Who has regulatory authority (i.e. health dept. inspection) for food / beverages made onboard a moving train? Federal, state, or county?

We are a standard-gauge museum railroad http://www.ncry.org that crosses public roads at grade, but does not haul revenue freight, so the FRA defines us as "non-insular". We do not cross county or state lines.

Reason I'm asking: Last week we were inspected by the local (Alameda County) health dept. The inspector gave us a good report. But neither he nor I are sure if he has any authority over railroad on-board food/beverage service. He asked me to find out who does.

Thanks!
- Doug Debs

P.S.: We sell hot coffee and hot cocoa made onboard the trains. Other items sold are pre-packaged: canned sodas, bottled water, bags of snacks.

Well, since the Niles Canyon Railway isn't engaged in "Interstate Commerce" your inquiry would fall on either state or local. Since county government is simply an arm of your state government, I imagine the local health department as being the inspector is correct. In addition to any county ordinances, I imagine most of the food safety regulations enforced by your local health department inspector are simply California state regulations.

Your FRA status has nothing really to do with food inspection. Your FRA inspector isn't going to check out the kitchen area of your dining car and issue a grade on your cleanliness.

From my experience, the NSF is the "gold standard" if one is reconstructing a diner kitchen, etc. If it meets NSF standards, you likely will not have an issue with your local and state officials.

Depends on the state, but most likely the Department of Agriculture and your local health department. As most of it is pre-packaged, I wouldn't worry too much. They're more concerned with food prep (ie you're cooking onboard). As you're dealing with food, your best bet is to have a couple folks HACCP certified. It only takes a couple sessions, usually at the local community college and costs range from $50-$100 generally (depends on the school.)
Russ

Each state has different laws, but I have looked into this both for Indiana and Florida. Both of those states it falls under county jurisdiction. If you are serving sealed product (canned soda, chips, coffee, candy and other "concession" items) then there should be no licensing necessary. Ice cream however does fall under health department regulation. In Florida and in Indiana anything more that that is considered a mobile food vendor unit and then you need a commissary facility for it to go to once a day for restocking and cleaning. Both the commissary and the mobile food vending unit need to meet county health requirements for your county. Also no food served may be prepared in a home kitchen. I hope this is helpful to you.

Doug;

At WRM the County Health Department has regulated on board food service at the Museum for many years. Their concern was mainly with washing of dishes and glasses. They want to see a prep. area with a commercial dishwasher and a three compartment sink. This prep. area did not have to be on board. We got around this by having the dishes and glassware commerically washed at a catering company. They had no interest in any prepackaged food or drinks.

Water was, and still is, the big issue. The Museum's water supplly, from wells, has to be treated as a publc water supply. This requires testing on a regular basis. It is very diffcult to get uncontaminated water samples. It requires knowledge and usually special equipment to do it. The samples go to a commerical lab, which reports the results directly to the State Health Department.

At the Western Pacific, the county health departments regulated and inspected the outfit cars. Their interest was mostly in waste water disposal.

I remember years ago riding Amtrak and the bar had to close while passing through certain states on Sunday that prohibited Sunday liquor sales.

We serve hot coffee & hot cocoa (made onboard) in disposable cups, so nothing to wash there. But what about the 5-gallon pots used to heat hot cocoa? Currently they're hand-washed in hot soapy water and rinsed with hot water. Do they need to be dishwashed?

Thanks to all for the most informative answers! (And keep 'em coming - we're learning a lot!) - Doug Debs

In California, you need to deal with the county health department. If you cross into another county during the trip you may have to deal with that county also. The county health departments are interpreting state regulations and their interpretations are not consistent across county lines.

Good luck.

Boy, this discussion dredges up some memories that I really wanted to forget. Having spent 14 years behind the counter on Amtrak as a Lead Service Attendant (LSA) in DC, from the mid-'80's through the '90's, I was there for the bad old days when you couldn't get a cafe car shopped unless the mice just about bit a mechanic, and then the early days of the consent decree with the FDA, when they were shopping food service cars at the drop of a hat, right out from under attendants as they were getting ready to depart a terminal. Things were so bad before the FDA stepped in, that when one attendant wrote in a cafe car defect report "mice on car", the mechanical supervisor who read it wrote under action taken, "cats on order". The carpeted walls of Amfleet cars make wonderful walking surfaces for rodents, and with all of the small crevices in the storage compartments behind the counter, they had ample sources of food crumbs. (Note to any museums or tourist RR's that may acquire an Amcafe to use for food service in the future, you really need to occasionally tear down the counter area and completely clean it to keep the vermin away. Even then the car still might need to be fumigated at some point.)

As to the issue of regulation of on-board food service for a tourist operation. I would concur with those who say it's up to the local county(s) health department to inspect and regulate, unless you cross state lines. Then, potentially, the FDA might have jurisdiction, like they do over Amtrak. I'm guessing this affects very few U. S. tourist railroad operations, the only one I can think of off-hand that crosses state lines is the Cumbres, and although I've never been there, I believe that they don't sell/serve food on-board, only on the ground at the mid-point lunch stop? If you do come under FDA regulation, you will need to conduct formal sanitation classes for your concession workers and federally certify them for food handling. Really, this might not be a bad idea anyway, unless your volunteer concession workers are already food service professionals. This would help reduce your liability if anyone ever did get food poisoning on your train. Although, really, after watching some of the restaurant rescue shows on the Food Network, you have to wonder just how closely some county health departments really inspect their restaurants. As far as I know, I never poisoned any passengers in nearly 14 years behind the counter.

The issue of interstate liquor sales came up early on in my career. Amtrak does/did internally publish a compendium of applicable state liquor laws that I was able to obtain. I was working the Capitol Ltd., when it was still part of the Broadway, West of Pittsburgh (before November of '86). The train traverses West Virginia from just outside of Cumberland, MD, to Harper's Ferry, WV, making stops at Martinsburg and Harper's Ferry. According to WV state law, there are no public bars in the state (at least not 25 years ago), only "private" clubs. The issue I had was whether or not an Amtrak train constituted a public bar, or since you had to buy a ticket to ride, it was a private club. After a lot of hemming and hawing, the legal department finally decided that the lounge car was a private club for those purposes. Amtrak still has to observe the local sale hours of whatever jurisdiction they are passing through, though. The LSA is also responsible for not letting passengers become too intoxicated as well, which can be a hard thing to determine. Some serious alcoholics can look totally normal right up to the moment they pass out. I had that happen to me at least once as well. This fairly well-dressed gentleman got on the Capitol at Harper's Ferry one mid-morning heading South, transferring to a Florida train in DC, looking totally straight, came to me and bought one Bloody Mary. Next thing I know, we're passing Point-of-Rocks, I'm trying to start closing out the trip and he's totally passed out in a chair in the lounge, dead to the World. I was seriously questioned by both the Chief and Conductor as to how many drinks I had served him, but obviously I was not his first bar stop that morning. I remember it took over an hour to get him awake enough to stumble off the train in DC, the Chief or Conductor were rubbing ice on his forehead to try and rouse him. Just another day on the railroad...