WASHINGTON — Amtrak is adding a hot-meal choice to lunch and dinner food service for sleeping-car passengers on the Lake Shore Limited and Capitol Limited.
Beginning this week, slow-braised beef short rib in a red wine and beer sauce will be added to the lunch and dinner menu of pre-prepared items, which also include a vegan wrap, chicken Caesar salad, and antipasto plate. Dropped is the chilled grilled beef tenderloin salad.
Breakfast service remains a single meal, featuring fruit, a muffin, a Greek yogurt parfait, and breakfast bars.
“Our plan to provide fresh food choices now includes a hot option, which is based on engaging our sleeping car customers on what they would like and with special training for our train crews,” Bob Dorsch, vice president of the Amtrak Long Distance Service Line, said in a media release. “This contemporary style of service has been well received by customers, with meals of their choice and at times they choose. These customers also enjoy having exclusive use of the dining cars.”
Amtrak replaced full-service dining cars on the two trains on June 1, replacing them with boxed meals which sleeping-car passengers can eat in the dining room or have delivered to their room.
Amtrak is running out of feet to shoot . Train travel in the US is becoming a very unattractive option and congress should be required to experience it .
Im sorry but this is still just the bag of peanuts in a different wrapping, and made to resemble a hot meal. Under this this managment this type of log distance travel will truly fail. But if it does I will be the first on the line to st6op every large or small subsidy or grant to every airline or bus company receives and we all know the airlines are being subsidized to the hilt,just under another title.
“Breakfast service remains a single meal, featuring fruit, a muffin, a Greek yogurt parfait, and breakfast bars.” This is an “enlighten” use of the word “Breakfast”
You hire an airline exec and see what you got? When do they get to stage off offering you a free bag of peanuts and $5 beer and $10 cocktails? The airlines that win the first prizes are the ones that have their own flight kitchens and/or exclusive caterers who prepare hot and cold food items.
This is a step to perhaps making this pared-down meal service work though there should be more than one hot meal option. Also, Amtrak management has overlooked the fact that many people traveling in he sleepers during the summer months are families with children. When I rode the Capitol Limited last month there were a number of families with hungry and unhappy children because a cold turkey sandwich is simply an inadequate option.
Nice try Bob Dorsch. “Contemporary style of service”? Pass me the vomit bag. I’m sure Delta Dick has a few laying around. I’m so glad they’re enjoying the exclusive use of the dining car instead of having to share it with those low-life coach customers, except that eating out of a box not dining. LOL. Now, I will admit the braised short rib is a tiny step in the right direction Bob, but don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back. Can’t you at least have some frozen breakfast meals to give us? Just put a couple of microwave ovens in the former dining cars and we’ll heat them up ourselves then you won’t have to provide special training for your train crews. I’ve ridden many Amtrak routes, but never the Lakeshore. It was next on my list, but not now. Oh well, I can still get to East coast on the Cardinal, but for how long? I hope it survives intact until the next election.
If I wanted to fly with all the lack of service that means these days, I’d fly. I used to take the Lakeshore a couple of times a year–but no more. Ugh back to the air,
Absolutely disgusting and an insult to passengers. Two trains I will no longer ride.
Boy, this will have passengers riding Amtrak in no time.
I my self ,I am sure there other passengers with the same problem, I half to eat 3 square meals a day, I have been on the CL, and LSL, and had a great meal,
this CEO is pushing people off the train, what airline is pay him for this, he should get out the air ,and see what the land looking like,take the SWC the train is the only thing that can get through the Raton Pass in the winter time, the highways are more congested that he will put more buses to congestive more
Some years ago, while riding the Lake Shore Limited I tried to bring aboard a half-dozen MREs. This was not long after the World Trade Centre incident and the station had security guards. They were confiscated on the grounds that they were “perishable” and besides, I should subsidize the train by buying meals on-board (I had a roomette, meals were included in the ticket price even then). Although I knew the security guard was full of it I buckled because I HAD to be in Chicago, had no time for a side trip to jail (I know the law so normally when I encounter a size 9 ego in a size 4 soul my response is “Bring it!”). That was a hungry trip, let me tell you.
The above comments are general in nature and do not form the basis for an attorney/client relationship. They are not legal advice. I am not your attorney. Go find your own damn lawyer.
I agree, Mr. Erickson. For me breakfast is the best meal in the diner.
Well, this is an improvement. But it still seems like one baby step forward after many giant steps backward. Now, if they added a hot option at breakfast, that would be a second baby step forward.
Lipstick on the pig?
I can see no reason why they can’t elevate the meals to at least the quality of the Acela……..
Very sad to see Amtrak punish the first class passengers with dog food.
@Barton Jennings – reminds me of the old WW-II story where standard practice was to look at returning aircraft, see where on the bodies of the planes they’d been shot, and pass on messages back to the manufacturer to strengthen those parts of the aircraft… until someone pointed out that aircraft shot in those places survived, so those parts of the aircraft obviously weren’t the areas the planes needed improvement.
To a certain extent we’re seeing the same thing happen within the rail community. Most of the discussion about reform of Amtrak to replace LD trains with daytime expresses is massively negative, despite the unpopularity of LD trains across the country as a whole. Well, that’s because the people who ride LD trains are likely to congregate around forums like the rail community.
For all their “fancy” meals, they might try taking 4-6 oz of ground beef, putting it on a grill, and serving it between 2 pcs of bread or roll. What a concept! maybe a hot or cold side item that if hot, can be easily heated and not deep fried. (I LOVE french fries, but also like other alternatives.)
So now we coach passengers are officially not welcome in the LSL dining car. It’s been years, though, since I remember the dining car steward coming through the coaches asking for reservations as they do on other trains. Well, with the deterioration of the food options, we bring our own food.
Wow, people onboard a train for 20 hours wanted an actual dining experience. Color me f______ shocked.
Dennis Lagura
Look at the options again, these are not high fat, high salt meals…far from it actually. Mr. Anderson just needs to be replaced with someone that has vision and forward thinking, and doesn’t come from the airline or bus industry.
“Engaging our sleeping car customers” is an interesting statement. How about a national survey so you can include those that chose to drive or fly instead of taking the train so they could get a hot breakfast, etc?
Many years ago, a well know national car brand only surveyed its existing customers, and focused all of their efforts on them. After a few years, they saw sales drop. They surveyed and responded even more, but sales still dropped. After a decade, they asked an outside agency to find out why sales dropped when customers were so happy. The answer was that the customers were dead and no new customers had been brought on. The key is to also survey prospective customers and see what they want, and survey customers who have shown a reduced activity level.
How about a few simple questions on the website about meals and service? Many companies now do this, and yes, they can be slanted by groups, but that can generally be removed and corrected by matching responses with poll pushes (calls for members or e-mail lists to respond). These are basic marketing and sales strategies used by many companies.
This is an admission by Amtrak that the new meal service is not being well received. What a shock.
But what is being done with this move is like putting a band-aid over the gaping hole where one’s leg use to be.
Mr Anderson, restore full dining car service. This ‘experiment’ has been a failure.
To replace full diner meal service with boxed high salt, high fat meals is an affront to the Amtrak passengers that pay the highest ticket prices. The diner is part of the service. Without it we will no longer ride and we have spent many thousands in the last 10 years.
Paul Harrison – there is evidence that overnight trains get higher ridership than day trains between the same destinations. This was true for Savannah ridership on the Silver Star vs. the Palmetto and I believe other places too. Obviously day trains have their place as well – we should have both.
Charles Mortensen – Used to be. This is all really not acceptable.