Amtrak Dining Car Changes

I just got through with my cross country trip and I had some observations about changes to the dining car service since I last traveled in November 2012. First it appears that Amtrak had switched to a national menu as the menus were exactly the same on the Southwest Chief and the Capitol Limited. Not only that everything is IN the menu. Previously the deserts and "marketplace specials" had been a surprise, unknown until you boarded the train. In fact they were just about the only thing that could differ from train to train. Well not any more as all of the menus now explicitly states what the specials and the deserts were. Our menu was printed in May and the special was the port ribs. A previous menu found Amtrak's website listed the special as Dogfishhead beer braised something. Either way the choices are what they are now with no variation. Previously the dining cars would carry a variety of desert items in the form of cakes and ice creams, but again those have all been standardized.

What is going on here? I know that in the past Amtrak had promoted menus that varied by region. Over the last few years only the specials provided variety and now nothing does. Apparently even having someone go out and order cakes for slice service is too complicated compared to individually served cheese cakes. Is this just another cycle in the flip flop between menus by train and national menus?

Worth noting - I love those little individual cheesecakes. I had one with every meal on my CofNO trip last month.

Tadman wrote:Worth noting - I love those little individual cheesecakes. I had one with every meal on my CofNO trip last month.

You're missing out on the cream puff, big time. Anyway, wouldn't you have preferred a slice of cheese cake...possibly in other flavours? That's what was available on my trips last year.

It sure would be a shame if Amtrak switched to standardized national menus for the LDs..............again. Really appreciate the regional menus.

Last month, I had the individual slice of cheesecake for dessert while on #30. The cheesecake really is good.

However, I do miss the now long gone slice of apple pie a la mode. It my Amtrak dessert favorite for many years!

Amtk30

The Amtrak "food facts" site lists pretty much all current offerings that are rotated on the LD trains, now including info about the Lake Shore's Boston section.

In particular the dinner offerings are about the same on all LD trains, the "enhanced" dining service on the Empire Builder is gone.

As an example The Empire Builder no longer offers eggs cooked to order, but the standardized scrambled eggs.

The food facts site also makes it easier to determine which entree's are prepared "off-site" and reheated on-board.

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Ken

My guess is another attempt to "cut costs" on the dining cars.

Forgetting that people LIKE the "extras" and that often such cost cutting moves means less people using it and even more losses.

So they pretty much have gotten rid of the variety again? They spoil everyone with better food after the original SDS disaster, only to start cutting things greatly, very quickly. Could it have been caused by Mica's strong words about Amtrak's spending of money hiring professional chefs to develop the meals? If it is it might be a bad sign for Amtrak food service..

No complaints on quality BTW, just the variety, which becomes a factor on long trips. By the third day you're looking for something new. Oh, the Capitol Limited dumped its lunch service again

peconicstation wrote:The Amtrak "food facts" site lists pretty much all current offerings that are rotated on the LD trains, now including info about the Lake Shore's Boston section.

In particular the dinner offerings are about the same on all LD trains, the "enhanced" dining service on the Empire Builder is gone.

As an example The Empire Builder no longer offers eggs cooked to order, but the standardized scrambled eggs.

The food facts site also makes it easier to determine which entree's are prepared "off-site" and reheated on-board.

The Portland branch of the Builder, like 448/449 does not offer full diner service. The Portland menu oddly is not posted.

The diner lite program on the Cardinal has all items "preheated". On other routes, which items are precooked and not?

R36 Combine Coach wrote:[q
The diner lite program on the Cardinal has all items "preheated". On other routes, which items are precooked and not?

Look at the foodfacts site and you'll see a number of entrees like the round of beef, and turkey, state they are made in facilities that may contain a number of allergens.

Further from the main Amtrak site:

Low Fat, Low Cholesterol, Low Sodium, Gluten Free, Wheat Free, Peanut Free Meals

Amtrak does not offer meals specifically designated as low fat, low cholesterol, low sodium, gluten free, wheat free or peanut free. Most dinner entrees are not prepared on the dining car. The fat, cholesterol, sodium, gluten, wheat and peanut content may vary, and cannot be controlled or modified by the chef.

