> My understanding from years ago was that Amtrak had an arrangement with KFC

When I saw the KFC comment I just had to chime in here. Living in NJ, my parents used the Auto Train on a regular basis to Florida for vacations and such. On one trip to Florida with my wife and step son I decided to use the Auto Train. This was during the summer, probably late July or early August and in the 2006 time frame. With high heat, speeds on the train are cut so the train was VERY late getting into Lorton (there had been an ugly derailment around that time due to heat). It then had to be serviced and readied for the train back to Sanford.

We checked in at the usual time of about 11AM in Sanford and was told of the expected delay (normal departure I think is around 3PM, maybe earlier) and were told to go see what we could do to kill a few hours locally. We had a nice lunch, went bowling, saw a movie and came back to the station where we were told the train would not leave until after dinner time. About this time we were hit with a horrendous thunder storm including a loss of power. Anyway, sure enough, KFC came to the rescue. I never saw so much KFC in my life, but we all ate together (400 plus people I guess) in the station (it was packed due to bad weather outside) and soon after we finished we braved the bad weather and got on the train, many people taking boxes of KFC with them.

It must have been 8:30PM when we finally got under way with an expected arrival in Sanford of about 5PM instead of the normal 8AM or so. Was anyone complaining? Not really. It was a fine trip.

There was one funny moment that can ONLY happen on AMTRAK while on this trip. As we came back from a late breakfast, maybe about 10AM, I noticed the bar was open. I asked the bar tender if he was really open and the answer was yes, but then he added that “Last Call” would be at noon. Just struck me funny. But they like to allow about five hours between the last drinks that have been sold and the time that people get behind the wheel of a car. Makes perfect sense in an Amtrak sort of way. So, I had a few beers before lunch.

On a side note, on another Auto Train trip I was on a few years before, a little kid had pinched his hand in one of the doors of the train. Within a short time, the train pulled into some little town where a waiting ambulance checked the little kid’s hand, fixed him up, got him back on the train with his folks, and off we went. Just had a Norman Rockwell feel to the moment.

I do know that room service is indeed available at least in the bedrooms as my parents used that service quite often. My mom also used room service for her meals on a recent trip to Tennessee via Amtrak.

I should add, that if you have the chance, use the AutoTrain some time. Its an experience well worth the effort and the cost. I’d suggest getting a bedroom. I have done both now and sitting in a seat over night was a little rough. The sleeper cars have a better bar car as well which is obviously important to me!

J.R. May

Contributing to RyPN drift...

I was on the Southwest Chief last month from Chicago to Albuquerque and returned a week later. I was amazed at how disorganized the provisioning was for the dinner. How does a train run out of lunch and dinner menu items on the first offering of each meal service? I can understand running out of steak for the second day of dinner because steak was oversold the first night. BTW Amtrak now offers the same menu for the Capitol and the Chief. Sigh.

I did observe the sleeper attendants making room service deliveries in our sleeper. This option became more tempting as my wife and I grew weary of community seating in the diner.

Wesley

Continuing the drift. A few years ago, the wife and I were departing on the City of New Orleans out of Chicago. An announcement in the First Class Lounge in Chicago's Union Station that due to the late arrival of the equipment, diner would not be served. First class passengers were given a voucher for diner in Chicago. The train eventually departed, and shortly thereafter came the announcement that the diner was open for dinner. Then a follow up announcement. And then an announcement that "we understand what happened at CUS, but we have all this food, can't you please come in and join us for dinner?" We, like most other passengers, were not really hungry at that time, but we did go in to the dinner for desert. Obviously, a lack of communication!

We have always enjoyed "community seating" for meals. Meet a lot of interesting folks that way. But I DO understand Wesley, why some folks might want to "eat alone", like you and your wife, . Usually, there are enough vacant tables in the diners that Amtrak could probably accommodate such a request. Perhaps Amtrak might consider offering such a service, perhaps at a slight premium, providing a table is available. Just a thought.

Les

I would call that mismanagement on the part of that train's manager, or whatever Amtrak currently calls the supervisor of a particular route for OBS. Part of the job of a Train Manager when I worked there was to determine the stocking levels for food service (called a "Par" - a restaurant industry term, similar in meaning to it's use in golf). The Par level for a route or given train varies by day of week, time of year, etc., and Amtrak tracks consumption for each train/route from year to year. So, a Train Manager can go back and look up how much of a given item was consumed or sold in either the lounge or diner of that train for say, the day before Thanksgiving the previous year, and stock the departing train for that date accordingly, adjusting for the expected current passenger load. It's somewhat of an educated guess that can be affected by things like the weather - close a nearby major airport for bad weather and your train is going to get slammed unexpectedly. The art of doing this is to put enough of each item on the train so as not to run out prematurely - like a full day before the end of the trip - but also not to overstock the train with perishables that will have to be thrown away when the train arrives at it's destination because they will not have enough time left on them to make another trip. If you're dealing with an operation like DC or NY where there are multiple trains per day, and you can recycle a sandwich that is going to expire at midnight on a late afternoon train, that's one thing. If, however, you're stocking the diner on the Capitol Ltd. out of DC, and it's the only train operating out of there with a diner, then you have to walk a much finer line between under and over stocking. Remember, you, the Train Manager, are going to be judged by your superiors partly on how much money you waste on expired or spoiled food. No small thing since Congress keeps micro-managing Amtrak by sticking it's nose into the cost of Amtrak food service, really a not-so-veiled attempt to make Amtrak less attractive to potential passengers - a la the best efforts of SP and PC in the years right before Amtrak took over to discourage ridership. So, you, the Train Manager, would probably err on the conservative side of stocking the train, setting up the possibility of running out of a lot of things before arrival at destination. However, I would call running out of diner food a full night before final destination to be gross incompetence, unless there was a refrigeration failure you didn't know about, and perishables had to be condemned (always a distinct possibility).

