounting on the Acela in terms of what pax are being "billed" for, and
despite clear disconnects between the posted prices for F&B and the accounting prices for F&B, there's still no way for Amtrak to sell a decent meal to coach pax on the eastern LD trains.
Basically, if questionable accounting is being used as a means to the end of maintaining good service in the face of a crazy mandate, I think we're mostly fine with it (even if there's likely to be some humor poked at it). It's when there are obvious shenanigans and they appear to be operating to the detriment of good service (or if they're to the benefit of it, it's something worthy of a Batman comic) that we start having issues.
