Will full service dining ever return to the Western trains?

[crescent-zephyr]

when only 10 - 20 % travelers go end to end ?

Are the counting someone that rides the Zephyr from Chicago to Riverside as not going “end to end”?

what about New Orleans to Newark NJ on the crescent?

 

[John Santos]

[...]And I think you'd have a hard time finding an airport caterer willing and able to prepare full service meals outside of major hubs. Restocking the Southwest Chief in Trinidad, Colorado? Good luck.[...]

I would think they would restock the Chief in Kansas City and Albuquerque, and the other routes at the appropriate major cities.

I also don't think the delays, unless they are extreme, are a major issue. If the restocking occurs at a staffed station (which is likely because the staffed stations are mostly in major cities that also have airline hubs and caterers), they could install a large refrigerator in the station, and if the train is late, the catering truck would just unload into the fridge, lock it up and leave. The on-board crew, perhaps with the assistance of the station staff, would load the train when it arrives. Walk-in refrigerators, such as those at any medium or large grocery store, could easily accommodate wheeled carts. The catering truck would just unload the entire carts and roll them into the fridge. When the train arrives, the carts could be rolled directly into the diner (if it has room), using a wheelchair lift if necessary, or they could be rolled up next to the train to transfer the trays of food. (Big trays about 3 feet square, holding many items, not individual meal trays.)

This is probably what they already do at the trains' originating station (LAX, CUS, NYP) or in the nearby yards where they prep the trains (Sunnyside, etc.) I think the goal would be to have fresher meals and not to have to store so many meals for up to 3 days on the train. I don't think the goal would be to offload the kitchen facilities so all the hot meals were prepared just-in-time at some midpoint in the journey. (If they want to do that, then just bring back the Harvey Houses, and stop the trains for 3 meals a day while everyone eats in a real restaurant.)

Many very high quality restaurants prepare much of their food in advance, refrigerating it or keeping it warm, and only cook the things that can't keep at the time the meal is ordered. All the breads, cakes and pies are baked early in the day, the vegetables for salads and sides are cleaned, sliced and refrigerated until needed, soups, sauces, etc. are cooked, refrigerated and warmed on demand, etc. All this would be done at the caterers, and delivered ready to be heated (if necessary) and served, and would rival the best restaurants if done competently and using high-quality ingredients. Only the main entrees would suffer by not being cooked from scratch in the diner, but they could and should still be of much higher quality than any TV dinner, certainly as good or better than any mid-level popular chain restaurant. If the meals were selected for being able to tolerate this treatment (e.g. no souffles or other fussy concoctions), they could be quite good. Also, there is nothing about this preparation method that forces the use of excessive salt or sugar in the recipes. And good ingredients are only a minor component of meal cost. Most of the cost is in the labor to prepare it, which is basically the same no matter what the recipe or quality.

 

[west point]

If the same airline warming ovens and refrigeration units were used they could be transferred to Amtrak trains. often on an airline the ovens and frig units would be a different airline's ontainers . They are all interhangeable so why invent a different wheel when they have worked for many years.

 

[Ferroequinologist]

I have taken two circle trips this summer and another coming up next month. Of course I am dissapointed with the flex dining,but not enough to deter me from traveling. Only positive of all of this is that we don't have to sit with strangers at every meal and sometimes force conversation.The opposite of social distancing was seating four strangers to one table. I hope that never returns.

On my trips leaving from Pa.I do Coach to and from Chicago and roomettes out of Chi. The guarantee of both seats to yourself makes that option viable.

Why can't sandwiches and cafe car food be served alongside the flex meals? A little variety on a two or three night trip would certainly be welcome.Amtrak must be aware of the almost total negative response to flex dining. Why don't they implement this simple solution during these times?

















WHY DON'T THEY? Because they don't care.

s

 

[crescent-zephyr]

I would think they would restock the Chief in Kansas City and Albuquerque, and the other routes at the appropriate major cities.

I also don't think the delays, unless they are extreme, are a major issue.

Yes I agree. The Empire Builder used to load meals in Montana (the big sky chicken dinners), Breakfast for the Westbound Portland Section, and Dinner for the Eastbound Section in Portland (the dinners in Portland come from a caterer).