Certain menu items are inherently low in fat, cholesterol and/or sodium and may be ordered from the regular menu. The dining car waiter or lead service attendant can provide guidance.

Ken

The last time that was attempted they actually calculated how many meals passengers ate. If the hazy memory is correct, it was 2.3 meals per passenger per trip in coach. The conclusion was the lack of variety would only impact a small amount of ridership since the sleeper passengers would ride regardless of the lack of variety.

That being said, I'm still not a fan. However, I don't have to balance the books or justify the losses.

When one has commissaries separated by thousands of miles and in different agricultural regions, one would think that trying to standardize absolutely everything would be more hassle than its worth. Now that being said I know that one can run a pretty convincing faux Restaurant by calling Sysco and they'll hook you up with everything you need except the microwave oven to heat the stuff regardless of location, but would it kill them to have someone swing buy a local bakery to pick up some cheesecakes instead of opting for the one size fits all approach? Also if one can't get fresh Salmon on the builder I don't know what this world is coming to. Marketplace special implies that SOMEBODY ACTUALLY GOES TO A MARKET. Don't call it a special if its going to be the same on all trains.

Standard fare for any company. At my place of work, we would do something one way for a while until someone higher up either decided what we were doing was not working or they got replaced. If the latter, then the new person came in with a new plan of attack. At my company we had it down to about an 18 month cycle, things would change about every 18 months.

Shame the did make the change, but given how standard everything is on Amtrak, I am not surprised. If they can't vary consists then why vary food.

train2 wrote:Standard fare for any company. At my place of work, we would do something one way for a while until someone higher up either decided what we were doing was not working or they got replaced. If the latter, then the new person came in with a new plan of attack. At my company we had it down to about an 18 month cycle, things would change about every 18 months.

Shame the did make the change, but given how standard everything is on Amtrak, I am not surprised. If they can't vary consists then why vary food.

I'd say your ignorance is astounding, but you do have a lot of other posts on this board. Therefore, there is no real surprise here. Standardizing things like equipment and in this case food can save on expenses. Despite rail buff opinions having a fleet that isn't a mish mosh of this and that not only helps with expenses, it helps with reliability.


That being said, I still agree that selection and variety=better experience.

ThirdRail7 wrote: I'd say your ignorance is astounding, but you do have a lot of other posts on this board. Therefore, there is no real surprise here. Standardizing things like equipment and in this case food can save on expenses. Despite rail buff opinions having a fleet that isn't a mish mosh of this and that not only helps with expenses, it helps with reliability.

That being said, I still agree that selection and variety=better experience.

Food items aren't rolling stock. Yes there are advantages to standard menu items, but there are also occasions where it doesn't matter. To stock its dining cars Amtrak has commissaries at the LD train terminal points. You save money and complexity if each commissary can minimize the number of menu items that it has to purchase and stock. The real question is why does Amtrak need to reduce the number of items across all of its commissaries. Unlike rolling stock food is perishable so trying to achieve the same economies of scale in the Beach Grove sense has some different pros and cons as well as implications.

Case 1: Each commissary "locally sources" the common menu items.

In this case Amtrak is only saving on management overhead and trying to set a potentially consistent passenger experience. For example they can print more detailed menus with calorie counts instead of the "vague" menus they had before.

Case 2: Amtrak can source common items from a supplier with a national presence.

This is the Sysco case where Amtrak has contracted with some national restaurant or food service supply company to produce the same food for all of its commissaries. Amtrak gets a bulk discount and saves the complexity of dealing with local suppliers as well as all the benefits above.

Case 3: Amtrak gets its meals from a single supplier

This is where Amtrak finds one supplier for a given food item and makes orders that are they shipped to the commissaries from a single point. This is probably the least appetizing option and might lead to major quality issues, but would probably be the least costly.

I suspect we have a Case 2 situation because the food didn't seem to be that bad. If they are working in a Case 1 regime that's just managerial laziness because it is just as costly to standardize as it is to offer some variety.