Successful intercity trains with no food service

[MARC Rider]

I recall reposting something from Alon Levy that was very negative about food service cars:

No Cafe Cars, Please | Pedestrian Observations

That certainly sparked a few comments. But, when you think about it, there are successful intercity trains that don't have food service. We're not talking overnight trains here, just day trains that seem to attract passengers who either don't need to eat on board or are fine with buying something at the station and bringing it with them. Here's my list, perhaps others have some more to add:

The Keystone Service
Hiawatha Service
Piedmont Service (yes, I know, they have a lounge car that has free coffee and winter and also vending machines, but that's it.)
NY - ALB Empire service
Ouigo Classique (France)
Hamburg - Copenhagen service (4 hours + )
Oresund Service (Copenhagen - Gothenburg)
All of Israel Railways
Most of the intercity trains in Japan

Any others?

 

[TheCrescent]

Basically all Belgian trains except high-speed ones.

The article makes some faulty assumptions: it says that eliminating cafe cars increases seat capacity by 1/7, but admits that passengers state that they will pay 14% more to have food service available.

Even if all available seats were sold, the increased capacity wouldn’t leave the railroad with more revenues; revenues from ticket sales would be about the same with or without a cafe car.

But at least Amtrak fills only a portion of its seats, even on the Northeast Corridor, and lacking food service may result in a fewer ticket sales regardless of the price.

So it’s clear that having food service cars should lead to revenues.

 

[west point]

The article makes some faulty assumptions: it says that eliminating cafe cars increases seat capacity by 1/7, but admits that passengers state that they will pay 14% more to have food service available.

Correct. Just add another car. OOPS. The passenger car shortage means no 7th or 8th car available.

 

[slasher-fun]

Ouigo Classique (France)

As well as Ouigo Grande Vitesse

Hamburg - Copenhagen service (4 hours + )

Pretty much all trains in Denmark actually

Oresund Service (Copenhagen - Gothenburg)

Not only this line, but the whole network

Any others?

Belgium, Netherlands: every train (except ICE/Eurostar/Thalys high-speed trains)
France: some Intercités lines (especially those that don't serve Paris)
Almost everywhere in Europe: regional trains, and they can sometimes do very long journeys (by European standards).

 

[neroden]

So Alon isn't saying anything interesting here.

Fundamentally, people need food roughly every 4 hours. So:
(1) If the train trip is less than 4 hours, you don't need to provide food.
(2) If there are station stops long enough for people to buy food and bring it onboard every 4 hours, you don't need to provide food onboard. The Japanese model is to have bento boxes for sale at practically every station.

Once you're running for 8 hours, and have no "hop off, buy a bento box on the platform, hop back on" locations, you need to provide onboard food.

There is a secondary consideration, however. By most reckonings, "cafe style" onboard food is often *profitable* and even covers the cost of hiring an extra staff member and tacking on an extra car. So it may be a desirable service to offer even on routes where it isn't strictly necessary.

 

[caravanman]

Once you're running for 8 hours, and have no "hop off, buy a bento box on the platform, hop back on" locations, you need to provide onboard food.

I don't quite understand why passengers can't plan ahead? If we know there is no food service aboard an 8 hour train trip, we bring our own food from home, or buy ready made sandwiches, etc, from a store before boarding?

 

[AmtrakBlue]

I don't quite understand why passengers can't plan ahead? If we know there is no food service aboard an 8 hour train trip, we bring our own food from home, or buy ready made sandwiches, etc, from a store before boarding?

Though I knew there was a cafe car on the Vermonter, which I took a round trip (12 hours each way) on last week, I did bring some of my own food. There's no breakfast items I'm interested in (though I had time to eat breakfast before each departure), so I packed packaged hard boiled eggs and a muffin. I also packed a sandwich I bought from a convenience store in case they ran out of one of my items. I did buy lunch & dinner on the train on the outbound trip.

 

[neroden]

I don't quite understand why passengers can't plan ahead? If we know there is no food service aboard an 8 hour train trip, we bring our own food from home, or buy ready made sandwiches, etc, from a store before boarding?

