CHICAGO — Amtrak is removing heritage dining cars from the daily Chicago to New York Lake Shore Limited to help it deal with a shortage of the classic passenger cars. The passenger railroad began withdrawing dining cars in June because of structural issues.
Amtrak managers are temporarily replacing the cars with Amfleet II diner lounges until diners on order from CAF USA arrive on the property. Managers expect six of the new cars to complete testing on the Northeast Corridor in the coming months.
Amtrak managers tell the National Association of Railroad Passengers that they chose the Chicago-New York overnight train to take the temporary service downgrade because the westbound train only serves dinner and breakfast, and the eastbound Lake Shore just offers breakfast and lunch.
This leaves the New York-Miami Silver Meteor and the New York-New Orleans Crescent as the last Amtrak trains with heritage dining cars. Both of those trains serve up to four meals on each trip and require four trainsets.
The hand-me-down heritage dining cars were all built between 1948 and 1957 and are expensive to rebuild.
Because Amfleet II cars only have microwave and convection ovens instead of a full kitchen with a grill and steam tables, the Lake Shore menu now mirrors what passengers get on the tri-weekly Cardinal, which has been without a dining car for more than a decade.
Amtrak officials tell Trains News Wire that full service dining cars will return to the Lake Shore and other single-level long-distance trains — some which currently don’t have them — but the type of service provided is likely to vary by train.
It seems strange that every car in service has developed structural problems at the same time.
I am 71 years old and recall the downgrading of the C&NW trains between Chicago; Green Bay and points north.
I guess no one at the Northwestern thought of declaring the dining cars as having structural problems.
So while new baggage cars are being delivered; the number of stations handling checked baggage continues to shrink. New diners are being delivered so the decision is made to drop the diner’s from one of the Silver Service train sets. Old folks like me know that once a service is dropped from a train it probably ain’t coming back.
I’m sure that Vanderbilt, Claytor, and Frimbo must be spinning in their graves. To see that a once proud train has been reduced to something as the Silver Star has become. And to see that Boardman has let this happen is sad to see.
I couldn’t agree more with Daniel Carleton; what sort of metal or structural damage is being reported by AMT? The majority of these are Budd cars, and we know that those are basically indestructible unless telescoped or ripped apart in a wreck. Somewhere I heard something about body bolsters showing rust, which makes no sense at all for cars that are largely stainless steel.
Being that the LSL is a vestige of the Great Steel Fleet that traversed the Empire State, and Boardman cut his teeth on NY State transportation and is from NY Central territory you would think he would have an interest in maintaining a civilized dining option for all passengers – No, the LSL dining situation has been horrible. I boarded as a coach passenger a decade ago, and only after we had pulled out of Penn Station did they announce there was no food available until Albany…and then only a snack bar. I have ridden this train twice and it has been a disaster. You would think the US could at least keep up with the service on German ICE trains or Hungarian Railjet in corridors and offer decent service on longer trips. Hopefully, the economically ignorant and scornful of the traveling public plutocrats like Mica will eventually get the boot.
Actually it´s not that bad.
Last year I had 7 overnight trips on Amtrak trains. Dining car wise it was a desaster! The better ones where the Cardinal and the Eagle. The worst was a “dinner” on the Lake Shore with just some Maccaroni left after departure from Albany. If I wouldn´t had been forced to pre pay my meals, I´d brought something with my self.
On top of this, there are rumors of a re-route west of Toledo.
As usual someone has to blame the Republicans. If the cars are broken, they need to be fixed or replaced. So is a diner the only reason you rode the train? It’s a great part of the trip but I would’nt think the only reason to ride. Does lesson the experience but again is it the sole focus of your travel?
Typical Boardman administration reaction. He cares more about John Mica and other clueless Republican politicians (who don’t ride anyway) than its passengers. While Amtrak suffers from a lack of funding, it suffers more from a lack of imagination. Why doesn’t Amtrak contract with Whole Foods or Harris Teeter (a North Carolina-based supermarket chain with excellent products) to supply prepared meals? Or lease any spare diners in the VIA Rail fleet or lease them from any private owners or freight ralroads with surplus cars? The Amtrak board needs to hire a new president with railroad industry experience who has a passion for passenger service and customer service generally.
“Bunker” Boardman can’t leave too soon. Harris Teeter would be an excellent vendor, but, even at first-class pricing, we can’t afford meals from ‘Wholly-overpriced Foods’, especially their “organic” silliness.
The poor service on the “LATE Shore Limited” dining cars is only exceeded by the poor service by the Sleeping Car Attendants.
“Lake Shore menu now mirrors what passengers get on the tri-weekly Cardinal”. Is this the same as the lounge and café menus or is it better than that?
Temporary for Amtrak has an entirely different meaning, than the rest of the educated world. The best example being the Sunset Limited fiasco east of New Orleans. Robert McGuire’s comment regarding the poor service on the LSL is ditto on the “Silver” crews! Both sleeping car attendants and dining crews. YETTTTT Just last month I returned from “out west”. Empire, Cascades. Coast Starlight, Sunset, Chief. A large majority of the service and operating crews were excellent! East/West of Chicago it’s like two different railroads!
Well, the silver lining here is that we will no longer have to put up with the poor service from LSL dining car crews. At least temporarily.
Now, I’m wondering. When the diner on the Silver Star was downgraded they also lowered the sleeping car fares. There is no mention of that happening on the LSL in this article. That would be typical of the government though, expecting us to pay more for less.
Be prepared for another “Silver Star” like scenario…somehow I doubt the Lake Shore Limited will ever get a full diner back since Amtrak has already found enough people willing to put up with not having one on the Star.
Well…….Here I am on the eastbound Empire Builder, connecting tomorrow to the Lake Shore, and finding out I won’t have the meal options I expected.
What a revolting development this is.
Passing the shops in Chicago morning inbound and afternoon outbound last Wednesday, dining cars 8502 (ex-CBQ), 8504 (ex-CBQ), 8551 (ex-CBQ), 8552 (ex-NP), and 8558 (ex-Southern) were all lined up together. Real interesting to see that many low level dining cars in Chicago at one time, unless they are all headed to Beech Grove.
There are reports that some of the cars show cracks on various structural components of the car, primarily the frames.
@Kai-Uwe Klinge…are you talking about September 2016 or September 2017…if it’s 2017(which by the way is next September), I doubt you’ll have an issue as diners should be back on the LSL(Lake Shore Limited) by then, if it is “this” September(2016), then it looks like Amfleet diner-lounges for you and your son.
Could we be more specific with the “structural issues?” That leaves a lot of uncovered ground.
These are bad news from the Lake Shore Limited, because my son and I will ride the eastbound at the end of next September on the last leg of our San-Francisco – New York City transcontinental trip. Five years ago our westbound Lake Shore was hit by a tree in western Massachusetts so we were bused to Albany where we boarded the westbound to Chicago (first leg of another transcontinental trip).