Getting there is half the fun (24 hour dining experiment)

[cocojacoby]

I did find this info on this 24 hour diner experiment. If this actually did work on the Sunset Limited, I would think it would be very successful on the Lake Shore Limited. Might be worth a try at least:

Meal times under this plan are Breakfast from 6 to 11 a.m., Daytime dining 11 to 5 p.m., Casual dining 5 to 6 p.m., Dining at “Sunset” 6 to 9:30, and Dining Before Sunrise 9:30 p.m. to 6 a.m. (The most popular item overnight in the experiment was a fresh bacon-fried egg-cheese sandwich on toast ‘with a hint of mayo’!) Sleeping car service would be 24 hours a day, with one attendant always on duty monitoring all cars. Work hours for the crew are staggered, giving employees down time at night on a staggered basis.

Already the objections can be heard, that this plan must increase costs. And it does add the requirement for two additional employees per trip to work the overnight hours, but the enhanced revenue pays for itself and more: In 1999 dollars, the projected revenue increase on the tri-weekly trains over the previous year was over $2 million, Labor expenses were nearly static, cost of food and supplies increased slightly, but the loss per meal or item was reduced from $9 to $.66. That’s 66 cents!

 

[Eric S]

Source? What/who is being quoted there?

 

[jis]

Can you provide a pointer to the detailed accounting of the finances of the experiment? I have heard these claims repeatedly, and being the professional skeptic

that I am about claims of any and all successes

, I have each time asked for details. Most times nothing has been provided. One set of details that was provided contained so much smoke and mirrors that the conclusions were well.... inconclusive at best.

So I still await details of the numbers based on which claims like "it worked" or it was profitable" are being made. Repeated assertion is not proof of anything.

 

[MikefromCrete]

Bruce Richardson was/is head of a railfan group that for years has claimed that LD distance trains are profitable. Just like this article on 24-hour dining, he never really provides any hard figures on his claims, he just keeps repeating them. I would take anything he says with a big grain of salt. He also is apparently part of the Corridor Capital group that has been trying to sell old Santa Fe hi-levels for years. Despite a number of agencies looking at them, no body has ever bought them. So I would be very leery of these claims.

 

[Trogdor]

Again, how do you add two staff per trip and not have labor expenses change?

 

[jis]

Again, how do you add two staff per trip and not have labor expenses change?

Unpaid volunteers

 

[Bob Dylan]

I'm from Missouri on this also jis!

 

[railiner]

Again, how do you add two staff per trip and not have labor expenses change?

Unpaid volunteers

Hey...that's an idea! After all, if they can have unpaid volunteers manning station's, why not extend them to staffing diner's? Sounds 'fair' to me....

 

[TinCan782]

Again, how do you add two staff per trip and not have labor expenses change?

Unpaid volunteers

Hey...that's an idea! After all, if they can have unpaid volunteers manning station's, why not extend them to staffing diner's? Sounds 'fair' to me....

Yea, how about the "unpaid" Trails and Rails volunteers? Some of them got the plug pulled because, as I understand it, Amtrak didn't want to comp meals and an overnight!

 

[jis]

I hope everyone realizes that I was joking and not being serious since I cannot figure out how you pay for hours of work by two additional persons without adding to the overall labor cost.

Another gem was a claim by someone in one of the supporting computation that was presented to me once was that they sold $30,000 worth of additional F&B to produce $2.5 million of new revenue. That must have been a remarkable markup or something.

 

[tommylicious]

Love it.

 

[railiner]

Again, how do you add two staff per trip and not have labor expenses change?

Unpaid volunteers

Hey...that's an idea! After all, if they can have unpaid volunteers manning station's, why not extend them to staffing diner's? Sounds 'fair' to me....

Yea, how about the "unpaid" Trails and Rails volunteers? Some of them got the plug pulled because, as I understand it, Amtrak didn't want to comp meals and an overnight!

Do they still have those volunteer's aboard the Downeaster trains?

 

[cocojacoby]

Source? What/who is being quoted there?

Found it here:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,2845990