I've also worked many mainline excursions that arranged for outside catering companies to serve a meal on a train. It can be done.

The best solution is to have a chef on the train. Cut the servers and the table service, but keep the chef.

 

[user 14106]

I never said that I liked flying or preferred air travel. I have many times gone way out of my way to travel by train when it would have been much easier to fly. But the current sleeping car rates and food offerings do not represent good value for me especially for a multi-day long distance trip.

Fair enough you are probably the smart one - there are certainly disadvantages to being a captive audience - I'm probably willing to take any slop they give me to eat. Sadly my fear of flying forces me. While food is not the overwhelming thing that attracts me to riding in a sleeper, I do see why the cuts are annoying and make some people think long and hard if they are wiling to fly as an alternative (even if its not ones' favorite form of travel.)

 

[Steve4031]

I just completed a round trip on 27/28 to PDX. The Diner crews really did their best with dinner. They heat the dinner roll and tried to heat the spaghetti with Pasta properly. There is a second dessert (pudding iirc) but I kind of like the blondie. They took dinner reservations like normal. But no community seating.

I ate cheeseburgers for lunch from the lounge car. On the return on 28 I was informed that I could get complementary pop from the lounge car. The person working there said this practice was less than two weeks old. I think this only applies to the Empire Builder since the PDX sleeper is so far from the diner.

 

[crescent-zephyr]

There is a second dessert (pudding iirc)

Probably the gluten free pudding from the old menu. I wish they would offer that (or another gf dessert) as standard with the contemporary menu.

Glad you had a good crew. The EB usually takes pride in their service I’ve noticed.

 

[user 14106]

Did the builder have both the previous flex menu items and the new items from the recent refresh? Seemed like they were providing all the options on the western trains and only the refreshed menu on the eastern with the beef and pasta options carried over (With pasta no longer labeled a kids meal).

 

[user 14106]

I will have my first flex dining "experience" in October on the silver service. Any recommendations for the least offensive? I was thinking maybe the pasta one way and the shrimp and lobster sauce the other way. My next LD trip after that is my long awaited cross country trip in June......while food isn't the be all and end all for me it obviously would be nice if traditional dining returned by then.

 

[Rasputin]

I will have my first flex dining "experience" in October on the silver service. Any recommendations for the least offensive? I was thinking maybe the pasta one way and the shrimp and lobster sauce the other way. My next LD trip after that is my long awaited cross country trip in June......while food isn't the be all and end all for me it obviously would be nice if traditional dining returned by then.

Hope your trip goes well and that you have time to give us a full report!

 

[Sidney]

I enjoy the Shrimp in Lobster sauce the best. The pasta and beef offerings are awful. For the most part the dinner roll is the best part of the meal. please Amtrak...provide some alternatives if flex dining is here to stay and I feel it is.

 

[Qapla]

Why do they call it "flex" dining when the menu nor the meals are flexible?

Can I get the shrimp without the lobster sauce, for instance?

 

[Sidney]

When flexible dining was introduced almost two years ago,the term meant you could eat at any time,hence the word "flexible" It has nothing to do with the food. on the many trains I have been on you are still assigned a time to go to the diner or have the attendant bring it to you. Hardly flexible.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

When flexible dining was introduced almost two years ago,the term meant you could eat at any time,hence the word "flexible" It has nothing to do with the food. on the many trains I have been on you are still assigned a time to go to the diner or have the attendant bring it to you. Hardly flexible.

They also worded it like the new "flexible" meals were now available for delivery to your own room as if that hadn't been possible for decades previously.

 

[Nick Farr]

I will have my first flex dining "experience" in October on the silver service. Any recommendations for the least offensive? I was thinking maybe the pasta one way and the shrimp and lobster sauce the other way. My next LD trip after that is my long awaited cross country trip in June......while food isn't the be all and end all for me it obviously would be nice if traditional dining returned by then.

Try both the shrimp dishes. Spaghetti and meatballs are a good third option.

I think the total elimination of an LD route is more likely than traditional dining's return.

 

[fdaley]

When flexible dining was introduced almost two years ago,the term meant you could e
at at any time,hence the word "flexible" It has nothing to do with the food. on the many trains I have been on you are still assigned a time to go to the diner or have the attendant bring it to you. Hardly flexible.

