I think the usually accepted definition of "revenue" car would be one on which passengers pay a fare to ride. The bills paid by passengers for meals on dining and lounge cars are hardly to be expected to be paying for the operation of those cars. Those bills are merely, logically, only paying for the cost of the food. I would hope that pay for the staff comes out of general revenue. In reality, the cost of the food may actually be less than what is charged. Nevertheless, the modest "profit" charged for food on those cars shouldn't be expected to pay for the operation of the car.
In reference to “carry-out food”, I’m referring only to the cuisine currently served aboard either the lounges or diner-lounges. I don’t consider any exact meaning for any of the terms I’ve used for dining establishments other than a general difference between that of lounges or diner-lounges and dining cars.
Considering that AMTRAK has to hope politicians will tax money from taxpayers to pay for something they won't pay for voluntarily (since what is being paid for is apparently found by them to be largely unusable, judging by the amount of non-rail traffic along AMTRAK routes, especially at rush hours), any revenue received by AMTRAK is something like a drop of water to one thirsting in the desert. It is evident, therefore, that it is the taxpayer who is possibly paying for those complimentary meals along with, potentially, any other item in AMTRAK’s budget. The deficit includes something!
Someone might point out that even the fares on the revenue cars aren't paying the way for those cars. That's true. I won't go into why the cars are so expensive to run that the cost can't be affordably divided per passenger (or, can it?). I'm not convinced and I haven’t seen any detailed convincing proof that that unaffordable cost is unavoidable.
Nevertheless, with AMTRAK's stated revenues and expenses-- unless something is being left out-- it would appear that with fares left about where they are, with adequately increased revenue ridership and added sales of advertisement space onboard trains for roughly the same amount of revenue as the fares themselves gain, AMTRAK could accordingly approximately double their revenue without additional passengers or purpose-defeating additional cars and onboard service crew per train, pay the host railroads a mutually reasonable amount for using their tracks and break even. Now, there might be a temptation for bureaucracy to burgeon and gobble up all the black ink for irrelevant, non-essential, non-operating boondoggles, excreting red ink in its place and create new deficits.
The revised schedules I've mentioned should, in all logical likelihood, make AMTRAK service "screamingly" attractive as a transportation service-- not as a fine restaurant, a tour of railroadiana or any other tax subsidized frivolity (as much as I might revel in the fine dining or the railroadiana). Attractiveness and reliability as a serious and astonishingly efficient transportation option are more likely what will bring in revenue passengers—not offering breath mints or wine tasting, though those are nice and hopefully economical touches.
Why is advertising to those attentive passengers while they are either riding undistractedly aboard a train and able to copy information contained in an ad they see inside or when someone sees the ad on the side of a car while sitting at a crossing or some other stop and worth paying for by businesses not desirable? That, to me, defies business logic-- especially if the ad only costs the amount of a train ticket per trip. Isn’t that logic what largely funds television, radio, newspapers, magazines and the Internet?
It is debatable as to whether trains would be greatly cheaper to ride than is driving—at least as long as fuel is affordable at all to the individual. As long as it is moderately equal in cost to driving there are several other logically important factors that make train travel more valuable to the passenger than mere financial cost.
There are people, however, that would pay much more and take much more time to drive along the very route of an AMTRAK train, even if the train schedule vaguely accommodated them, merely because that's all they know or believe in doing. How much, indeed, are people going to pay for that cultural habit and for how long? I’ll not get into the historically apparent overall greater survivability of train travel than that of driving or flying in the event of a major accident.
I do strongly suspect that when AMTRAK is out of business—except for expensively managed, short, dead-end, isolated corridors—resulting from the very reasons I've written against, and there are no through trains to use, then there will be no complimentary meals (as there are none now when driving) and driving, buses or flying will be the only option, no matter how onerous, if driving, buses or flying are even still available by being affordable. In the end, complimentary meals are somewhat negligible to the larger AMTRAK budget. The cost of running the dining and lounge cars, however, might not be that negligible. (It’s interesting how the suggestion of elimination of free meals, amounting to a relatively small amount of money to each passenger by comparison, is so opposed while my suggestion of potentially deeply discounting fares by the fraction of passengers per party, a potentially greater amount of savings for passengers, seems—along with other parts of my proposals—to have been overlooked. These concepts have to be taken in context. If AMTRAK charges $50 a hamburger, or maybe even anymore than $.50, if that’s all one is worth, or bans private stocks of food or beverage, then I would seek other transportation. Trying to “trap” customers into doing business with only one company is a sure way to drive away customers from that company.)
For now, I, and so many, many others, have to drive or fly along AMTRAK's routes, even if I or they might rather take the train, simply because so many AMTRAK trains leave before the majority of people get off work, even in major cities where AMTRAK runs (and even runs superfluously, it might be argued), and arrives after most people have to be at work. If AMTRAK is going to be salvageable, it must, one could reason, be by its own revenue. That was and largely is still the political expectation for AMTRAK—to be self-sufficient or disappear, just like anything else in truly free enterprise, including other things we depend on such as grocery stores.
It might be that politically controlled funding of AMTRAK will be only for political uses, not more and better rail passenger service accessible to the majority for their serious long and short distance travel needs. If AMTRAK is to maximize its revenue, it must utilize every means available, including offering commuting and other business travel to passengers when passengers can use it and, in the way of seeking subsidy in order to lessen the cost to passengers and to further ensure revenue when ridership is down, participating in the free enterprise system such as offering advertisement space for sale to other businesses—a “win-win” proposition for all—not by merely giving away “free” meals. AMTRAK does seem to do a good job in “partnering” with companies in the GUEST REWARDS program.
If dining and lounge cars are in any way sustainable, I prefer the ones such as Pullman's Palace Cars with chandeliers, varnished mahogany, paisley brocade, silver, brass and crystal—the works! If that can be provided to everyone affordably and equitably, the way that Pullman reputedly meant it to be available, even if it has to be with imitation materials, then that's my suggestion for every car's design. Maybe that’s another topic.
Otherwise, it looks like the Pelican might win out as the cross-Dixie connector instead of the Tennessean. That could put Roanoke, Bristol, Knoxville and Chattanooga in connection with Atlanta or Birmingham, or both, and Vicksburg, Jackson, Shreveport and Dallas/Ft. Worth. It would be good to have a southerly connection between the CRESCENT, CITY OF NEW ORLEANS and TEXAS EAGLE— a rail connection strategically between New Orleans and Chicago—as well as making rail passenger connections for all the points along the line with the rest of the AMTRAK system.
