CHICAGO — Amtrak will introduce its pre-packaged “Flexible Dining” program on western long-distance trains beginning Friday, April 17, in response to the sharply reduced ridership resulting from the coronavirus pandemic.
With the introduction of the program on trains west of Chicago and New Orleans, only the Lorton, Va.-Sanford, Fla., Auto Train will retain full dining service for sleeping-car passengers. The changes, billed as “temporary” in an operations service advisory obtained by Trains News Wire, will remain in effect until at least May 31.
The company had already established social distancing in dining cars by seating passengers in checkerboard fashion at different tables for the past month. But with few travelers on each train, and many bringing their own food, management decided to trim costs by substituting pre-packaged meals for sleeping car patrons, who will now have exclusive use of dining cars, as is the case on the Chicago-New York/Boston Lake Shore Limited. Coach passengers’ food options will be limited to the cafe menu in each train’s Superliner Sightseer Lounge.
Effective dates for the service adjustments are as follows:
Empire Builder (Chicago-Seattle/Portland, Ore): westbound, April 20; eastbound, April 17.
California Zephyr (Chicago-Emeryville, Calif.): westbound, April 17; eastbound April 20.
Southwest Chief (Chicago-Los Angeles): westbound and eastbound, April 17.
Texas Eagle (Chicago-San Antonio, Tex.: westbound, April 17; eastbound, April 19.
Sunset Limited (New Orleans-Los Angeles): westbound, April 20; eastbound, April 17.
Coast Starlight (Seattle-Los Angeles): northbound, April 17; southbound, April 19
In changes on other routes:
— The Capitol Limited Sightseer lounge has been sidelined; coach and sleeper customers utilize the train’s Cross-Country Cafe for snack fare and pre-packaged meals, respectively.
— The Viewliner diner has been dropped from the New York-New Orleans Crescent and was not added to the New York-Washington-Chicago Cardinal. Sleeping-car passengers on those trains will get continue to get their Flexible Dining food “to go” from a single lead service attendant in the Amfleet II cafe car. This change will also take place on the New York-Miami Silver Meteor on April 17.
— The plan to begin including pre-packaged meals for sleeping car customers on the New York-Raleigh-Tampa-Miami Silver Star will begin May 1, as previously scheduled, but with all food served from the train’s cafe.
As long as the patronage downturn persists, the only train operating with a Viewliner II dining car for sleeping car passengers is the New York section of the Lake Shore Limited.
As is the case with conductors, engineers, and other operating personnel, onboard service employees affected by reduced staffing requirements will move to the extra board (at reduced pay) rather than being furloughed, according to Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari.
He tells Trains News Wire that another factor driving the decision was that the meals “are designed to be portable and more easily transported back to passengers’ private room accommodations,” adding, “We will be revisiting food service options on all routes before May 31.”
Amtrak plans to formally announce the changes on its website on Wednesday, April 15, as part of the prominently-displayed “Coronavirus Update,” which will have a link to Flexible Dining menu offerings
Well, we all knew this sad day would eventually come. I am thankful to have experienced many dinners in the diner. Only now it comes under the cover CoronaVirus epidemic so that we are more apt to willingly accept it. Be careful, temporary measures often become permanent. E.g. income tax withholding in response to increased taxes during WW II.
Once again, Amtrak isn’t being honest: as of 10:15 EDT on 4/15/20, the webpage has no announcement of degraded food services, or any compensating fare reductions.
https://www.amtrak.com/planning-booking/policies/coronavirus?intcmp=wsp_hp-hero_link_booking-policies-update_frame1
Were everyone to stay “on-topic” respect would be a non-issue.
Mr. Reiter – you took the words right out of my mouth!
I fear that some upper management cost-cutter will ask why Auto Train should be an exception, and there goes the last hold-out. Only a matter of time, I predict.
Charles, If you keep your political views out of this forum people might not call you names. Pretty much every time I see a response from you, about any subject or someone with a contrasting view from yours, your blaming Democrats instead of this Administration or offering a substantial excuse instead of a remedy. You do have some insightful thoughts on many subjects but when you start to blame then you sound more like the guy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
I still say contract with on line caterers, people order and pay for meals when they make their reservations, the train carries a limited amount of meals for people who either show up just before train time or decide later to get a meal. The caterer delivers meals at a specific station. Cuts out waste (a lot of Amtrak food goes unsold), should increase quality and variety of choice.
