posted
Dunkin Donuts will have coffee available for the Acela trains. Lets get it for all Amtrak trains! It will be a relief from the coffee urn, in the sleeping car cubbyhole, that sits around all day.
posted
This could represent an upgrade. Now that the coffee house @ MP 18.32 and its "tables with a view" has permanently closed, Dunkin is where I go for coffee when away from home.
The "Green Angel"; who's she (confession: I did visit her in Salzburg; no Dunkin over there)?
Posts: 9975 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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Richard, that would be good to have Dunkin Doughnuts coffee on all trains.
I would love to know the location of Amtrak's commissaries and how they work. I guess it's all sourced from an Aramark type vendor and probably the lowest grade of their food. But it is possible to get really good food from those type of vendors. So I guess it's a function of you get what you pay for.
But, that begs the question, how can some of the state sponsored trains afford the good regional cafe food that is much better than standard AmCafe offerings. I'm thinking of California, Washington, and Downeaster services. No doubt part of the answer is high cost of labor on Amtrak to stock and serve the food.
I would be willing to forgo Amtrak table service on LD trains (which is a far cry from the 'good ol' days') for better and more varied regional and locally sourced food. Maybe along the lines of Panera where you place your order at the counter and then serve yourself when it's ready. Maintain the same staff in the kitchen, but reduce or eliminate the waiters. The savings goes to improved quality and selection - and probably faster service.
While I guess the selection on the Silver Star is more varied than normal cafe, the facilities to prepare food are very limited. I hope when the new diners are received they will try out such an approach on that train.
Posts: 2397 | From: Camden, SC | Registered: Mar 2006
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Mr. Palmland: It would be great if we could go back to some of the regional food once served on some of the classic passenger trains, such as Santa Fe. I know some trains obtained local fresh fish and beef for dining cars. I thought most dining car food, even in the 1960's before Amtrak, was quite good. I once had a wonderful cup of coffee on one of the trains..the attendant said it was Farmer Bros. brand. And, at that, made in a percolator, which is not considered an ideal way to make coffe (coffee recirculated through the beans with over extraction as a result). But, the coffee was delicious.
Mr. Norman: Dunkin Donuts makes a good K cup coffee, which I frequently purchase. The Starbucks logo represents, to some, a Siren or sea nymph, which, in mythology, involved "evil spirit" worship. I, nonetheless, like Starbucks and their logo.
Richard
Posts: 1909 | From: Santa Rosa | Registered: Jan 2004
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Aramark, lest we forget, outfitted the SP Automats, which was simply as low as you go with any in-flight/on-board food service. Further be it noted, some of their best customers happen to be "correctional institutions".
Oh and I forgot; probably because I wanted to, I did go to a Starbucks this past February in Miami, and it was vile. Since hotel breakfasts are either "comp" on the low end or "through the roof" on the higher (try $30 on for size), I hit the street. There were no Dunkins of Paneras around the hotel (Marriott Biscayne Bay) so it was a two mile round trip hoof to the "Sea Nymph" at Bayfront Park.
Posts: 9975 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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I don't do weed and never have(not even a la Bill Clinton), but there's something perfect about a Dunkin Donuts thread on 4/20 day!
Posts: 1530 | From: Ocala, FL | Registered: Dec 2006
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Gilbert B Norman: [QB] Aramark, lest we forget, outfitted the SP Automats, which was simply as low as you go with any in-flight/on-board food service. Further be it noted, some of their best customers happen to be "correctional institutions".
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Mr. Norman, and others; Why is food so good (in my opinion) in the VIA dining car (especially the VIA "Canadian", Toronto to Vancouver? What do they do right?
Richard
Posts: 1909 | From: Santa Rosa | Registered: Jan 2004
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Richard- I guess two things come to mind about the dining cars on the Canadian.
