Amtrak's New "Fresh Choices" Dining on CL & LSL

[railiner]

Maybe they will just make things an old SP automat car and if the vending machines break down, too bad. Hope for a burrito lady. [emoji37]

The way it's going, you may not be so far off in your prediction...


If the worst does happen, I believe that will present great opportunities for enterprising entrepreneurs to fill the vacuum with some kind of alternate service...

Such as an 'app' on your smart phone that would let you choose from an excellent menu, order ahead, and have hot or cold meals delivered to you right at the platform on some of the stops enroute. Such a plan could work, even if the train were delayed. That would work out better than having scheduled meal stops at stations, like in the Harvey House era. And it would offer much greater choices...

For example, e-Catering on Indian railways is already a thriving concern with more delviery stations coming on line as time passes.

https://www.travelkhana.com/tkblog/tag/e-catering

It is probably a little harder to operate such a thing profitably when there is only one train or less to serve per day though.

That is the sort of operation that I had imagined...

As for Amtrak objecting to vendors serving their patrons in that manner...how could they, and why would they, as it would add to their customer's travel experience, in light of them not deeming it feasible to do itself, any longer?

Even now, I believe companies like Uber are already in this business, or starting it for home restaurant deliveries. No special catering would have to be set up exclusively to handle this...just ordering from existing restaurants and delivering it trainside would be all that would be required...

And it could be done whenever the passenger feels hungry, regardless of where the train happens to be at mealtime.

 

[jis]

The main difference between delivering food to a static location vs. to a moving location is dealing with delayed trains. IR e-Catering actually does a good integration with rail operations and attempts to account for delayed trains so that food is delivered close to meal times irrespective of the location of the train. In order to accommodate this they have to stick to a core fixed menu set which they know they can deliver wherever, and they can fall back to if the food needs to be delivered at a location other than the normal scheduled location.

This in some sense is merely applying technology to a long standing practice on IR which has served it well for over a hundred years. Very few IR trains actually had on board food service ever. Restaurant Cars were few and far between, only to be found in the so called "Crack Mail Trains". for the rest it was ordering from track-side prep centers. The method used on LD trains was for the food service crew on the trains, and often this was just the Conductor and his staff - who took orders from passengers and telegraphed them ahead to the stop expected to be at around meal time. The food was prepared there and was served on the train when it arrived at the stop. It was a standard menu set with Veg and Nonveg and so called Western offering. There is even a recipe called "Rail Curry" that is even now popular outside of any service on a train. I remember back in the day ordering "Rice-Curry" or "Chicken Curry Rice" lunch or dinner. Breakfast menu included either an Omelette with Toast or Vegetable Cutlet with Toast and of course copious amounts of Tea with Milk and Sugar. It was not gourmet meal. But it was adequate and tasteful, and in most cases delivered close to meal time.

 

[cpotisch]

The main difference between delivering food to a static location vs. to a moving location is dealing with delayed trains. IR e-Catering actually does a good integration with rail operations and attempts to account for delayed trains so that food is delivered close to meal times irrespective of the location of the train. In order to accommodate this they have to stick to a core fixed menu set which they know they can deliver wherever, and they can fall back to if the food needs to be delivered at a location other than the normal scheduled location.

This in some sense is merely applying technology to a long standing practice on IR which has served it well for over a hundred years. Very few IR trains actually had on board food service ever. Restaurant Cars were few and far between, only to be found in the so called "Crack Mail Trains". for the rest it was ordering from track-side prep centers. The method used on LD trains was for the food service crew on the trains, and often this was just the Conductor and his staff - who took orders from passengers and telegraphed them ahead to the stop expected to be at around meal time. The food was prepared there and was served on the train when it arrived at the stop. It was a standard menu set with Veg and Nonveg and so called Western offering. There is even a recipe called "Rail Curry" that is even now popular outside of any service on a train. I remember back in the day ordering "Rice-Curry" or "Chicken Curry Rice" lunch or dinner. Breakfast menu included either an Omelette with Toast or Vegetable Cutlet with Toast and of course copious amounts of Tea with Milk and Sugar. It was not gourmet meal. But it was adequate and tasteful, and in most cases delivered close to meal time.

What’s IR? It was probably mentioned but I either can’t remember or didn’t see it...

 

[keelhauled]

On further thought, a little detective work builds character.

 

[Lonestar648]

Any vendor delivering may have to have the station owner's permission, legal responsibility in case of an accident has to be addressed. More and more security at train stations is becoming a concern. Stops for a delivery would have to be at service stops where the train dwell is long enough to complete the delivery(s), otherwise if the train is running late dwell time could be barely 2 minutes. I really do not see this working, logistically nor with a profit incentive for the vendor.

 

[cpotisch]

Indian rail?

 

[PRR 60]

Indian rail?

Indian Railways

 

[jis]

Indian rail?

Yup. Indian Railways.

