ABOARD THE SILVER STAR — The announcement Amtrak is extending chef-prepared meals and table service for sleeping-car passengers to another New York-Miami train [see “Amtrak returns ‘traditional dining’ to Silver Meteor,” Trains News Wire, June 27, 2023] came a few days after News Wire had a chance to sample that service on the northbound Silver Star.
Dining car service for coach travelers on eastern long-distance trains ended in 2018 and 2019 when Amtrak furloughed staff and switched to “flexible dining” for sleeping car passengers, whose meals are included in ticket prices. That didn’t change when management began experimenting with a slimmed down full-service dining model on the Star [see “Amtrak launches Silver Star traditional dining ‘pilot,’” News Wire, March 15, 2023]. It had introduced such service on most Superliner-equipped western trains two years earlier [see “Review: Amtrak reinvents traditional dining …,” News Wire, July 26, 2021].
As the Star departed Orlando on time at 7:25 p.m. on June 22, Viewliner II diner Hartford presented a welcome sight: an inviting, spacious dining room with white tablecloths and crisp blue linen napkins. The interior remained bright despite threatening thunderstorm-laden clouds outside, thanks to the double row of windows, high ceilings, and inventive ceiling light fixtures.
What was missing at dinner? People. Only three of eight available booths were occupied at the height of the dinner hour; two additional tables next to the kitchen were either stacked with supplies or used by crew.
I was invited to join solo patron Bill Porter; he was seated across the aisle from an Australian couple. Porter was headed to Wilmington, Del., from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., while John and Donna Dickfos from Brisbane boarded at Orlando for New York.
First-rate food and service
The only menu difference between fare offered on the Star and Superliner dining cars is that a salad is offered at dinner instead of the western trains’ choice of three appetizers (one a salad with brie cheese). The reason most likely is that the Silver Star and Meteor diners operate with only one chef in the kitchen, not two.
Though stainless steel cutlery is wrapped in the napkins, food is served on disposable plates at all meals. An unfortunate holdover from the “flexible dining” era is placement of three tall trash boxes and a paper garbage bag at the end of the car in space designed to accommodate passengers with disabilities. This setup may be convenient for servers clearing tables, but is a needless intrusion in an otherwise elegant dining room.
Nevertheless, the food quality, preparation, and service were excellent. Porter and Donna Dickfos reported that the oven roasted Atlantic salmon with lemon caper wine sauce was flavorful but not fishy, if somewhat dry, while John Dickfos and I had tender “Amtrak’s signature flat iron steaks” cooked as ordered.
The three dinner wine choices are a significant step up from the mini-serving Barefoot brand selections offered with “flexible” meals. Breakfast and lunch items duplicate what is served on the Western Superliners and were prepared with flair. Menus can be found on Amtrak’s website.
Minimum staffing
What currently isn’t replicated on the Star and Meteor is allowing coach passengers to purchase meals in such a fabulous space. On this trip, overnight capacity on the Star’s three coaches was showing 90%; a seat check survey walking through the train after dinner revealed about half of the more than 150 passengers going to Northeast Corridor destinations and a quarter headed for the Carolinas and Virginia.
It took more than a year following another “pilot,” where business-class customers were allowed to buy dining car meals on the Coast Starlight, for coach passengers on other Superliner-equipped trains to gain that purchase option. The opportunity has not been extended to coach travelers here despite three months of Star experience, though doing so has been a stated goal.
In an email, spokeswoman Kimberly Woods says the Silver Star pilot “met all of our expectations — needing only minor tweaks as we learned more about the service in real time. This expansion allowed for a seamless expansion to the Silver Meteor — evolving from a ‘surprise and delight’ onboard one route to a promotable product on both.”
The company’s goal has established a dining car model that is cost-focused on minimum staffing rather than generating extra revenue and spreading “surprise and delight” to those who aren’t inclined to pay sleeping car prices or necessarily travel overnight.
Before meals in a bowl were introduced, Amtrak dining cars on eastern trains served sleeper and coach passengers with one or two chefs in the kitchen and a lead service attendant, plus one or two servers. This employment level is currently handling coach passengers on a space-available basis on the western trains; with a bit of staffing creativity (maybe with incentives and cross-union cooperation) extra serving personnel might be added at certain meal periods.
What’s next?
According to a roster obtained by the Florida Association of Railroad Passengers through a Freedom of Information Act filing, seven of 25 Viewliner II dining cars remained inactive at the end of April 2023. The three eastern long-distance trains that have them, the Star, Meteor, and Lake Shore Limited’s New York section, need a total of 11 to protect regular assignments. The other seven active diners are available as “protect” standbys to substitute while diners cycle through maintenance, which is mandated more often for food service cars than other passenger equipment.