First is the level of service. We receive consistently good, professional service. And, for the most part, many appeared to be young seasonal type workers. The difference with Amtrak: a dining car steward was there to make sure the service standards were followed. I believe he does the training and supervision for not only the dining car staff but also the sleeping car attendants. A train manager is something Amtrak has tried but was never able to make them effective. And, of course, the train was fully staffed. I'd like to know the pay rate for those seasonal waiters as compared to Amtrak.
And the other factor was that at least most of the food was freshly prepared with plastic dishes/glasses banished. from the diner.
Posts: 2397 | From: Camden, SC | Registered: Mar 2006
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Messrs. Palmland and Yukon, I can safely presume that this apparently superior level of food service on VIA has much of that "secret ingredient"......money!!!!
Judging from the VIA fare levels, even considering they're paid for with "74 cent pieces", it better be.
For whatever their reasons, the Canadian taxpayers choose to subsidize a "luxotrain", presumably with the goal of promoting tourism. Sometimes there might be a few wanting to ride from Portage La Prairie to Saskatoon just to get from here to there, but The Canadian is primarily there for the tourist with Loonies in hand.
US taxpayers are hardly about to support a "Luxotrain", especially since everyone of 'em tried out on US rails has flopped. They are apparently prepared to support an intercity rail system - even into, during, and through the Trump era - that has far greater public acceptance and metrics of operational efficiency than "that System" North of the 49th".
Posts: 9975 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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Mr. Palmland and Mr. Norman: I think you have both hit the nail on the head.
Another thought has to do with train demographics and why people take the Canadian. I don't think Canadian passengers simply are on the train to go from AB-BC or BC-AB, especially during summer months. They are vacationers who want to see the Canadian Rockies, train buffs, and many who seldom take train excursions and have high expectations for a first class trip.
Many are middle to upper middle class, in income, noting that cost of a sleeper on the Canadian is just as high as an Amtrak sleeper, except for the super high cost for Prestige Class. They would not settle for the mediocre or sub mediocre food offered by Amtrak.
Richard
Posts: 1909 | From: Santa Rosa | Registered: Jan 2004
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I still maintain that Amtrak could help the bottom line by offering a luxo service, to use a GBN term. The tourist RR have figured out that's where their profit is (as told to me by a Strasburg employee). Unfortunately such an elite service would be frowned on by some in congress, regardless of the rationale.
Posts: 2397 | From: Camden, SC | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:Originally posted by palmland: I still maintain that Amtrak could help the bottom line by offering a luxo service, to use a GBN term. The tourist RR have figured out that's where their profit is (as told to me by a Strasburg employee). Unfortunately such an elite service would be frowned on by some in congress, regardless of the rationale.
****************************************** I keep contemplating the possiblity of a deluxe service on a LD train, one which draws a lot of summertime excursionists and vacationers. Why can't they pick a train, such as the Starlight or Builder, and give it a try? It could be for just one run per week, as a test. Give it a lot of advertisement. I guess they would need to bring in a whole new train set for the luxo runs. Possibly Iowa Pacific? Possibly the Rocky Mountaineer folks?
If it doesn't work, well, it doesn't work.
Richard
Posts: 1909 | From: Santa Rosa | Registered: Jan 2004
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VIA is hiring dining car attendants. Here are some of the expectations of the job:
quote:Your definition of giving an excellent customer service is warmly greeting people and answering their needs with diligence, efficiency and heartfelt appreciation for their business. We share your belief and have built our reputation on providing excellent service, in a safe and secure environment.
Based in Toronto - Ontario, you will make the routes of Toronto-Montréal, Toronto-Windsor or Toronto-Niagara.
