Hey, I was against including meals in absurdly increased fares when it was introduced in the '90s and have never changed my mind about it. So as far as I am concerned you are singing to the choir here. IMHO Amtrak should discontinue including food in fares and simply revert back to how things were before they introduced this in the '90s. While at it, they could also revert back to offering welcome wine (or non-alcoholic) and cheese upon boarding in Sleeper, and such other minor niceties, and offering reasonable quality food that people would actually want to buy. They could offer and hospitality package for sale which includes all food to those that wish to partake of such.
The current scheme of including food only encourages the likes of me to blow my daily calorie quota unless I am darned careful, and forces me to pay a higher fare for stuff I will never use.
I completely agree. Given that meals were 'included' in the sleeper prices was merely a financial 'trick' to show X amount of dollars as income in the diner to offset the cost of having the diner there in the first place. Put another way, the old way of sleeper passengers pay for their meals be it in the diner or lounge makes sense to me. There have been times I wasn't really hungry for a full meal, so I got a pizza and a Coke in the lounge car, effectively pricing my lounge car meal at $30-35 when the included meal cost is part of what I paid up front.
It would be interesting to see if Amtrak could go back to the 'old way'. For starters, it would force Amtrak to put point-of-sale screens in the diner and the wait staff use touch screens to enter what was ordered, etc...just like they do in most TGI Fridays and other casual restaurants. That would greatly simplify the end-of-the-run inventory taking and cash handling. It would also eliminate what happened to me a couple months ago and others as well. I ordered a steak, but it came as the surf & turf, which I presume the waiter marked on the meal order form I signed. Perhaps they had too many 'surf's and had to get rid of them. I'm not sure what the extra 'surf' expense does to the diner finances nor sleeper finances. I'll let the bean counters figure it out. But, if it was the 'old' way and I'd be presented with a computer printed & itemized list of what was to pay for, if a 'surf' got added in, I'd refuse to pay the price differential.
On the other hand, going to an all cash/debit/credit system will increase the likelihood of increased cash shortages and perhaps compromised credit card numbers. But then, that's no different than the casual dining restaurants do today.
Bottom line, moving the cost of meals back to the diner and out of the sleeper prices will most accurately reflect the economics of running the diner. And if I was a real cheapskate, I'd bring a couple sandwiches along instead of paying $12 for breakfast, etc. Unfortunately, as has been known since the creation of dining cars, they lose money. And as a loser, the Washington bean counters would say 'it has to go'. And that's where we are on the Lake Shore Ltd and Capitol Ltd today.
Unfortunately, as Amtrak learned the hard way 30 years ago when they downgraded the diners to horrible food served on paper plates with cheap plastic eating utensils, patronage on each of the LD trains dropped significantly. Obviously, by ignoring history, Amtrak management and Congress are doomed to repeat it.