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

[crescent-zephyr]

In the employee memo that was posted wayyyyyy back, it sounded like all meals would be delivered to your room by the SCA. If you wanted to eat in the lounge, you simply took your meal there.

How it will work in reality is anyone's guess, im sure each crew will make up their own rules.

 

[Thirdrail7]

No one who actually knows what will happen has said anything publicly.

A guess? Food in a lounge works like food in a lounge – pick it up at a counter (or whatever they use), and sit wherever you can. No shortage of threads on the proper etiquette and use of lounge seats

.

I really don't want to wade through the 800 odd post to see if this has already been discussed. I presume serving those who want to eat in their room will work much like it does now. But what will be the procedure if you want to eat in in the sleeper only lounge?

Line up at a counter to place order? Attendant comes to you table to take order? SCA attendant delivers it to your room and you trudge with it through the train to the lounge? Order somehow taken ahead of time and delivered where?

Also, will you be able to occupy a seat in partially filled table if that is the only thing available?

In the employee memo that was posted wayyyyyy back, it sounded like all meals would be delivered to your room by the SCA. If you wanted to eat in the lounge, you simply took your meal there.

How it will work in reality is anyone's guess, im sure each crew will make up their own rules.

I believe it will boil to Crescent-Zephyr's thoughts on crews making their own rules. Reading this without access to interpretation, I'd say the wording is ripe for misinterpretation. The SCA's will take your reservation as always. However, if you choose not to eat in your room, it doesn't specifically state that you should proceed to the lounge car, line up and ask for your food at the appointed time. Nor does it say the SCA must pick up the food, bring it to your room and you must make your way to the lounge car.

It does say at-table dining service is not available and that seating isn't assigned so sit where you can. This is an experiment and subject to refinement. There will be a learning curve...and once it is learned, someone will change it!

Here's an interesting thought from my sick mind. If you're a sleeping car passenger, can you order from THE CAFE or occupy the sleeper "lounge' without food during the scheduled meal periods? After all, it is a lounge. While I suspect the answer is yes, I can see what would happen if a few games broke out in the "lounge" while people want to eat their sandwiches.

 

[cpotisch]

As I interpret it, sleeper passengers can chill in the Sleeper Lounge whether or not they're eating. It seems like it's just a car for sleeper passengers to relax in, and if they want to dine there, so be it. Just my interpretation.

 

[tommylicious]

As I interpret it, sleeper passengers can chill in the Sleeper Lounge whether or not they're eating. It seems like it's just a car for sleeper passengers to relax in, and if they want to dine there, so be it. Just my interpretation.

...with 35% of the car an idle, commercial kitchen. Utterly absurd.

 

[Rail Freak]

I believe I read that the new system will allow sleeping passengers unlimited soft drinks, is this correct? If so,on my routes they better fill that worthless kitchen with cases of tonic & an ice machine

!!!

 

[cpotisch]

I believe I read that the new system will allow sleeping passengers unlimited soft drinks, is this correct? If so,on my routes they better fill that worthless kitchen with cases of tonic & an ice machine

!!!

Unlimited soft drinks and one hard drink. Imagine the LSA will provide them from the counter.

 

[cpotisch]

Checking on my phone it looks like the new menus has been taken down. They're not showing up on the route pages and I get a 404 if I try to click on the links already posted.

EDIT: Not showing up on my computer either. Interesting...

 

[Ryan]

Yep - the links used to be right here.

 

[Steve4031]

They may have gotten a LOT of angry emails.

 

[Ryan]

From people that have never actually seen the meals.

 

[me_little_me]

They may have gotten a LOT of angry emails.

Round up a posse!

 

[cpotisch]

Something that really irks me is that the dessert options are already decided for each entree. The salted caramel cheesecake at least sounded good to me, but the Vegan Wrap, the only option I could eat, comes with the "Vegan Dessert Bar". Wouldn't it be pretty easy to separate the dessert choices from the entrees? It would be a little more work for the staff, but would offer passengers more variety, and make the selection that much more tolerable. It just infuriates me that if I were to take the Lake Shore or Capitol now, I would not have any choice on what I'd get. The one breakfast option in the morning, and the Vegan wrap for lunch/dinner. Before, I had 3-6 choices for every meal, now I have one.

 

[TinCan782]

This link...

https://www.amtrak.com/alert/contemporary-dining-capitol-ltd-lake-shore-ltd.html

is still there. Its an advisory, not the actual menu. Another link (see Ryan's post above) takes you to the current (ending 5/31) menu. The link still worked as I was typing this.

On the Capitol Limited page under routes.

https://www.amtrak.com/routes/capitol-limited-train.html

 

[Ryan]

There was a link to the actual menu starting 6/1. That what we are talking about that was removed.

 

[spinnaker]

From people that have never actually seen the meals.

Here we go again, Your typical response Who cares if they didn't see the meal? As long as the quality of the hot meal is good (And in my opinion the meals on the CL were very good).. A cold meal will never live up to a hot meal. People have the right to complain about cold meals. Just like they would have the right to complain about crappy hot meals. Which wasn't the case on the CL.

 

[cpotisch]

From people that have never actually seen the meals.

Let's look at the facts:

• Cold meals are harder to do well than hot meals - even if something isn't very tasty on its own, it still has heat going for it. Obviously stuff like salad is better cold, but with most entrees, heat is preferable.
• The new selection is more limited than what has been offered. For breakfast, a cold continental is the only choice. Lunch and dinner have five options, which is a comparable number to the current offerings, but those options are the same for both meals. Also bear in mind that it won't be possible to order any variations on the listed items.
• There are much fewer options for those with dietary restrictions. Pescatarians/vegetarians/vegans now do not have any choice whatsoever. There is *one* option for breakfast and *one* for lunch/dinner.