Refrigeration?!?! Heating?!?!

I mean, sure I CAN bring a cooler and ice packs and an electric warming dish, and -- honestly -- given Amtrak's horrendous food situation -- I DO. But it's ridiculous. Nobody wants to do that.

 

[caravanman]

Refrigeration?!?! Heating?!?!

I mean, sure I CAN bring a cooler and ice packs and an electric warming dish, and -- honestly -- given Amtrak's horrendous food situation -- I DO. But it's ridiculous. Nobody wants to do that.

I think we are talking about an 8 hour train ride, not an expedition through the Sahara desert?
Your response is exactly what puzzles me. Do USA folk honestly need such items to travel for few hours?
Is your unrefrigerated sandwich unfit to eat after a few hours?
I like to get a hot meal on a train, but if I know there is no service, the sky does not fall in, I just work around it, and bring something aboard.

 

[neroden]

Most sandwiches are not safe to eat after 4 hours in a bag without refrigeration. Some ingredients are OK (peanut butter and jam), most are not (lettuce and meat).

 

[BlackDiamond]

I think we are talking about an 8 hour train ride, not an expedition through the Sahara desert?
Your response is exactly what puzzles me. Do USA folk honestly need such items to travel for few hours?
Is your unrefrigerated sandwich unfit to eat after a few hours?
I like to get a hot meal on a train, but if I know there is no service, the sky does not fall in, I just work around it, and bring something aboard.

I guess we are a pampered lot
I can imagine being on one of those trains in Eastern Europe or the Balkans, 3 graffitied coaches, no food service, you are lucky if it has a working toilet

 

[AmtrakBlue]

Most sandwiches are not safe to eat after 4 hours in a bag without refrigeration. Some ingredients are OK (peanut butter and jam), most are not (lettuce and meat).

My chicken salad sandwich (in plastic container from convenience store) was fine in my insulated lunch bag w/small ice pack. I packed it on Sunday morning, put it in the hotel fridge Sunday night and ate it after lunch time on Monday. And you know it had the forbidden "mayo" on it, so.... My hard boiled eggs were fine two days later, as I ate them at home.

 

[neroden]

Yes, one CAN bring one's own insulated bag and ice pack for refrigeration, as I mentioned.

Many customers do not want to spend their time doing picnic planning. This is why onboard food service is profitable on longer routes. I used to think this was obvious, but apparently not?

(Same reason sports events can charge "stadium prices" for food even though people CAN bring their own picnics)

 

[neroden]

I guess we are a pampered lot
I can imagine being on one of those trains in Eastern Europe or the Balkans, 3 graffitied coaches, no food service, you are lucky if it has a working toilet

You should check out the Eastern Europe and Balkans trip reports. A bumpy ride, certainly. But: Food service, toilets, sleeper cars. They may be poor but they understand how the business of railroads works.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

Yes, one CAN bring one's own insulated bag and ice pack for refrigeration, as I mentioned.

Many customers do not want to spend their time doing picnic planning. This is why onboard food service is profitable on longer routes. I used to think this was obvious, but apparently not?

(Same reason sports events can charge "stadium prices" for food even though people CAN bring their own picnics)

No different than packing a lunch for work, especially if your work place does not have a fridge for employee lunches. We're talking about day trips, not cross country trips.

 

[MARC Rider]

So Alon isn't saying anything interesting here.

Fundamentally, people need food roughly every 4 hours. So:
(1) If the train trip is less than 4 hours, you don't need to provide food.
(2) If there are station stops long enough for people to buy food and bring it onboard every 4 hours, you don't need to provide food onboard. The Japanese model is to have bento boxes for sale at practically every station.

Once you're running for 8 hours, and have no "hop off, buy a bento box on the platform, hop back on" locations, you need to provide onboard food.

There is a secondary consideration, however. By most reckonings, "cafe style" onboard food is often *profitable* and even covers the cost of hiring an extra staff member and tacking on an extra car. So it may be a desirable service to offer even on routes where it isn't strictly necessary.

I think one of the points Alon was making was that the cafe car takes up space that could be filled with seats that generate revenue without the costs of providing the food service.

