Made a day trip to Temple today on #22/#21.
The Crew told me that the Chicago Base employees are convinced that Fresh and Contemporary Dining will be coming to the Texas Eagle and City of New Orleans by Fall.
Today's Eagles were Full, with No Slots for Dinner in the Diner for Coach Padsengers!
They also told me that #21/421 is leaving Chicago short of items listed on the Menu.
Prices for Sleepers and Rail Fare are mostly High Bucket on most Eagles!
This is really getting sad. Even if it's not confirmed, I'd be pretty surprised if the Eagle keeps full dining service for much longer. It's becoming harder and harder to justify any long distance Amtrak trip anymore.
What makes me sad is that, in my past couple of trips on the Eagle, I've found the diner to be very well run. Even though they're operating a cross-country cafe car, the crews put out good consistent meals, the staff is attentive, and the food quality pretty good all things considered. For me, the diner is the highlight of the trip in that it gets you visiting with random others on the train, and you get interesting perspectives. It makes me sad to think that in the future, what we are going to be doing is eating random convenience food from a box in an empty diner, with little variety.
The real question I ask now is how long will this "diner / sleeper lounge" program last? At what point does Amtrak management decide that they don't "need" diners, so everything comes from the lounge car.
I was reading an older article the other night in the UP Historical Society magazine about diner operations on the UP in the final years of passenger service. One thing that struck me was how they kept innovating to offer diner service to ALL passengers on the train, at all price points. Use of simpler entrees, luncheon cars that had stool seating (think Waffle Hut on rails...) that could operate with fewer employees and a smaller kitchen, etc. I think there is an arguement to be made that Amtrak should be working to generate more diner business, including coach passengers, by utilizing every table in the car, maybe split half/half between sleeper and coach passengers, and offer some inexpensive dining options for those on a budget.
I did go ahead and cancel my trip on the Eagle in late September after reading here and elsewhere about the impending change, which appears imminent in early September. My biggest hope is that the current administration at Amtrak sees the support that passenger rail has in congress (thinking about the push on the Southwest Chief funds) and that a drop in passenger counts drives some realization that this isn't the way to go. In the meantime, I just don't want to deal with it. I can manage around older cars, iffy HVAC, and inconvenient stations, but this is a bridge too far for me.