There was some back of the envelope guessing on how much sleeper fares would need to increase to cover F&B losses. Can’t find it on my phone, but I seem to recall it being more than $100.
I don't know if I'd pay an extra 2,000 points or so (which I think is around $60) to have the proposed menu changed back to the old style of menu and service. Nor do I think that'd be enough to cover the full cost differential between wait-staff, cooked-on-board service and pre-packaged meal service.
If one were to turn back the clock to 1990 or so, when Amtrak 'buried' the dining car costs into the sleeper fare they used some kind of formula to determine something like: 1 person, dinner & breakfast = $35 (in todays' dollars), etc. Whatever that calculation must have worked reasonably well as F&B costs were not a major 'sore spot' until John Mica appeared in Washington and decided he'd micro-manage every dollar for Amtrak, that he really wanted to kill completely.
In todays' terms, would pricing the currently $25 steak dinner at $35 work better, adding the extra $10 to per person sleeper fare? The question becomes what would a coach passenger be willing to pay for the same meal? Obviously Amtrak made some kind of meal calculations 2 years ago when they removed the diner from the Silver Star and roomette costs dropped anywhere from $15 or so to more than $100 vs the same (common) board/deboard cities, depending on what buckets are being offered. So, what if they simply do the same with the Lakeshore and Capitol Ltd...take the 'free meals' away from the first class ticket prices and go back to ala carte pricing in the dining car. Unfortunately, that provides more opportunity for cash shortages by the staff. Making it cashless only would drive away a LOT of customers, in my opinion. How would they process a credit card while traversing the emptiness of a lot of the southwestern states where there's no cell service? Perhaps they could piggyback on PTC bandwidth for credit & debit cards? Even Apple Pay etc won't work without cell service.
Maybe the solution is to implement an upgraded-selection to what's available now on the Cardinal. In my opinion, it's not as bad as many make it to be. Somehow, the Cardinal feeds 2 Viewliners full of passengers and 3 or 4 coaches from a single service car. Most of the meals are simple heat-and-eat variety handled by ONE person handling the dining section and another handling the snack bar and some cooking functions for the dining section. They're both working non-stop during meal times, but they likely get their breaks during the non-meal times. How would it work with 3 sleepers & 6 coaches like the Lakeshore will be running? They'd have to put a second 'meal car' in place, probably like the Lakeshore does when it has both Boston & New York sections. They'd both be laid out like the Cardinals' lounge/dining car. Alternatively, keeping the Amfleet 2 'dining car' currently in use on the Lakeshore seems to work quite well in my opinion with a crew of 3. Meals are all heat-and-eat, too.
Another option would be to put the same meals as the Acela first class passengers get in the planned 'first class lounge/place-to-eat' car. The single attendant could easily heat the meals selected by the passengers. But I'd open it up to coach and business class passengers as well with items appropriately priced. The few times I've used an upgrade to Acela first class was at breakfast time and I NEVER had a decent breakfast on the Acela. It's doubtful I'll ride the Acela again because of the food. But that's my opinion.
If it were up to me, they should make the diners all 'ala carte' and remove the extra charge from the sleepers. The key would be to price the food such that the diners & lounges break even or close to it. The union would scream bloody murder, but contracting it out like they tried (and failed) in the Empire corridor a couple years ago would be worth another try...and I'm a former TCU union member! Give each union member a decent severance based on years of service, etc. They'll still get RRR when they reach 60, just not the 100% rate with 30 years service. I've seen it happen too many times, especially in contracted-out operations, both white- and blue-collar jobs. A new company gets the contract, tells the current workers take a pay & benefits cut or take a hike. Sadly, that's the way business has to run if they want to keep their stockholders happy.
Whatever dining car 'solution' ultimately gets implemented on LD trains, I'm quite sure the days of steak dinners and eggs cooked-to-order at breakfast will soon be a thing of the past on all LD trains. So ride 'em while you still can get hot food! I'll miss the lush chocolate deserts, too!