Contributing to their pleasurable trip, you will provide passengers with a comfy and safe experience: • welcoming and guiding them to their cabin or seat • giving safety instructions • helping with baggage • serving meals (including meat) • serving beverages (including alcoholic beverages) • selling snacks and refreshments • ensuring the tidiness and cleanliness of the bedrooms and work areas
If routine is not your “cup of tea”, you like challenges and can thrive under pressure, you will connect with our customer service teams. Satisfying customers tactfully always prevails over occasional irritants and unpleasant situations.
quote:SUMMARY OF DUTIES: This position is responsible for ensuring a safe, comfortable and pleasant journey to our coach and sleeping car passengers. The Train Attendant can work either coach or sleeping cars. Coach Attendants will be required to keep assigned coaches clean for the duration of the trip, including maintenance of all restrooms. Sleeping Car Attendants will be required to offer passengers all first-class amenities, make beds, change linen and keep restroom and shower area clean and sanitary for the duration of the trip. Must be willing to give special assistance to elderly and disabled passengers who are boarding and detraining. Will be responsible for assisting passengers who are boarding/detraining, including assistance with baggage. Must load/unload supplies and maintain an inventory of supplies.
ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS: This position will be responsible for performing dining car service and side work as directed by the Lead Service Attendant by providing a quality dining car experience for passengers in a safe, efficient and professional manner. Must load/unload supplies and maintain an inventory of supplies. Must be available to work flexible schedules that include weekends and holidays.
VIA makes it clear that the job is about providing warm service to the customers; Amtrak makes it clear that the job includes cleaning toilets.
VIA requires a 5 week training course; Amtrak requires that the candidate "Successfully complete a customer service aptitude testing instrument."
Which company would you rather work for?
Posts: 831 | From: Seattle | Registered: Jan 2011
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Even though the train is of vintage equipment, you do get a sense of superior service. The video #1 flips to vidoe #2, both are of the interior of a VIA train. If you go to the video of the "Canadian", Toronto to Vancouver, check out the grizzly bear along the tracks.
Richard
PS -Youtube seems to toggle between a variety of videos. Here is the one with the grizzly bear on the track. It comes at 24:47:
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Richard, thanks for those good video finds. They certainly fortify my thoughts that The Canadian is a luxotrain for excursionits and, while I'm sure there are exceptions, the Portage La Prairie-Saskatoon passenger in the Coach is just that.
VIA is to be commended for keeping the rolling museum in what appears to be a high state of good repair. I'm sure their seasonal staff of college students are all full of youngster enthusiasm that wears well on the elderly clientele.
Since VIA is hardly as transparent with "the numbers" as is Amtrak, who knows how much it is soaking Canadian taxpayers who never have or will go near the train.
Tourism of course comprises a far greater percentage of Canada's GNP than it does here. As a result that industry has Ottawa a bit more beholden unto them, and with the absence of VIA transparency, the losses from The Canadian can be buried.
I could have predicted the chorus around here of "Why doesn't Amtrak have a Luxotrain?". I'm sure from this community where there is both desire to ride, and the ability to stake, such a train would draw some riders.
But be it assured, "Amluxe" would lose its shirt, and with Amtrak's mandated transparency, the 218+51+1 would be quick to know it.
And finally, allow me to reiterate that any and all "Luxos", starting with American European and ending with Ellis, tried out down here have one common demoninator - they've all flopped.
Posts: 9975 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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I do not know why none of the luxury trains that ran here in the US survived. I had thought that catering to the very rich would always be profitable, because the very rich can easily afford the high prices luxury trains need to charge.
But when I thought about it and read about the condition of the American Orient Express cars, I realized why that train did not succeed in the long run. I read that the AOE cars were rusting and not exactly in tip-top condition. Then, maybe people nowadays do not like being in the cramped spaces on trains for more than a short time, preferring the roomy accommodations in hotels. And people of any economic status might also not like not having to share restroom and shower facilities with strangers, as one almnost always has to do on a train, as it cannot be connected to a city water main while in motion. This also means very short showers, and not being able to luxuriate in a long hot bath or shower.
But VIA does succeed in the luxury train market, so I cannot understand why the AOE did not succeed, unless the AOE did not do everything that the VIA "Canadian" does.
