The first Siemens Venture coach-cafe to enter Amtrak Midwest service, No. 4301, is part of train No. 305 at Bloomington-Normal on July 9, 2024. Bob Johnston
CHICAGO — The first of 17 Venture coach-café cars built by Siemens for Midwest States has finally debuted on one daily Chicago-St. Louis Lincoln Service round-trip.
Trains News Wire sampled the new entry out of Chicago to Bloomington-Normal, Ill., last week on train No. 305, a 5:20 p.m. departure. The trainset returns the next morning as Lincoln Service No. 300, which is scheduled to arrive into the Windy City at 9:25 a.m.
Divisions of Illinois and California transportation departments, not Amtrak, led and managed the procurement of single-level Venture cars and Charger locomotives. Though they agreed on aisle width and the same type of coach seat, the two agencies arrived at different ideas of how their respective rolling stock was to be configured. The Midwest cafes went through a variety of changes from what was initially envisioned as a standardized design; California opted for vending-machine cars that still have not debuted on the San Joaquins.
The all-Venture, five-car train waiting on Chicago Union Station’s track 18 on a stormy July 9 had its coach-café immediately behind the locomotive, followed by three coaches and a business-class car on the rear. The original plan was to run the coach-café and business-class cars together, since business-class passengers get a free non-alcoholic beverage on Midwest trains. Another reason the two cars were to be paired is that the business-class car, with one seat on one side of the aisle and two on the other, has a built-in wheelchair lift for passengers with disabilities.
News Wire bought a coach ticket and used an Amtrak Guest Rewards upgrade coupon to sit in business class, whose passengers received priority boarding on what conductors said was a sold-out train. After boarding that group in the last car, the conductor closed the trap so he could direct passengers to coaches corresponding to stops where traps would be opened.
On this trip, the overhead passenger information display system and automated announcements weren’t operational. Following the obligatory safety and no-smoking advisories after an on-time departure, a conductor added, “We have a new café car; it’s at the front of the train. There are no seats to eat your food. If you make a purchase, you must take the food back to your seat.”
Walking forward as No. 305 speeds at 79 mph in the driving rain between the Summit and Joliet stops, only a smattering of single seats remain unoccupied. This includes the café car’s coach section, which has six rows of double seats on one side of the wide aisle and eight rows on the other. The section is roughly comparable in size to the business-class section of Amfleet I and Horizon cafe cars, but Illinois opted to increase business-class capacity by making that an entirely separate car.
Illinois DOT spokesman Scott Speegle tells News Wire, “While final consist decisions are made by Amtrak, we have requested that the business class car is at one end of the consist to give those customers greater privacy. Ideally, we would like the café car placed in the middle of the consist to give all customers easier access to the cafe.” He says that as the Venture coach-cafés receive final acceptance by the agency and Amtrak, they will first fill out the Lincoln Service lineup of four round trips before being deployed to other Midwest routes.
As currently positioned, everyone lines up while waiting to be served at the snack bar in a hallway with large windows on one side, reminiscent of views experienced on Talgo cafe cars.
The cafe’s snack bar serves the same variety of fresh deli sandwiches, jumbo hot dogs, cheeseburgers, chips, soft drinks, and alcoholic beverages, including domestic and imported beers, available on all Midwest cafe cars.
The counter itself is inviting. Cody, the attendant who kept busy with a steady stream of customers during the dinner hour, remarked to a customer, “They designed this car seven years ago. I like the layout, but there is no place to sit and converse with passengers.”
Challenges occur, however, when a recently served passenger returns from the condiment table on the other side of the snack counter with food.
This is not unlike the problem encountered in any Amtrak café cars, but in those cases there is more maneuvering room directly across from where people are served. Also, anyone in a wheelchair would have trouble passing the service area to access the spacious room on the other side of the snack bar that is outfitted with electrical portals on low-level counters.
This might be a place where passengers could congregate, albeit without any seating, but travelers are told they must return to their seats after purchasing food, so “hanging out” in the relatively sterile room isn’t an option. This may change if the business-class car is positioned next to the coach-café.
When Amtrak took delivery of Amfleet I food service cars in the 1970s, “Amcafés” had coach seats on both sides of a snack bar; “Amclubs” had a first class “club” section on one side and coach seats on the other; and “Amdinettes” had booth seating on one side and coach seats on the other. Eventually, by popular demand, coach seating was eliminated in all of these configurations. Business class two-and-one seating was retained along the lines of the Amclub design, though all of those cars now have tables on the other side of the snack bar, not coach seats. Amfleet cafés on virtually all Northeast Regional trains offer table seating on both sides of the snack bar, a feature extremely popular with laptop-toting customers.
So it is puzzling why tables aren’t offered as a place to congregate away from coach seating on the Midwest’s Venture cafés. When people board at intermediate stops and can’t find seats together, café seating offers an opportunity unique to train travel for travelers to spread out, and, of course, spend some money. There are a number of table-facing seats in both coach and in business class, but these are the first to be snapped up when travelers board at departure stations.
The only table in the car is a small desk opposite from where passengers line up for the snack bar. It’s labeled “crew seating,” and during the trip a conductor could usually be found ensconced there.
Of note, however, is that returning to Chicago from Bloomington-Normal the same evening at about 8:30 p.m. on Lincoln Service train No. 306, the train was also very crowded but virtually no one visited the Horizon café-business class car. This was despite the attendant regularly announcing that he was open and serving. Perhaps it was the late hour. Or just maybe, today’s Amtrak clientele are simply content to stay in their seats with their phones.
