Dining Cars

[Rail Freak]

Showing my ignorance here, but what is the differance of the Dinning cars of the Silvers vs the Cardinal? ( EX: Heritage, Diner Lite etc)

Thanx

 

[Anderson]

Silvers have Heritage diners. Cardinal has a Diner Lite, IIRC.

 

[AlanB]

The Diner-Lite car started its life as a long distance cafe car. It was modified to be able to work as a quasi-dining car/cafe car. But it doesn't have regular conventional ovens nor does it have a grill to cook on.

The dining cars that run on the other single level trains are full service dining cars and do not function as a cafe car normally. They have ovens, dishwasher, grill and can prepare most any meal given the food to do so. They are also all over 60 years old now, where as the Diner-Lite cars are much younger.

 

[cpamtfan]

The Diner Lite car is a modified Amfleet 2 Lounge Car. Since there isn't a lot of space to add a grill/full oven, they installed a set of steam trays. They also utilize the smaller convection ovens in the snack bar area. These cars are known, in a bad way, for the mis aligned windows after the steam table was installed. They also are known for the "not so good" food service. The crew does an outstanding job now with the lack of space.

A lot of people complain about how it isn't "High quality", but there were business descions that had to be made 5-10 years ago when Amtrak was in the toilet.

 

[AlanB]

A lot of people complain about how it isn't "High quality", but there were business descions that had to be made 5-10 years ago when Amtrak was in the toilet.

It was actually only 6 years ago that the conversions started and it had nothing to do with Amtrak being in the toilet. It had everything to do with a silly Congressional mandate that Amtrak cut its food service losses. Diner-Lite was part of Amtrak's answer to that mandate.

 

[had8ley]

Simple answer~ dining cars~ DO! Diner lite cafe conversions~ don't do unless you have to. :help:

 

[jis]

The lounge car in the two Crescents that we traveled in a couple of weeks back were actually Diner Lite cars with the additional storage freezer and the steam tray table, AFAIR.

 

[AlanB]

The lounge car in the two Crescents that we traveled in a couple of weeks back were actually Diner Lite cars with the additional storage freezer and the steam tray table, AFAIR.

They would have to be, since Amtrak has converted all Amfleet II cafe cars to Diner-Lite cars. The only way to get a true cafe car would be if an Amfleet II car was bad ordered and the only subsitute was an Amfleet I cafe car. Amtrak tries to avoid putting AMF I's on the LD's whenever possible.

And checking my consist listings shows that both were indeed Diner-Lite cars.

 

[The Davy Crockett]

I got back from my NER, LSL, CONO, Crescent loop trip yesterday. #49 left NYP two hours late last Sunday (7/24) with a diner-lite, as one of the Silvers' diners had been bad ordered and they gave them our diner! :help: For dinner I was seated in a Hudson-side window seat, facing forward and it had an unobstructed over-the-table view. I ordered the trout and was very surprised at how good it was, considering the circumstances. When I asked, the DC crew admitted they were not happy with the switch and, in watching them, it was clear they were struggling some because they had not been serving in diner-lites recently. That said, they tried hard and did a great job under the circumstances.

Now on the CONO, we were not seated for dinner until 8:15 and they only gave us a choice of pasta or chicken. I was one of the first in the CCC and one of the first to order, but because the crew just stacked the orders on top of each other, the last folks to order were the first served, so it ended up taking over an hour before I got my barely done chicken served to me. It was after 10:15 when I left the CCC.

On the Crescent we had diner 8553 and while the service was excellent, I ordered the catfish for dinner and it was dry and tasteless.

So go figure...