Posts: 211 | From: California | Registered: Dec 2004
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Margaret, aside that The Canadian survives, but yet we know little to nothing about its "financials", is I'll say it's remoteness.
The CN line it uses passes through far sparsely populated regions than does the CP. This means that the folk living in Capreol know of it, but the more populous areas to the South, such as London, do not, let alone know how many Loonies it looses.
This is even more aggravated to the West. There are a few more folk in Regina, where it doesn't go, than there are in Saskatoon, where it does. It is simply out of sight out of mind.
So long as the tourism industry has its lobby and it can be filled with "faces and fannies", it will live on - and of course "it's there" for any of us willing to part with 4600 Loonies (Bedroom for one high season), or whatever it costs for a "passage".
Posts: 9975 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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Margaret, while I did not ride the AOE, from a walk through in Savannah it seemed every bit as nice as the Canadian. The difference of course is the lack of a federal subsidy. I think you are right that the public that can afford such an excursion wants all the amenities they are used to.
The fact that the privately operated Rocky Mountaineer is very successful attests to that: no sleepers, but a night in a comfortable hotel, and superb catered food, with most served at your seat. The young energetic, but well managed,crew we saw on the Canadian is another part of the answer. Amtrak does ok most of the times with their scarce resources.
Here a few photos of the AOE and our Canadian trip.
Regarding the American Orient Express, as Margaret mentioned, I have heard that the cars, although spruced up, weren't in very good condition. One passenger described the AOE cars as "lipstick on a pig". Passenger cost was something like $2,000 to $10,000 per one way trip. Hardly affordable for even upper middle class.
I'm not sure, but I think the only "luxury" VIA train service is prestige class on the Canadian, which is in the 3K to 5K range. There used to be a lux train called "Royal Canadian Pacific", but I don't know if it is still around.
I think one of the reasons (beside super high cost) for the downfall of the American Orient Express and its successor, GrandLuxe, as well as Pullman Rail Journeys was poor planning and marketing. All were not autonomous but had to be coupled to Amtrak. Some required bustitutes to board or arrive at a destination. I think Pullman Rail Journeys made a mistake by coupling on to the "City of New Orleans". Although I like a good jamablaya stew, NO is a city I would never be interested in visiting and not a good family destination, in my opinion.
I don't think it is possible for Amtrak to run a luxury train. Needs to be a private concern like the RM. I thought the 2015 FAST legislation would allow a private passenger train on 3 Amtrak LD routes, if such could make a profit. I think if a true luxury train could be established, it should run to popular, family vacation spots such as Colorado and the Northwest. Also, multiple prices, classes of service, as well as amenities.
Richard
Posts: 1909 | From: Santa Rosa | Registered: Jan 2004
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Gilbert and Richard - Thank you very much for the kind and thoughtful replies.
Yukon 11/Richard -- Thank you very, veyr much for the great photos! I do apreciate that.
About "making a "profit"" on any passenger train -- Sorry -- not possible, not if you include all capital costs -- tracks, stations, and rolling stock. Even the great and successful "Rocky Mountaineer" never had to pay for 100% of the original capital costs of the tracks, the stations, and the rolling stock they use. Buying and rehabbing used equipment and renting the use of stations and tracks is a lot less expensive than having cars and locomotives and stations built fust for teh Rocky Mountaineer. All that makes it possible for them to make a nice profit -- nothing wrong with that!
And, as Gilbert pointed out, VIA is subsidized by the Canadian government, so the Rocky Mountaineer benefits a lot from that.
And, yes, as Yukon 11/Richard pointed out, if a luxury train is to succeed, it must be autonomous -- have its own locomotives and thus run on its own schedule so it dos not have to depend on any regular passenger train's needs and schedule-keeping. (I wol;d be really, really upset if I had paid a lot of money to ride in fancy private cars and then have to ride a dratted BUS just to get to my train or to my destination if the train the private cars I had paid a lot to ride in was delayed a lot. Not good for any privately-owned passenger car owners' business! As Richard said, and I agree, you have your own locomotives and run on yhour own schedhle.