No table seating for pax? Amtrak screwed the pooch once again. Between the crappy new Venture seats, (Brightline suffers this malady too…) the Flex Menu still on several LD trains, and the lack of SSL cars on other LD trains, is it any wonder I haven’t taken Amtrak, (other than Acela FC) for close to 2 years now? This coming from a traveler who routinely racked up 20K + miles per year prior. The experience now just sux. The scenery of course is still great, but the camaraderie of meeting your fellow travelers in the SSL, Diner, or now even the regionals without cafe seating, leaves this traveler spending more $$$ on Via Rail, Rocky Mountainier, or El Chepe in Mexico. SMFH….
The article says California and Illinois DOTs managed the design not Amtrak.
How idiotic not to have tables in the coach/cafe cars! And I hate the Siemens Venture coach and business class non/reclining seats! I’ll take an Amfleet or Horizon coach anytime!
Russ Sharp
Off the current article but due to a recent midwest trip, the venture cars coach seating sucks!. Got bumped from business class GRR-CHI to coach. They need a chiropractor on duty for them seats.
On the Pennsylvanian the cafe is next to the business class car which is either on the front of the train or the rear depending where you are leaving Philadelphia, so you never have coach passengers walking through the business class car or have a long walk to the cafe.
So Biz Class is at the opposite end of the train from the cafe? Don’t like that? Could be worse. My only ride in Biz Class was Chicago – Detroit and return. Biz Class was a curtain away from the snack bar. Worst seats on the train.
If you’re going to have Biz Class, stewards should bring the meal to the Biz Class car. Walking the length of the train, standing at the snack bar, then bringing your meal and drinks all the way back, isn’t what I call Biz Class.
The deletion of all tables solves the problem of crew taking over all the seats. But what a degradation of a benefit of train travel–the lounge car. But mercifully a full cafe menu survives. An Amtrak cafe burger may not be a gourmet item, but it beats just a bottle of water (see below).
This will be truly deep downgrade if it impacts the coming Airo cafe cars to be assigned to the Washington/Oregon Cascades Corridor. Much better has long prevailed there. For decades the Cascades Corridor food-service standard was the Talgo’s take-out counter menu in one car, with at least a few mini tables along the passageway, but importantly with that car adjacent to a full table car.
Using a superb local caterer, this Talgo table car was used on the Seattle-Vancouver runs to provide a true dining car experience–with food brought on-board fresh (not frozen) and brought to serving temperature in the cafe car’s food prep area. The dinner menu actually featured prime-rib! To maximize seatings/food revenue the “diner” opened an hour before departure each evening in Vancouver–making three seatings possible on a four hour run. I had the privilege of several trips using using this offering. For a corridor train it was amazing!
WashDOT at the time claimed the diner option was profitable on the Vancouver runs, but as with so many things it vanished after what was supposed to have been a temporary suspension while a Talgo set was serviced. For that time Superliners (with a Sightseer Lounge) covered the Vancouver run without the table service. When the Talgos eventually returned the “diner” offering was not restored.
For whatever reason the full diner option was only very briefly on the Seattle-Oregon runs, but to this day a fine offering of local treats like Ivars’ Clam Chowder has been on the Cascades Corridor menu.
Obviously the full cafe/diner option was largely lost when the Series Six Talgo fleet was scrapped (although the two Oregon-owned Series 8 Talgos remain in service with the take-out counter cafe and the full table seating car). The replacement Horizon cafes as least have tables for passengers (if not hogged by the crew and supplies).
The cafe situation of course is vastly worse in California on the San Joaquin Corridor. There the San Joaquin Joint Powers Authority, which contracts with Amtrak to provide the SAN JOAQUIN trains, plans to offer only a vending machine option when their long-delayed Venture cafes someday appear. Rumor is this is because the Joint Powers chief objected to the perceived high cost to keep Amtrak food. Ridership and ticket will pay a steeper cost when passengers experience the newly embarrassing “food” on a six hour run.
At present, in the absence of the delayed new Venture cafe cars, all riders on the (mercifully few) Venture-equipped SAN JOAQUIN frequencies get is a bottle of water and according to some reports a snack-pack. This on a route that had long used the handsome “California Car” bi-level diners and which a few years back also offered actual sit down service at table. In recent years it was an extensive and locally focused snack, sandwich, salad, beverages offering.
Now you won’t even be able to get a beer when the full California Venture cafe car fleet arrives. This makes the SP Automatic Buffet (vending machine) cars that debauched the once magnificent Daylights look exquisite by comparison! SP Automats even offered hot entrees. They weren’t great, but they put the coming Venture California cafe cars to shame.
Sigh—–
“While final consist decisions are made by Amtrak…” Uh, who’s paying who to run this service?
“There are no seats to eat your food. If you make a purchase, you must take the food back to your seat.”
That really sucks in my opinion and I hope Amtrak doesn’t follow suit with its new Airo and LD cars but I don’t have any confidence that they won’t. The renderings I have seen show new LD cafe cars with wonderful overhead skylight windows but hardly any tables to sit at and enjoy the ambience. What sense does that make?
Daniel,
As info, both the coach-cafe and business class cars are mated in this consist to separate “1B” coaches, which have semi-permanent couplers at the “A” end. In the case of the coach-cafe, that occurs on the coach seating end, not the snack bar end
Yes, on all non-cab coaches the A end is the one with the toilet. When I first saw the production line I assumed (I know, shame on me) the cafe/lounge and business cars would be mated together. I’m glad someone else is making these decisions.
Originally all 17 cafe/lounge cars as well as all 17 businesses class cars (and 34 of the 54 coaches) were to have knuckles on the B end and a semipermanent coupler on the A end. Sounds like the cafe/lounge and business class cars are mated with a standard coach. So, to get the state’s desired configuration, from the rear: a business class/coach pair, a cafe/lounge/coach pair, and then a stand alone coach. It’s doable.