The outfit that manages the entire F&B service provisioning either departmentally (on some trains) or through contracts (on most trains and stations) is IRCTC (Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation), a wholly owned subsidiary of Indian Railways. It also manages the enormous Reservation and e-Ticket system of Indian Railways.

To think of it in terms of Amtrak, imagine if Amtrak had a wholly owned subsidiary separate corporation to handle F&B and Reservation and Ticketing (but curiously, not car attendants), i.e. almost all Customer Facing operations so as to keep the cost accounting separate from operations, and capital constructions, that would be the equivalent of IRCTC. Of course it is another matter that IR's passenger operations is about ten times the size of Amtrak in dollar terms and much larger in terms of passenger and passenger miles per year. That is because individual ticket prices are much less than on Amtrak.

 

[JRR]

If the thought is that Amtrak can become profitable by eliminating LD trains, then why not just eliminate the sleepers which will eliminate all but the most diehard of LD passengers so that no one will be left to complain?[emoji30][emoji29][emoji26]

 

[keelhauled]

If the thought is that Amtrak can become profitable by eliminating LD trains, then why not just eliminate the sleepers which will eliminate all but the most diehard of LD passengers so that no one will be left to complain?[emoji30][emoji29][emoji26]

Sleeper passengers are a minority. 21% of total passengers on the California Zephyr travel in sleepers, 19% on the CL, 9% on the Cardinal, 14% on the CONO, 17% on the CS, 11% on the Crescent, 17% on the EB, 11% on the LSL, 12% on the SM, 10% on the SS, 17% on the SWC, 19% on the SL, and 10% on the TE. In addition to being a minority in ridership, sleeper passengers are also a minority in revenue, although the difference is narrower.

 

[cpotisch]

If the thought is that Amtrak can become profitable by eliminating LD trains, then why not just eliminate the sleepers which will eliminate all but the most diehard of LD passengers so that no one will be left to complain?[emoji30]☹[emoji29][emoji26]

Sleeper passengers are a minority. 21% of total passengers on the California Zephyr travel in sleepers, 19% on the CL, 9% on the Cardinal, 14% on the CONO, 17% on the CS, 11% on the Crescent, 17% on the EB, 11% on the LSL, 12% on the SM, 10% on the SS, 17% on the SWC, 19% on the SL, and 10% on the TE. In addition to being a minority in ridership, sleeper passengers are also a minority in revenue, although the difference is narrower.

But they still tend to be net profitable. If sleeper passengers bring on two or three times the revenue of coach pax (which exceeds the cost of offering the service), it still makes fiscal sense. It wouldnt make sense to just replace all coaches with sleepers, because you might only get 20% occupancy, but by having a couple cars to accommodate that relatively small number of passengers, is not bad. If the added revenue exceeds the added operating costs, regardless of how small the market is, it is still a profitable service.

 

[JoeBas]

...

That said, the business landscape is LITTERED with the bones of companies and organizations who took for granted and betrayed their core customers chasing the whimsical, mythical "next generation", with the attitude of "We can do whatever we want, what are they going to do, stop using us????". They never seem to realize that in many cases, the answer is "yes".

Amtrak's "core customer" is not the long distance passenger that uses a dining car. 88% of Amtrak passengers ride trains that do not have dining cars, and of the 12% that ride trains with a dining car, some significant percentage of them do not use it. If about 1/3 of the passengers on a long distance train do not use the dining car, that reduces the utilization to about 8% of all Amtrak customers. Thus, for about 92% of Amtrak's customers, changes in dining car service will have no impact on their on board experience and perception of value.

Those stats are skewed toward the NEC, and you know it, and it's a bit disingenuous to use them. I guarantee you that it will have an impact on their on board experience and perception of value if people who ride the LD network no longer ride the LD network, and the LD network goes away, and with it Congress' support, and they have to pay the full cost of their ride, and their fare goes up 250%.

 

[Ryan]

Reality is skewed towards the NEC as well. Guess where Amtrak's "core customers" are?

(hint: they're in the top right corner of the map)

 

[JoeBas]

It's been said before, and I'll say it again. 435+100+1. Those are Amtrak's "Core customers".

If the Top Right Corner of the map wants to go it alone, fine. But not a dime from the rest of the country!

 

[cpotisch]

It's been said before, and I'll say it again. 435+100+1. Those are Amtrak's "Core customers".

If the Top Right Corner of the map wants to go it alone, fine. But not a dime from the rest of the country!

I’m a moron today, so I’m gonna ask, what does “435+100+1” mean?

 

[Ryan]

On balance, every state the the NEC runs through sends more money to the Federal government than they receive back in the form of Federal programs.

That's a game that the rest of the country would lose.

 

[Ryan]

It's been said before, and I'll say it again. 435+100+1. Those are Amtrak's "Core customers".

If the Top Right Corner of the map wants to go it alone, fine. But not a dime from the rest of the country!

I’m a moron today, so I’m gonna ask, what does “435+100+1” mean?

How many members are there in the House and the Senate?