As an LSA, I had the authority and responsibility to order extra items from intermediate commissaries en route (I mostly worked the Northeast Corridor). My goal was to have enough of most things to get to the end of a trip - to come in with a huge wad of cash and very little in the way of physical supplies at the end of a trip - made it easier to pack-up and get off before the equipment got pulled to the yard.

As a side note, one thing I've noticed about volunteer groups I have worked with that operated all-day rail excursions on a sporadic basis, is that they tend to WAY overstock their food service operations. I realize that while they consider their food sales to be a service for the passengers, and not a profit center, they still often waste a good bit of money either having to practically give away extra food at the end of their excursions, or dispose of it. If you are part of a group that operates excursions like that, tracking your previous sales using Par sheets from year-to-year would be a great way for your group to get a handle on their needs, without ending up with a lot of condemned food.

When I was at TVRM, the amount of food carried by the diner was predetermined based upon the number of tickets sold and size of the train crew. The commissary car offerings were very basic-chips and drinks for the most part. Most of the food items were purchased in bulk and stored in the railroad commissary which also served the station dining room. Costs were tracked and loss prevention measures were in place.

Food was rarely given away, and then only at the direction of a company officer or supervisor. I remember on one occasion, the air conditioning unit on one car failed on a hot summer day. As the car had sealed windows and the train was full, I directed the commissary car staff to provide fountain drinks to the affected passengers for free. They protested initially, knowing that management say something about that. My response was that when management raised the issue, they were to tell management that they were acting under the Conductor's instructions.

When I said operating sporadic all-day excursions, what I had in mind were things like NRHS chapters that only operated a couple of excursions/year under the old NS steam program, or hosted a one-time convention, not a museum that operates regular excursions. They usually have a decent idea of how to stock a food service car.

I, too, was aboard this trip and arrived in Roseville at 7:20 AM (Scheduled for 1PM the previous day.) I was in the transition sleeper up front, which is a long walk from the diner, and there were a few people who required some extra assistance.The attendant was willing to provide room service to them, but I can't recall if she offered it to others. She was very helpful, though, and one morning put in my breakfast reservation when I woke a bit late to do it myself before the cut-off time.

A bit off topic, but here is the story of this train:
Overnight in Nebraska, the dispatcher stopped the train because tornadoes were spotted further down the line. I did not know how strong the storms were and was surprised we were still in Nebraska when I woke up that morning. The PA announced that we'd be stopping in Holdredge for a while because a silo had blown off its foundation and on to the tracks ahead. About an hour later, the tracks were cleared and we moved ahead into the siding at Atlanta to let the EB CZ by. And there we sat, waiting for a relief crew to arrive from Denver, right next to the crumpled mass of grain silo. 4 hours later, the crew arrived and we were finally on the move.

But not for long. Just past McCook, NE, the train came to a stop and they announced there was engine problems. Chatter on the radio indicated the turbo casing on the lead unit (AMTK 188, if I recall) had blown and they would have to try running the train on one engine. Oh, and the crew only had 3 hours left...

With only one engine, the train was only good for 50-55 MPH, so there was no way the crew would make it to Denver. With several slow orders and crossing protections, they didn't even make it to Ft. Morgan and had to stop at Brush, CO. At this point, we were 15 hours late into Denver. There was some switching to do there, a PV needed to be moved, the third sleeper dropped, and the engines had to be swapped. It was midnight by the time we were clear of Denver. After that, we seemed to make pretty good time, but the damage was done.

Regarding the food, the train was stocked with the assumption that many of the passengers would get off in Denver. By evening of the second day, they were out of the steak. On the third day after leaving Salt Lake, they had an emergency meal which didn't include bread or salad service (but oddly enough, the menu for sleepers included Filet Mignon....) They also added an extra breakfast for the entire train, limited to eggs or pancakes. All things considered, I think the dining staff did an excellent job with the resources they had.

The biggest complaint I heard from passengers about the whole ordeal was that the RR knew that the original crew was short on time and that they did not have enough crews to have a rested crew out of Denver meet us within a reasonable time.

Nice report but you missed the Denver crew dying at Bond west of Denver, where we sat for another two plus hours waiting for another crew.
This started around 2 a.m. so you are forgiven for not noting this delay
That accounted for the 17 1/2 hour delay into SLC.

The entire crew I interacted with was very cordial considering the circumstances.

Yes, I didn't know about that crew. I went to bed at 2:30 after watching the tunnel district through a darkened window and at that point we were still on the move. No wonder I was able to catch some of the canyons before Glenwood Springs!