Indulge me in a reshare of my Trains Unllimited comments on this.
Trains' Bob Johnson reports in today's " Trains Newswire" that 3 of the 17 cars for the Chicago hub have entered into revenue service, initially on Chicago-St. Louis runs.
But the car design seems disappointing. There are no tables at all for passenger use! A single small crew table is a sensible restoration of an amenity the railroads almost routinely provided their conductors (although not always in the diner/lounge), but all riders must buy their stuff and go back to their seats.
The deletion of all tables solves the problem of crew taking over all the seats that haunts too many Amtrak trains like the TEXAS EAGLE. But what a degradation of a benefit of train travel–the lounge car. But mercifully a full cafe menu with hot meal options survives. An Amtrak cafe burger may not be a gourmet item, but it beats just a bottle of water (see below).
This will be truly deep downgrade if it impacts the coming Siemens Airo cafe cars to be assigned to the Washington/Oregon Cascades Corridor. Much better has long prevailed there. For decades the Cascades Corridor food-service standard was the Talgo’s take-out counter menu in one car, with at least a few mini tables along the passageway in that car, but more importantly with that "take-out" car adjacent to a full table car which could be used to eat, socialize or even do work.
Using a superb local caterer, this Talgo table car was for a few years used on the Seattle-Vancouver, B.C. cross-border runs to provide a true dining car experience–with food brought on-board fresh (not frozen) and heated to serving temperature in the cafe car’s food prep area. The dinner menu actually featured prime-rib! To maximize seatings/food revenue, the Talgo “diner” opened an hour before departure each evening in Vancouver–making three seatings possible on a four hour run. I had the privilege of several trips using using this offering. For a corridor train it was amazing!
WashDOT at the time claimed the diner option was profitable on the Vancouver runs, but as with so many things it vanished after what was supposed to have been a temporary suspension while a Talgo set was serviced. For that time Superliners (with a Sightseer Lounge) covered the Vancouver run without the table service. When the Talgos eventually returned the “diner” offering was not restored.
For whatever reason the full diner option was only very briefly offered on the Seattle-Oregon runs, but to this day a fine offering of local treats like Ivars’ Clam Chowder is on the Cascades Corridor menu.
Obviously the full Talgo cafe/diner option was largely lost when the Series Six Talgo fleet was scrapped after the tragic Dupont, WA derailment (although the two Oregon-owned Series 8 Talgos remain in service with the take-out counter cafe and the full table seating car). The replacement Horizon cafes as least have tables for passengers (if not hogged by the crew and supplies).
The cafe situation of course is vastly worse in California on the San Joaquin Corridor. There the San Joaquin Joint Powers Authority, which contracts with Amtrak to provide the SAN JOAQUIN trains, plans to offer only a vending machine option when their long-delayed Venture cafes someday appear. Rumor is this is because the Joint Powers chief objected to the perceived high cost to keep Amtrak food. Ridership and ticket income will pay a steeper cost when passengers experience the newly embarrassing “food” (water-only on some frequencies) on a six hour run.
At present, in the absence of the delayed new California Venture cafe cars, all riders on the (still mercifully few) Venture-equipped SAN JOAQUINs get is a bottle of water and according to some reports a snack-pack. This on a route that had long used the handsome “California Car” bi-level diners and which a few years back also offered actual sit down service at table. In recent years it was an extensive and locally focused snack, sandwich, salad, beverages offering.
Now you won’t even be able to get a beer when the full California Venture cafe car fleet arrives. This makes the SP Automatic Buffet (vending machine) cars that debauched the once magnificent SP Daylights look exquisite by comparison! SP Automats even offered hot entrees. They weren’t great, but they put the coming Venture California cafe cars with only vending machine food to shame.
And let us not forget that the Airo cafe cars are also coming to the NEC and to regional runs including both Vermont trains, the Empire Corridor, the ADIRONDACK, the multiple Virginia services, the western Pennsylvania route, and the CAROLINIAN/PALMETTO. Will we too find no tables?