One train that lost the sidelined cars, the New York-New Orleans Crescent, clearly needs to get four of these back again, especially since it serves many of the nation’s fine dining locations and Amtrak is actively leading a proposed expansion of a section to Dallas-Fort Worth, Tex.
Given the Superliner shortage, and the fact that 17 Viewliner I sleeping cars are listed as “inactive” in the April 2023 report, another worthy candidate is the Chicago-Washington Capitol Limited. Together, both trains would require 7 active sets of equipment for daily operation and serve at least one endpoint where protect Viewliner II diners are already stationed.
The Silver Star journey reinforces the perception that when decked out as originally intended, instead of resembling a low-budget cafeteria lunch room, Viewliner II dining cars offer a distinctive travel asset Amtrak should exploit on as many trains and to as many customers as possible.
A press release announcing the Meteor’s “traditional dining” debut has it right: “Whether it’s the provision of delectable chef-prepared meals, an exquisite dining ambience, or the opportunity to enjoy a truly unique travel experience, Amtrak aims to create a memorable journey for all passengers.” Now it’s up to management to discover the corporate will to make that happen, and perhaps gain some word-of-mouth converts to rail travel in the process.
Would be interested in knowing why coach passengers are forbidden to use the
dining cars?
Bill Grant
Cols., OH
Ultimate Meyer Lemon Cake would go great with lemon sorbet!
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
Good! Glad to see food/dining car service recovering from the “Ander-saster.”
Continental Breakfast, Scrambled Eggs, Sweet Earth Plant Based Awesome Burger, Rigatoni Bolognese, White Chocolate Blueberry Cobbler Cheesecake and Iced Tea (Unsweetened) are highly recommended.
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
Several years ago (pre-Anderson) Amtrak ordered and Corning produced Corielle dinnerware with the Amtrak logo on it. Amtrak, for an unknown reason, never took delivery, so Corning offered it for $1 per piece in their gift shop at the Corning Museum. I regularly dine on Amtrak china at home. So sad it was never used on the trains for which it was produced.
3 sleepers. to nyp/ one to bos(V1/V2. 3 coaches to nyp 2 bos
The sleeper is being used as a third sleeper on lake shore limited
do not forget that for every extra OBS is one less bedroom that can be sold in sleeper. .Amtrak takes one sleeper off. Instead keep it and use some of the additional bedrooms to increase staff in the diner and lounge.
The question becomes is staff still short to cover 4 train sets for any route?
@Bob: re the dining car being relatively empty; do you have thoughts why that was the case. The Meteor has two sleepers so there should be many passengers to feed. In fact the Meteor lost one sleeper supposedly to keep from overloading the dining car. What gives?
Thanks
Neil
There were a number of empty roomettes and bedrooms overnight on this departure because Amtrak had dropped the original price several weeks before the trip–more on this in another report, but the rooms began to fill up the next morning. Coach passengers could have taken up the slack. As for the Meteor, in years past it had lost the second sleeper in the summer, so this is not unusual, but the train the car usually was assigned was the Cardinal, not the Lake Shore
AGREED! TOTALLY!!
The reinstatement of dinning car service is a step in the right direction for sure. The dirty windows seems to be prevalent on most Amtrak trains and is inexcusable.
Great to see this service restored. I have to agree that having those trash boxes and bags bouncing around at the end of the car greatly distracts from the otherwise upscale ambience. Looks so tacky. They can’t come up with a better-looking trash solution? And don’t get me started on the waste of two tables for the crew’s personal items and setups. A brand new car should have been designed with better storage space for these items. I can’t recall where but I remember being on a diner somewhere that had cubbies between the seat backs to hold setups. Very clever.
The math in the FOI request sent to the Florida Association of Rail Passengers seems flawed. If the Silver Service and the LSL are combined using 11 of 25 Viewliner II diners there sold be 14 cars still available for added routes–not 7.
I agree with Bob’s suggestion to restore diners to the CRESCENT and make the CAP a single-level train with Viewliner II diner/sleeper equipment. However Amfleet II coaches may be in short supply unless withdrawn from the Maple Leaf, Adirondack, Pennsylvanian and Palmetto. The delivery of new Venture cars in the midwest should permit Amtrak to move Amfleet I coaches (and possibly a few Horizon cars–small windows and all–east.The above trains really don’t need the scarce leg-rest coaches.
The meal situation on the CRESCENT has become truly debased. I have received rider reports of the crew denying access to coach riders to the Amfleet II lounge car (the only food source on the train) from Baltimore to almost Charlottesville southbound to “serve dinner to the sleepers”. (Convenience of the crew). That train desperately needs attention from Amtrak OBS managers.
Disposable plates? That was a surprise. Looks like china in the photos. What are they? Shiny plastic picnic stuff? That would be a negative for me. Did these diners originally have dishwashers? Are they still there?
They’ve been serving on plastic ware for at least the past decade.