Lots of luck on getting the Chicago gate dragons to answer questions, let alone care!Talk to those at the entrance and ask questions.
Why are there no snacks? When will they return? Who’s decision is it? Who is the supervisor/ manager in charge? What is his contact phone number/email? Etc., etc., etc. No doubt they at least know who their boss is.
And report back to us.
Portland has one because the local employees got together and set it up. For its early years Amtrak would not list it as existing. Its main function originally was to cover the connections between the Empire Builder and the Coast Starlight.
The telling terms are "efficiency" and "financial excellence". Everything else is blather.
They both mean "cost cutting". They either don't understand that reducing the quality of service will inevitably reduce revenue, or they don't care.
The City of Seattle doesn't give a damn. If anything, since Cascades Business Class and sleeper passengers are "privileged" the Seattle City Council would be actively against it if it came up on their radar.
The Metropolitan Lounge in Chicago sources all food and drink from a local vendor. Beyond that, it's apparent that no one there cares enough to restart the food service... and some of the staff there are indeed dragons who merely show up for work; muddle through the day, then leave.Talk to those at the entrance and ask questions.
Why are there no snacks? When will they return? Who’s decision is it? Who is the supervisor/ manager in charge? What is his contact phone number/email? Etc., etc., etc. No doubt they at least know who their boss is.
And report back to us.
It is 1967- April 1971 all over again.
We're rapidly getting there!
AU would become a boring place with very few posts being made.
There's a lot of skepticism regarding Amtrak's management... and for good reason. The food service is a disaster... and while full service dining is supposed to come back to the Western LD's... it's restart has been pushed back many times. And before it was discontinued it became standardized system wide with a continuous downgrading... simplified... reduced options, etc. It's the downward digression that have so many of us rattled. When the flex concept started on eastern routes it was actually pretty good... meals were nicely boxed in balsa containers... came with a reusable cloth carry bag; toilet kits in the rooms... breakfast included hard boiled eggs... etc etc. but everything was scaled back to bare bones.
In fairness, it also serves a fair amount of long distance passengers. The NYP lounge sees a fair amount of use by sleeper passengers on the various LD services that originate at NYP.
While This line should probably move to the food thread (admin feel free to move it) the change from the initial cold meals to the current meals were in response to passenger feedback - although the cold meals were probably healthier - the feedback they were getting was overwhelmingly negative and people were demanding hot meals. While I would agree that there is certainly room for improvement - I suspect the majority of riders would prefer the current iteration of flex meals than the cold salad boxes that were originally offered. (And I say majority - I’m sure some more diet and health conscious riders probably feel the opposite - but a lot of Americans would prefer hot comfort food.)