I suspect we have seen the last full service dining on Amtrak long distance trains. The tragic pandemic was the perfect justification to accelerate the systemic decline in the quality of service on over night trains. I hope I am wrong.
The airline industry went through this many, many, many years ago. It’s not horrible; just different.
DAVID _ Feel free to disagree. To question the integrity of another forum poster is inappropriate and is contrary to accepted guidelines for community forums. Feel free to call me “stupid” if you wish but to suggested that I’m a “paid troll” cannot be accepted.
Trump educates ???. I can’t believe Charles Landey can be that stupid , has to be a paid troll.
I fail to see the need for a fare reduction. The fare does not guarantee what form or type of food will be served, only that there will be meal service. What I see in the photo is not haute cuisine, but it certainly appears to be adequate for the journey.
DANIEL – POTUS has not issued a single mandatory degree I’m aware of. It’s the governors that are issuing mandatory decrees (with or without the power to do so) while Trump educates and persuades.
Now the Democrat governors are suddenly claiming the Tenth Amendment when the Democrat Party has spent the last 50 years on an every-increasing attack on the Tenth Amendment.
Funny, those Tenth Amendment Democrat governors believe that all their budget problems must be solved from Washington while claiming the Tenth Amendment fr their own mega-power. My God!!!
So no Daniel, I totally reject your proposition. I can’t agree with you at all.
Charles, now address how concerned you must be with our “total authority” POTUS. I’m sure you are as upset with his misunderstanding of his “unlimited” Constitutional powers as your are with my governor.
Everything temporary becomes permanent. Do you think Michigan Governor Joseph I. Whitler will ever give up one ounce of her rule by decree?
Don’t expect ever again to see a cooked meal on Amtrak. Forget about it.
“Temporary” has a way of becoming permanent at AMTRAK. Recall the “experimental” elimination of the diner on the Silver Star in order to provide less expensive sleeping car space when compared to the Silver Meteor. Based on AMTRAK pricing, the “less expensive” space becomes moot when the Star space is more likely to be sold out than the Meteor. The change in meal service will probably be another effort by AMTRAK to downgrade, and eventually eliminate the LD trains.
Amtrak’s “temporary”is often at odds with the normal use of temporary. The service of the ” Sunset” is temporarily suspended from New Orleans to Jacksonville. Dhhh
During this national health crisis brought about by the Chinese Pandemic, it is clearly understandable how Amtrak had to move with alacrity to cut operations to minimize the extent of losses. Obviously, food/beverage services, menus, and on-board staff in that area would take the biggest hit.
However, based upon past experience with food/beverage services when a change was to be experimental, only to be made permanent in the dark of night, in respect to the new CEO, William Flynn, no changes or even revisions, should be made permanent until Flynn has had the opportunity to settle into the saddle.
As it is widely known how weak Amtrak’s management in food/beverage has historically been, Flynn should most certainly have the benefit of a deep dive into that important aspect of customer experience. Flynn should not be forced to simply accept the famous Amtrak mantra, “that’s the way we always did it here;” or, “if it wasn’t our idea, we will not even consider it.”
Flynn should thoroughly dissect how menus are created; cost and waste factor; appeal/appearance, etc; to be very curious to learn what is Europe doing so much better than us; even VIA Rail Canada? As well, Flynn would do himself well by investigating who in corporate/executive management still hanging around did not stay on top of the much delayed CAF order; only to see a corporate decision to park the new diners; to make additional investments to modify those cars not even in service.
Probably the same folks who approved the menus; forbidding coach passengers to purchase full meals in the new diners; are unaware of the problems of passengers carrying meals back to their compartment, let alone the longer trek to coach through a moving consist. Connecting the dots would evidence the same executives who contemplate requiring credit cards for food purchases from coach passengers, despite the fact many of those travelers rely on cash, and have no bank account.
This down period should be an opportunity for Flynn to take charge and intensely study the current Amtrak model, e.g., why do Roll On/Roll Off self-contained food/beverage carts work in first class on Acela, but not translatable to long distance diners? As well, what has prevented Amtrak from taking its improved cafe menu from Acela/NE Regional to Midwest corridors; or, to learn why the “Downeaster” offers a far superior cafe menu?
This time should be an opportunity to learn and revamp the service; not just merely return to the way it was when the all clear is received.
Covid, created by the Chinese with US funded research.
This could turn out to be a “watershed” moment for Amtrak and the industry, much like the Depression, which forced the industry to squeeze the waste out of their operations and, unknowingly, prepared the industry to handle World War II traffic. Everything is fair game; desperate times – desperate measures.