Amtrak’s Simplified Dining Service (or “Diner Lite”)
In it’s appropriation for Amtrak for Fiscal Year 2006, Congress has mandated that Amtrak must achieve “operational savings” by July 1, 2006 - otherwise federal funds will not be available after that date to underwrite on-board food and sleeping-car service (see NARP Hotline #429). Such micromanaging is of course not terribly unusual for Congress - every member of Congress likes to make sure that his/hre district gets its share of federal money - and transporation seems to be especially well suited towards such distribution of federal money.
Thus, Amtrak has been forced into introducing certain measures to ensure that such savings can be achived - otherwise they might be forced to abolish food and sleeper service altogether as of July 1 of this year. The way that Amtrak apparently will try to achive these savings is by introducing a so called “Simplified Dining Service”. Basically, this means that they will rebuild the Sightseer/Lounge cars to also accomodate food service, which will be provided in the form of prepared meals (similar to what the airlines to I guess).
The following are extracts from an internal Amtrak memo that outlines these service changes - this was recently circulated on the “All Aboard” Yahoo message board:
“Operations
“Simplified Dining Service
“Service Advisory
“Train Service and On-Board Service Employees
“Issue Date: 02-14-2006
“Background
“It is estimated that in FY06 Amtrak’s Food & Beverage (F&B) Service will lose nearly $120 million system wide on revenues of $79.2 million, and expenses of $198.8 million (food and labor) resulting in a deficit of $119.6 million. Of the Food & Beverage expense (198.8 million), over 60% is for the wages and benefits of On-Board Service employees.
“The FY06 Appropriations legislation states that unless Congress and the Department of Transportation certify that Amtrak has achieved operational savings by July 1, 2006, Amtrak will be restricted from using appropriated funds to subsidize the net losses from F&B and Sleeping Car service on any Amtrak route.
“Progress in achieving these savings will be monitored by the Inspector General of the US Department of Transportation (DOT) and then reported quarterly to the House of Representatives & Senate Appropriations Committees.
“Controlling costs and maximizing revenues in the F&B service is critically important. As a result, Amtrak has a number of strategic initiatives to reduce costs and increase revenue. One of these initiatives is called the Simplified Dining Service. This service is an internal change in the way Dining Car operations are organized and managed on all Long Distance Trains.
“Advisory
“Effective February 15, 2006, the Simplified Dining Service will be instituted on the Capitol Limited and the Sunset Limited. The Service has been in place on the Texas Eagle and the City of New Orleans since December and will be re-launched as a result of significant comments and suggestions from both employees and customers.
“All Long Distance trains (excluding Auto Train and the Empire Builder) will be transitioned to this service by June 1, 2006.
“The following is a list of scheduled dates for implementation:
“February 15, 2006
Texas Eagle, City of New Orleans, Capitol Limited and Sunset Limited“April 15, 2006
Silver Star, Lake Shore Limited and Southwest Chief“May 3, 2006
Crescent and Coast Starlight“May 24, 2006
California Zephyr and Silver Meteor“The annualized savings expected from Simplified Dining Service is in excess of $10 million. These savings are primarily a result of an estimated staff reduction of 100 positions. Generally, the Dining Car crew will be reduced from a crew of 5 to a crew of 3. Additional crew positions must be added based upon the anticipated number of meals to be served per meal period, not consist or passenger counts.
“In addition to the Simplified Dining Service, Amtrak Transportation and Customer Service Departments Strategic Reform Initiatives include: renegotiated and new vendor contracts; modified equipment; and integrated Lounge Car, Cafe Car and Dining Car food service on long distance trains. These initiatives are specifically identified by the DOT as establishing reform. The new contract with Gate Gourmet became effective January 1, 2006, and contains a number of changes which are very beneficial to Amtrak.
“As a result of the Simplified Dinning Service implementation, the following changes will take effect:
“… - The Dining and Lounge Cars are to open immediately for service. The collection of tickets is not a reason to delay the opening of either the Dining Car or Lounge Car and no announcement is to be made advising customers to wait until the tickets are collected. …
Employees, Version 2.3:
“21a. “Cafe/Lounge car service should be open upon passenger boarding, at the initial terminal. No exceptions.”
“21c. “Normal hours of operation on the Cafe/Lounge car of long-distance trains are 6:00 a.m. until midnight, unless otherwise indicated on the train manifest. Short-distance trains must offer continuous hours of operation.”
“- During normal dining car hours of service, crew member and deadhead employees are prohibited from eating in the dining car. A crew table during normal dining car hours is no longer permitted. Employees may eat before the beginning or after the end of the scheduled dining car hours. …
“- Dining car hours for lunch will be extended from 2:00pm to 3:00pm. … Item 21b reads as follows: “Although these are general guidelines that may be subject to some variation by specific train, minimum meal service periods for Dining Cars are as follows, unless otherwise directed by an Operations Service Advisory:
Breakfast 6:30am – 10:00am
Lunch 11:30am – 3:00pm (Lunch is now extended from 2:00pm to 3:00pm. This will be updated in the OSU)
Dinner 5:00 pm – 9:00 pm”“… - A standardized reservation system called Staggered Seating will be used in every Dining Car, system wide. The Staggered Seating system provides customer with options for reservations at 15 minute intervals, and reduces the number of customers per seating to 8. Every 60 minutes a total of 24 [sic] customers are seated and served. During the 4 hour dinner period, a total of 96 [sic] customers can easily be accommodated.
“- Reservations are now required for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The LSA is responsible for contacting all customers to arrange their lunch and dinner reservations. The LSA and all Train Attendants, both coach and sleeper, will work together to arrange customer’s breakfast reservations….”
[This Week at Amtrak, February 20, 2006]
Now obviously, I don’t belive Congress made a very smart decision in mandating these changes - this can only be interpreted as a sign that they want to abolish long-distance service altogether. I mean seriously, would you want to take a three day/two night train trip without the option of sleeping in a sleeping car and with no on-board food service? Besides, Congress’ decision was apparently based on a report by the Inspector General that was somewhat misleading with regards to the potential savings in the food service and sleeper area… Everybody in the rail advocacy community agrees that long distance train ridership would experience a serious drop when food and sleeper service is no longer being provided. And even the Swiss Federal Railways had to learn that dining cars per se should not be regarded as a profit center but actually should be considered as part of a bigger picture of what service a customer expects when riding a train. For some people, the fact that decent food service (and sleeper service) are even available are an important factor in the process of making a decision to even take the train.
[amtrak]