Posts: 211 | From: California | Registered: Dec 2004
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There've been how many attempts at luxury rail in Amtrak's lifetime?
I remember at least three, including American Orient Express and ending with Iowa Pacific's Pullman Rail Journeys.
Whether a management issue, or a "not enough demand to make the operation go" issue, all three have gone under.
I may be a fan, but I'm not a fool. I would look at any prospectus for a luxury rail offering with great skepticism, and probably make a "NO INVESTMENT" decision.
Disclaimer: IRA position in UNP.
Posts: 1404 | Registered: Oct 2001
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Of course, Amtrak should match this Luxotrain Posts: 9975 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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"Aramark, lest we forget, outfitted the SP Automats, which was simply as low as you go with any in-flight/on-board food service. Further be it noted, some of their best customers happen to be "correctional institutions." - Mr. Norman
Aramark recently took over food service in Yosemite National Park. Based on one meal last September, yikes. I fondly remember before.
quote:Originally posted by DonNadeau: "Aramark, lest we forget, outfitted the SP Automats, which was simply as low as you go with any in-flight/on-board food service. Further be it noted, some of their best customers happen to be "correctional institutions." - Mr. Norman
Aramark recently took over food service in Yosemite National Park. Based on one meal last September, yikes. I fondly remember before.
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I hope Aramark isn't serving food at the Ahwahnee Hotel
Richard
Posts: 1909 | From: Santa Rosa | Registered: Jan 2004
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There's been a huge shake up at Yosemite during the past year. For example, all hotel names have changed. When Aramark showed up to take over, the former operator turned out to have trademarked the names. Ticked off it prohibited further use.
Passing through last September on the way to the east side of the Sierras, I missed the wonderful experience of having breakfast in the grand dining room of the Ahwahnee Hotel--excuse me--the Majestic Yosemite Hotel. Just had a light meal at another. Yuck.
By the way, if you visit Yosemite do do the drive to its east entrance. Magnificent. Last September was my second time.
posted
About this time last year we were in Yosemite. We stayed in a tent cabin in the valley. Food there was forgettable, drinks at Ahwannee was memorable, scenery was spectacular (at least until the park was closed for an Obama visit). We did drive in the east entrance and thoroughly enjoyed it.
We then went to the wonderful old Wawona Hotel (forgot the new name) south of the valley to meet friends. Loved the hotel, the food was great, and the evening piano player (knew every old standard as well as new ones) was outstanding. I suspect the quality of food at park hotels varies with the type of accommodations. Amtrak thruway bus stopped across the road.
After leaving we headed to Seattle to catch the EB via the Oregon coast.
Posts: 2397 | From: Camden, SC | Registered: Mar 2006
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Don-I find it hard to believe that patrons of the Majestic (old Ahwahnee) Hotel would be served Amtrak food in their dining room. Maybe Aramark has a "posh" division of food service to provide meals for the upper crust? The cost of a room, at the Majestic (old Ahwahnee) Hotel is around $700/night.
I think there are some good, reasonably priced hotels/motels a mile or two from the west entrance of Yosemite. Perhaps others can chirp in with suggestions.
Richard
Posts: 1909 | From: Santa Rosa | Registered: Jan 2004
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posted
Richard, happily you must be right. Aramark would be run out Yosemite if it didn't have an upscale option for such venues. It would also miss out on handling meals at corporate headquarters of companies, such as Citibank, that probably demand the best.
Am not surprised that the Ahwahnee's room rates now start at $700. The demand for the limited amount of that level of accommodation must mean far more are turned away than are served. Maybe we can sneak in in the winter, when the valley I am told is sublime, but the rates may be much lower.
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