The funny thing is that Amtrak claims it has survey data showing this is what people wanted. I'm sure I filled out more than one Amtrak survey form over the years in which I checked boxes that (I thought) indicated I wanted the dining car to be open for more hours, with a wider selection of offerings and more flexibility such as the opportunity to order, say, a late breakfast at lunchtime. Certainly there was no question that asked "Would you like to do away with table service and chef-prepared meals and replace them with prepackaged meals heated up and served in their containers?"

When Amtrak moved to slash its food costs, supposedly to comply with a congressional directive, they decided to take the "flexibility" customers had requested in surveys and try to market the change as an improvement when in fact it was a huge downgrade. But of course, the hours of service are about the same as before, the menu choices are many fewer, the food is of much lower quality, and the meal portions are smaller.

With traditional dining, I used to pack in rather more food in a day than I would at home, so I often left the train feeling a bit stuffed. Well, we don't need to worry about that problem anymore. On my last trip on 48, the breakfast was so meager that I was hungry an hour later. The lunch offerings were too depressing, so I passed. When I got off at Albany, I drove to Cracker Barrel, had a big brunch, and vowed that would be my last ride on the Lake Shore unless something improves.

 

[Nick Farr]

I will have my first flex dining "experience" in October on the silver service. Any recommendations for the least offensive? I was thinking maybe the pasta one way and the shrimp and lobster sauce the other way. My next LD trip after that is my long awaited cross country trip in June......while food isn't the be all and end all for me it obviously would be nice if traditional dining returned by then.

I also reviewed most of them in this thread:

https://www.amtraktrains.com/thread...-review-from-a-recent-rider.77527/post-848377

 

[Qapla]

I thought maybe it was called "flex" because the plastic plates/dishes/trays (whatever you call those things they heat and serve it on) are flexible

 

[tgstubbs1]

I thought flex meant you could choose. A lot of airlines don't give you any choice at all, for example.

 

[Nick Farr]

It was called Flex Dining because it was a one consonant word that sounded good and had a vague but positive associations.

 

[fdaley]

Moved this discussion from another thread to here as the topic fits better here:

Of course most sleeper passenger are traveling overnight, but they're a small percentage of the total passengers.

When I look at the data from FY19, sleeper passengers represent about 15 percent of travelers on the long-distance network. But they account for 41 percent of revenue, or about $190 million for the year.

We really don't know how much it costs to provide traditional sleeping car and dining car service, and its possible that it's not as ruinously expensive as the anti-LD people say it is. However, if Amtrak can cut the cost of providing the premium service and not lose that many riders, they'll rake in even more net revenue, thus possibly reducing the need for a taxpayer subsidy for the coach service, which is where most of the ridership is.

This is certainly the approach Amtrak is taking: Cut the costs and hope that most riders will think it's OK or at least put up with it if they want to travel by train. And by all accounts many riders are willing to tolerate it. But if you look at the amount of revenue sleeper customers provide, it wouldn't take that much loss of ridership for the change to have a negative impact. My very rough guess, based on what few figures I have seen from Amtrak, is that the company is saving about $20 million a year by switching to flex meals systemwide. So if 15 percent of the sleeper customers are so offended that they quit riding altogether, the lost revenue (15 percent of $190 million = $28.5 million) would completely wipe out the cost savings from flex dining. Or if, more plausibly, 8 percent of sleeper travelers quit riding and another 25 percent decide to travel half as often because of the change, the result could be a net loss. Keep in mind too that the sleeper travelers who are most likely to be offended are those who are traveling the longest distances -- and who therefore contribute the most revenue.

If anyone has better numbers, please bring them to the discussion.

 

[Griffin T. Murphey DDS]

I apologize for jumping in with a random question but died anyone happen to know what meals they are serving on the Empire Builder right now? Cooked to order, flexible dining, or box lunches?

 

[Sidney]

flex dining all trains.

 

[Griffin T. Murphey DDS]

I apologize for jumping in with a random question but died anyone happen to know what meals they are serving on the Empire Builder right now? Cooked to order, flexible dining, or box lunches?

Thank you. Microwaved junk. I’d as soon eat from the cafe car... sigh.