 

[JoeBas]

On balance, every state the the NEC runs through sends more money to the Federal government than they receive back in the form of Federal programs.

That's a game that the rest of the country would lose.

If you think the rest of this country won't cut their noses off to spite their own face, you must not get to a lot of the rest of this country.

 

[jis]

I don’t think the downgrade of dining service will cause anybody to decide to unfund Amtrak. As a matter of fact, I don’t even think replacement of many of today’s LD trains by a bunch of medium distance trains will cause such either. Completely removing all service from the LD routes of today will cause that bridge to be crossed perhaps, since that would completely breach the original compact.

 

[keelhauled]

But they still tend to be net profitable. If sleeper passengers bring on two or three times the revenue of coach pax (which exceeds the cost of offering the service), it still makes fiscal sense. It wouldnt make sense to just replace all coaches with sleepers, because you might only get 20% occupancy, but by having a couple cars to accommodate that relatively small number of passengers, is not bad. If the added revenue exceeds the added operating costs, regardless of how small the market is, it is still a profitable service.

Whether they are net profitable or not depends on a myriad of different factors, very few of which are publicly available to you or I (especially since the recent change to the monthly reports), and any of the numbers can be twisted any which way by people both inside Amtrak and out, depending on the point they want to make. Which is why I avoided drawing any conclusions about anything.

 

[Skyline]

If the thought is that Amtrak can become profitable by eliminating LD trains, then why not just eliminate the sleepers which will eliminate all but the most diehard of LD passengers so that no one will be left to complain?[emoji30][emoji29][emoji26]

Sleeper passengers are a minority. 21% of total passengers on the California Zephyr travel in sleepers, 19% on the CL, 9% on the Cardinal, 14% on the CONO, 17% on the CS, 11% on the Crescent, 17% on the EB, 11% on the LSL, 12% on the SM, 10% on the SS, 17% on the SWC, 19% on the SL, and 10% on the TE. In addition to being a minority in ridership, sleeper passengers are also a minority in revenue, although the difference is narrower.

The percentage is low, the prices are high, and YET many sleepers are sold out months in advance. So that percentage thing is misleading. Put ample sleepers in a consist and watch the percentage rise on many days!

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

If the thought is that Amtrak can become profitable by eliminating LD trains, then why not just eliminate the sleepers which will eliminate all but the most diehard of LD passengers so that no one will be left to complain?[emoji30][emoji29][emoji26]

Sleeper passengers are a minority. 21% of total passengers on the California Zephyr travel in sleepers, 19% on the CL, 9% on the Cardinal, 14% on the CONO, 17% on the CS, 11% on the Crescent, 17% on the EB, 11% on the LSL, 12% on the SM, 10% on the SS, 17% on the SWC, 19% on the SL, and 10% on the TE. In addition to being a minority in ridership, sleeper passengers are also a minority in revenue, although the difference is narrower.

The percentage is low, the prices are high, and YET many sleepers are sold out months in advance. So that percentage thing is misleading. Put ample sleepers in a consist and watch the percentage rise on many days!

They just have to find them.

 

[cpotisch]

If the thought is that Amtrak can become profitable by eliminating LD trains, then why not just eliminate the sleepers which will eliminate all but the most diehard of LD passengers so that no one will be left to complain?[emoji30][emoji29][emoji26]

Sleeper passengers are a minority. 21% of total passengers on the California Zephyr travel in sleepers, 19% on the CL, 9% on the Cardinal, 14% on the CONO, 17% on the CS, 11% on the Crescent, 17% on the EB, 11% on the LSL, 12% on the SM, 10% on the SS, 17% on the SWC, 19% on the SL, and 10% on the TE. In addition to being a minority in ridership, sleeper passengers are also a minority in revenue, although the difference is narrower.

The percentage is low, the prices are high, and YET many sleepers are sold out months in advance. So that percentage thing is misleading. Put ample sleepers in a consist and watch the percentage rise on many days!

They just have to find them.

The Viewliner II sleepers should be arriving early 2019, and it is expected they’ll be used to increase capacity on some of the higher demand sleeper routes...

 

[JRR]

My point was not about the % of passengers who ride the sleepers on LD trains but rather, without then, very few passengers would have any desire to ride LD.

There is a lot more happening on an LD train than just those who want to ride LD.

The fact is that an LD train makes possible any number of trips between various stops along the way without having to take into account connections to make those trips.

Additionally, the sleepers contribute or at least should contribute to profitability of the route.

I view the food portion as being an enhancement to the service which makes a high charge more palatable to the potential sleeper passenger. It F&B is profitable, that would be a bonus but there is nothing wrong with a loss leader in business if it gets people in the door. Once you get them there, you can up sell or otherwise exploit the opportunity. ( wine etc.).

 

[Blackwolf]

Remove the Sleepers, the Long Distance train dies.

If higher/premium accommodations are such a drag, I can't fathom for an instant why there is a single First/Business/Premium Coach seat flying anymore. I mean, shouldn't all airlines be more like Southwest and RyanAir?