I would also think that trips less than 4 hours constitute the vast majority of passenger rail trips, or at least they would be if passenger rail was used optimally as a viable transportation alternative. When you ride the Washington-Boston trains, you can see how the train empties out at New York. Very few people do the 6 -7 hours from Baltimore/Washington to Boston. And most of the stations on the NEC (at least between Washington and New York) have a decent variety of carry on food suitable for a short trip.

On the other hand, apparently the cafe cars do recover their operating costs pretty well, especially if they sell booze. It's the full service dining cars that are a little more problemmatic.

 

[jiml]

The void on some of the mentioned European routes is filled by more options at stations, including cafes and shops in-station or nearby. The lower frequencies in North America make the viability of such ventures more difficult.

 

[TheCrescent]

I still think that the original article contains faulty assumptions.

It says that cafe cars should be eliminated and replaced with additional seats. But Amtrak, even in the NEC, has plenty of excess seating on trains; if I recall correctly, its load factor is about 60%.

So eliminating cafe cars wouldn’t result in more seats being sold in most cases; there are already plenty of empty seats. It would result in passengers being willing to pay less for tickets (as per the article) and perhaps fewer ticket sales; some people might choose to drive or fly instead of go on a train without food service.

 

[crescent-zephyr]

The void on some of the mentioned European routes is filled by more options at stations, including cafes and shops in-station or nearby. The lower frequencies in North America make the viability of such ventures more difficult.

That’s what I’m thinking as well. Many Stations along the keystone line have little convenience style stores inside them where you can buy coffee and snacks to go. I know Lancaster has one.

 

[Steve4031]

Most of the stations in Japan have plenty of food and snack options. In major stations such as Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Hiroshima, etc have stands on EACH platform. Some of the limited expresses had a food cart too.

 

[jebr]

One interesting note that I found is that a food/drink trolley only resulted in a 3% reduction in desired fare (if I'm understanding what the percentages mean correctly.) That makes me think of a couple things:

• Would having a cart going through the train at set intervals still be profitable/have similar levels of usage? I could see it cut both ways - there's a convenience of at-your-seat service, but you can't get the food exactly when you want it (you have to wait for the next pass of the cart.) Alternatively you could allow for ordering via the Amtrak app (so the Center of Excellence would have it ready around 2040 )
• Could you do it with minimal space on the train? If food was prepared off-board then all that would be needed on-board would be storage space, the carts themselves, and proper heating/refrigeration to keep food at the needed temperatures. Definitely would not require a full train car.
• How much do people value having an excuse to take a stretch through the train and go to a car that isn't explicitly designed for passenger seating? Sometimes it's just nice to have variety and something to do to break up a longer trip.

Is having no food service on a shorter trip doable? Sure. But is it desirable? I don't think so, and especially when competing against the car in America food service is a key selling point. If I'm hungry on the road, there's probably at least a convenience store within 10 minutes, and often a decent selection of fast food restaurants (and possibly fast casual and/or sit-down) within that same distance. It'd be harder to sell people on the train if it meant that they'd lose that flexibility to grab something to eat - and it's one of the annoying parts of taking long-distance bus journeys.

 

[tricia]

One problem with needing to bring food onto the train for a day-long trip is that not all passengers start from home. And not all Amtrak stations are located near where one can buy take-out food.

 

[rs9]

I think it's a function of trip length and food quality.

For example, the Hiawatha is a 90-minute trip. Most people can/will probably pack a snack. Though I bet people would buy a beer - still, maybe not enough of a financial case to support a cafe car.

For a trip like ALB-NYC, I think the right food offerings would appeal to people. Ditch the pizza and burgers, have pre-made salads and pre-made quality sandwiches and I think people would go for it. Of course, there's a bit of a behavioral change at first of not packing food with you.

 

[daybeers]

Ditch the pizza

The pizza served in the cafe car is sacreligious to New York anyway

 

[rs9]

The pizza served in the cafe car is sacreligious to New York anyway

I haven't eaten it yet, but by appearances it's sacrilegious to all belief systems and geographies.