I didn't have a good experience the last time I took Amtrak and had dining on board. It was the only time in my life I felt I was discriminated against in a dining setting. It was near the end of dinner time and food was likely running low so i didn't expect much. However after seating us, she took on two other groups and continued to fully serve them drinks and meal before coming back to our table for drinks. And by this time, nearly every item we wanted of interest was out of stock. With this kind of service, I rather they just serve premade airline quality food.
Want airline food? Take Amtrak
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Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak
#32Midwest Express had crazy good food. Miss them. Eggs Benedict with mimosas on the way to Milwaukee. At low fare pricing with business class seating. No wonder they folded I suppose. Good while it lasted.
Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak
#33Doesn't the low pressure in a plane contribute to the blandless. Not a problem on trains.
The recipes used account for this, increasing spicing. The low humidity is also a factor I think.
The larger struggle is logistical, not culinary. You're eating what amounts to a recently-frozen TV dinner, designed for the least-spice-tolerant palate, engineered to not dry out in the time between being reheated and served.
Even if you can nail the flavor, there's no way to get a good texture (imagine good french fries, or breaded chicken) when you account for what the food has to go through to be served hot in the air.
Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak
#34I've taken the California Zephyr between Chicago and SF a couple times now, it's a wonderful experience. 2 1/2 days of solitude from a world with increasingly few remote corners. If you're at all interested, I recommend riding soon. These admittedly impractical long-distance routes are going to be the first to go when budget cuts necessitate it.
Google say it takes 31h to drive between the two -- any idea why the Amtrak takes twice that time?
If you're driving alone -- a reasonable assumption if you'd be in the market for a train -- a 31-hour "Google Maps" roadtrip takes 3 days, assuming ~10 hours of "map-time" driving, followed by 6+ hours of civilized sleep.
The biggest constraint is "civilized" sleep, which is best had in a real bed at a real hotel, whose locations are constrained by settlements and whose typical availability hours begin at 15:00 local time and end at 11:00 local time. When you're driving west and passing through timezones, you can gain an extra hour that you can use for rest, while if you're driving east, you're racing doubly against the clock, as you're losing an extra hour you could be sleeping in a hotel at every timezone.
My longest "map-time" drive sprint (not including stops) between sleeps is 19 hours, which was filled with delirium towards the end, and I would never recommend. I've done a 16-hour sprint to similar results, and have done multiple ~12-hour sprints with no issues whatsoever. In my experience, 12 hours is around the upper limit of how much "map-time" distance one can safely drive between sleeps, especially if one is to perform a comparable drive for three consecutive days.
Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak
#35Amtrak's current food is far superior to airline food. I'm speaking as a regular Empire Builder, Sunset Limited, and Southwest Chief first class passenger. The only disappointment is that for some reason, I can't get food served in my room on the Sunset Limited. No problems on the other routes. It's kind of sad if Amtrak has to sacrifice freshly-prepared food for airline heat-n-eat fare. But if it means an additional…
Depends on where you are flying. ANA is my favorite airline (Japan), but Lufthansa (Germany) has better food I think. EVA (Asia) food isn’t great, but United and Delta are still worse imo.
My experiences with ANA have been pretty fantastic. One time I was flying to Japan and the plane were going to get on was hit by lightning as it landed. Apparently the FAA then requires a mandatory rebooting and testing process that takes 6 hours. ANA did three things here that really separated them from other airlines:
1. During the 6 hour wait, despite there being no news, I could walk up to the counter and say "Hey just checking again to see if there's any update?" and every single time, without fail, they were friendly, polite and apologetic for the situation.
2. When we got on board the captain got on the loud speaker and immediately apologized profusely "for our incompetence." The plane was struck by lightning, a literal "act of god" and the captain still apologized to us.
3. When we landed in Tokyo they handed us about $200 in cash to deal with taking a cab since it was much later than expected arrival.
I just can't imagine this kind of treatment from an American airline, even on international flights.
Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
3 days is a relatively aggressive schedule for the road trip. The train makes up for its low average speed by not needing to sleep overnight. The real problem is that the cost is greater than or equal to a 4-hour flight.
Why is train travel so much more expensive? Fewer tickets being sold comparatively?
I understand the root issues is Amtrack unions. Amtrack staffing is one employee to four passengers. I dont know what the ratio is for airlines but it must be lower. This video does a pretty good explonation i think: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fwjwePe-HmA
Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak
#37I've taken the California Zephyr between Chicago and SF a couple times now, it's a wonderful experience. 2 1/2 days of solitude from a world with increasingly few remote corners. If you're at all interested, I recommend riding soon. These admittedly impractical long-distance routes are going to be the first to go when budget cuts necessitate it.
Google say it takes 31h to drive between the two -- any idea why the Amtrak takes twice that time?
Wendover Productions has a good video that explains this and many other reasons why trains suck in the US
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbEfzuCLoAQ
Spoiler: freight companies own most of the track
Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak
#38Took the Amtrak from San Diego to Anaheim last year business class. It smelled like a sewer. Wifi was unusable. Is that normal?
Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak
#39I've taken the California Zephyr between Chicago and SF a couple times now, it's a wonderful experience. 2 1/2 days of solitude from a world with increasingly few remote corners. If you're at all interested, I recommend riding soon. These admittedly impractical long-distance routes are going to be the first to go when budget cuts necessitate it.
Google say it takes 31h to drive between the two -- any idea why the Amtrak takes twice that time?
Track work, waiting on local traffic (especially commuter), train police pulling someone off the train, etc.
You can tell the people who've never taken the train before when they start asking why it's stopped.
I say this out of love, to set expectations. Cross country, if you want to get somewhere ASAFP take a plane. If you want to enjoy a leisurely week+, drive. If you're willing to spend a few days for the scenery of a road trip without having to do the logistics, take the train.
Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
33 stops.
I do live in a bad spot for trains (Oklahoma) however they keep trying to build more rails (which make no sense in our region).. to determine how much sense they made to me personally I studied a trip to chicago from oklahoma city. Turns out I couldn't find any destination where trains beat driving or flying in the metrics of time or cost even. I do get that trains work in some regions in the US ~ but we should defin…
Umm, the purpose of government is not to make money, it is to serve the public. While you can make arguments whether or not trains are where we should put public money, but you can't use the argument that 'it loses money'.