Those are the main issues that stand out to me. In no way do I want to hate Amtrak's "Contemporary Dining". I will admit that I can appreciate the complimentary drinks, and that the Lake Shore is getting its AmCan replaced with a much nicer car. If this turns out to have been a wonderful change and I was flat out wrong, I'll be glad. But the way I see it now, and from what I've heard, this just doesn't seem good.

 

[bratkinson]

It's interesting that the new menu has been withdrawn from the Amtrak website. I'm thinking they've gotten a LOT of negative feedback about the new menu without a commensurate drop in sleeping car prices. Free soda and 1 free booze hardly make up for the loss of hot food! As a recovering alcoholic, I'd give my 'free booze' to another passenger that ordered some.

Thinking there's a fair number of other passengers that have decided to cancel future reservations on the two affected trains, I just did a quick look using Amsnag for June and July for the Lake Shore Ltd. Based on what I saw 3-4 weeks ago when I decided to book a trip to Chicago on the Lake Shore Ltd, there's been a significant number of cancellations. There's a surprising number of low-bucket prices for roomettes that weren't there a couple weeks ago.

However, I suspect that it's not just the food driving passengers away. I suspect that a significant number of already booked New York section passengers told Amtrak to refund their money when advised they would be on their own to get to/from Grand Central Terminal AND they'd have to ride in NEC spaced COACH seating to Albany (about 14" LESS legroom than Amfleet 2 LD coach seating). Maybe, just maybe, Amtrak has added extra business class cars to the Empire Service trains? I have my doubts they figured that one out, though. And what about the passengers riding Amtrak from south of NYC that now have to get to GCT to ride coach? If I were coming from PHL, WAS, even MIA ticketed to the LSL, I'd tell Amtrak to cancel the entire trip!

 

[greatcats]

My feelings at the moment after a day of depressing Amtrak news: My next trip will be a western ride trip in my Toyota. While I enjoy these trains in many ways we are now leaving Albuquerque 3 hours late due to recrewing,engine breaking down twice on Raton Pass, and removing a drunk or two. These things do not happen on road trips. [emoji30]

 

[cpotisch]

NEC spaced COACH seating to Albany (about 14" LESS legroom than Amfleet 2 LD coach seating). Maybe, just maybe, Amtrak has added extra business class cars to the Empire Service trains?

The Maple Leaf, Adirondack, and beyond-Albany Empire Service trains all operate with a mixed consist of Amfleet Is and IIs. So if your taking any of those trains, and know to look for the cars with vestibules at one end, you'll still get to enjoy the space of a long distance coach seat.

That said, the fact that the LSL has lost its dining car AND requires a transfer to/from coach on a different train at Albany, certainly seems to have triggered a wave of cancellations and lost future sales. Hopefully management has noticed.

 

[cpotisch]

That said, the fact that the LSL has lost its dining car AND requires a transfer to/from coach on a different train at Albany, certainly seems to have triggered a wave of cancellations and lost future sales.

". . .certainly seems to have. . ."? Really??

Is this idle conjecture or is it actually based on factual inside information?

Multiple people in this forum have explicitly said that they've cancelled reservations on the CL and LSL due to the loss of hot meals. And several of other's have said that said that they are finding other means of transport this summer because of it. And bratkinson is right, prices have dropped significantly in the past few weeks. This forum is obviously a small sample size, but if it's any indication of what Amtrak passengers are doing, the LSL and CL certainly don't appear to be doing well.

 

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

That said, the fact that the LSL has lost its dining car AND requires a transfer to/from coach on a different train at Albany, certainly seems to have triggered a wave of cancellations and lost future sales.

". . .certainly seems to have. . ."? Really??

Is this idle conjecture or is it actually based on factual inside information?

Multiple people in this forum have explicitly said that they've cancelled reservations on the CL and LSL due to the loss of hot meals. And several of other's have said that said that they are finding other means of transport this summer because of it. And bratkinson is right, prices have dropped significantly in the past few weeks. This forum is obviously a small sample size, but if it's any indication of what Amtrak passengers are doing, the LSL and CL certainly don't appear to be doing well.

They will likely blame the drop in LSL R & R more on the fact that it doesn't serve NYP, the CL will be a better indication (or the LSL in the fall once it serves NYP again).

 

[Ryan]

if it's any indication of what Amtrak passengers are doing

What makes you think that people invested enough in passenger rail to spend hours out of their day arguing on the internet about it are in any way representative of the average Amtrak passenger?

 

[Ryan]

My iMac has 39 open tabs at the moment.

Two of them featured the now-removed versions of the menu.

This is what it looked like.

 

[OBS]

Interesting the "free" wine is the larger half bottle serving, ie 2 glass portion...I guess quality was the priority...

 

[cpotisch]

if it's any indication of what Amtrak passengers are doing

What makes you think that people invested enough in passenger rail to spend hours out of their day arguing on the internet about it are in any way representative of the average Amtrak passenger?

Firstly, thanks for the menu screenshot. Secondly, while AU definitely isn't a group of typical Amtrak passengers, I don't see why we'd be more eager than the average person to cancel a trip, because of the new food offerings. If anything, I might expect that we would be more likely than the average person to keep riding, since most riders aren't so in love with trains that they want to take Amtrak no matter what. My point is, the fact that many members have cancelled their tickets because of this change, really does not indicate to me that these changes are having a positive effect.