Amtrak Diner and Food Service Discussion

Amtrak’s just-instituted practice of providing sleeping car customers, beginning with the Lake Shore Limited and Capitol Limited, with “contemporary and fresh dining choices” is “nothing more than a cold snack in a cardboard box being delivered to passengers in their rooms,” the Amtrak Service Workers Council (ASWC) of the Transport Workers Union of America (TWU) announced last week. “Riders are paying close to $1,000 a ticket, only to be fed yogurt and sandwiches?” TWU ASWC, UNITE-HERE (which represents workers throughout the U.S. and Canada who work in the hotel, gaming, food service, airport, textile, manufacturing, distribution, laundry, and transportation industries) and TCU-IAM (Transportation Communications International Union-International Association of Machinists) said seven TWU-represented chefs received furlough letters with as little as nine-day notice, “giving them a little more than a week to make a major life decision. The move also threatens jobs and pensions from coast-to-coast.”

If there’s any time to eliminate the provision in PRIIA about eliminating F/B losses, I think it’s actually now. Congress is in a spending mood, more conservative reps are in favor of public train service, the President doesn’t care what goes in front of him as long as he gets praise, and the fiscal hawks like Mica are largely out of favor or gone. RPA should carefully craft their lobbying efforts, so to give Anderson more breathing room.

Article from Railway Age: TWU to Anderson: “Stop these cuts!”
https://www.railwayage.com/news/twu-to- ... hese-cuts/

Fair use quote:

TWU ASWC, UNITE-HERE (which represents workers throughout the U.S. and Canada who work in the hotel, gaming, food service, airport, textile, manufacturing, distribution, laundry, and transportation industries) and TCU-IAM (Transportation Communications International Union-International Association of Machinists) said seven TWU-represented chefs received furlough letters with as little as nine-day notice, “giving them a little more than a week to make a major life decision. The move also threatens jobs and pensions from coast-to-coast.”

mtuandrew wrote:If there’s any time to eliminate the provision in PRIIA about eliminating F/B losses, I think it’s actually now. Congress is in a spending mood, more conservative reps are in favor of public train service, the President doesn’t care what goes in front of him as long as he gets praise, and the fiscal hawks like Mica are largely out of favor or gone. RPA should carefully craft their lobbying efforts, so to give Anderson more breathing room.

Maybe but is allowing the status quo really the smart option? If were going to resist priia why not it's more ridiculous requirements such as state support for any route under 750 miles? Or maybe we can address the real problem on this route, it's slower now than the 1930s. In most other first world countries this is 12 hours or less, like 6 or less. We wouldn't be worrying about dining car service then

Suburban Station wrote:Maybe but is allowing the status quo really the smart option? If were going to resist priia why not it's more ridiculous requirements such as state support for any route under 750 miles? Or maybe we can address the real problem on this route, it's slower now than the 1930s. In most other first world countries this is 12 hours or less, like 6 or less. We wouldn't be worrying about dining car service then

I agree with you that dining service shouldn’t be necessary, nor should the Viewliner be necessary at all. But here we are, on a continent that has embraced the allure of cars as well air travel between widely-spaced destinations. Can’t argue against that so easily with train service, and where you can, Amtrak already does.

Also, PRIIA state support has led Amtrak to a much smaller deficit, even while it presents a barrier to entry for states that can’t or won’t afford to buy service.

So, is Mr Anderson just trying to follow the rules & eliminate the foodservice deficit by 2020?

I think the union is correkt in identifying this as a threat to their chef positions. Traditionally, in the private sector food service workers are rather low-paid. Perhaps the plan is to eliminate the chef positions, then bring them back in a year or so at a lower pay rate.

Not sure how Amtrak is setup, but my experience in a union/rail job (and why I am now retired) is that the higher-paid older employees get "bought out" and retire early so that the newer younger lesser-paid employees do the same job for much less.

[OT] buyouts happen all the time. Usually the projected cost saving isn't met (especially in the public sector) because they hire more inexperienced workers to replace the few experienced ones.

In this case, the workers hired prior to the PRIA? have job protection, so only those hired later are at risk?

The vendor probably charges 2 or 3 times as much for prepared meals as they do for just ingredients. At some point the extra food costs will equal or exceed the savings from eliminating the kitchen staff.

"Quick, they're on to us!" -- every such vendor

BandA wrote:The vendor probably charges 2 or 3 times as much for prepared meals as they do for just ingredients. At some point the extra food costs will equal or exceed the savings from eliminating the kitchen staff.

No , it won't. Maybe a $ 20 menu item is $10 wholesale , maybe more delivered to the rail. The Airline figures quoted indicate the bulk cost is probably less than that . The real cost of having a chef aboard for a single trip, probably runs around $ 1000. ( cost of sleeper occupied included). If they cook a 100 meals per trip , thats $ 10 per meal , plus all the other costs .
The only way they can over the cost of chef cooked meals is to at least double the cost to the consumer, it seems Amtrak does not want to go that way, for whatever reason.

24 HOUR AMTRAK DINER MAKES MONEY!?

Maybe Amtrak is going completely in the wrong direction with it's food service plans. Very interesting experiment that I wasn't aware of but certainly worth a read:

https://www.railwayage.com/passenger/in ... f-the-fun/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Excerpt:

Almost 20 years ago, there was a good solution which Amtrak experimented with to make its dining cars on long distance trains perform better financially: It was the 24-hour dining car on the Sunset Limited.

If this worked on the Sunset that traveled through remote areas, think of how it would work on the Lake Shore Limited . . . extremely well I would think.

Hours of operation is fairly independent of menu. 24hrs and Airline food could be best of both.

24 hour cafe would be a start. I guess a combined cafe / diner would suffice thru the dark hours.

Everything about that 24 hour diner experiment sounded great; do any Amtrak suits read that magazine?