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Want airline food? Take Amtrak

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Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak

#111

Post by dgudkov »

SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #10
reaperducer wrote: post #5

Amtrak'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.

Never flew Asian airlines, but among European ones the best food I typically find on flights with Air France.

Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak

#112

Post by ComradeTaco »

justin66 wrote: post #100
scyclow wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know the numbers, but I'd be shocked if air and bus lost as much money per trip as trains. Part of what makes the train appealing for the longer rides is that if you're taking coach half of the car is empty and you know you won't have to sit next to anyone.

> I don't know the numbers, but I'd be shocked if air and bus lost as much money per trip as trains. Just a thought, but if you're interested in numbers, it's an eye-opener to look at how much money airlines have lost for shareholders, bondholders, and the government via bankruptcies. If passenger rail was ever capable of tearing chunks out of the economy the way the airlines are, it must have been a century ago. Fro…

It's also worth considering that the American government has massively subsidized the airline industry. Trillions of dollars in defense spending for aircraft has propped up Boeing and its predecessors during hard times. That spending massively advanced civilian aircraft. Training pilots is another massive cost, which is mitigated by former American military pilots.

Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak

#113

Post by andyv133 »

jandrese wrote: post #98
imglorp wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Full trains are a bigger problem than fresh food for Amtrak. And upgrading their network to Positive Train Control should be a higher priority than full trains and food. They've had several fatal crashes recently that PTC might have avoided.

I thought the holdup with PTC is that the freight companies don't care about it so aren't bothering to instrument the tracks.

They're working on it, and have been for a while now. The main problem is its just a massive amount of work. They had to develop a fail safe system almost from scratch (Which also has to be interoperable between railroads). And then they have to implement it, and since it requires installing new hardware (antennas, different processors, etc), every couple of miles along the track it is a time consuming process. And then there's all the backoffice infrastructure to manage it, and the railroad-grade hardware to be installed in every locomotive. BNSF alone has 34,000 miles of track, UP a similar amount.

It'll be really neat when its done, and its in operation on some subdivisions, its only a matter of time.

Source: Worked on PTC for BNSF.

Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak

#114

Post by lobster_johnson »

scyclow wrote: post #61

I took the Empire Builder a couple weeks ago, and the Lakeshore Limited + California Zephyr last year. As much as I enjoyed the trips, I have to admit that they longer lines are incredibly impractical. Amtrak is operating at a huge loss per passenger ($32 on average)[1], and the prices aren't even that much cheaper than flying. It's viable for people with more time than money, but most of the passengers are just weir…

I was considering taking a trip from NYC, since I like railway journeys. The NYC-Montreal (10.5 hours) and NYC-Toronto (12.5 hours) trips would be perfect... but they only have the café cars, which means microwaved, pre-made airline food.

Apparently Amtrak considers these to be "short-distance" journeys, which don't have dining cars. I don't know if these ever had dining cars, but the idea of spending an entire day with just frozen pizza on the menu is just out of the question.

And then there are the couch seats. Who wants to be in a couch seat overnight for 12+ hours? Sleeper cars were $1,500 (!) for the dates I checked. Coming from Europe, where trains are modern and super cheap, this was extremely depressing to me.

I just checked the Empire Builder for a random date in May, and they charge $2,000 for a sleeper car. It's a 45-hour journey!

Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak

#115

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

dgudkov wrote: post #111
SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Never flew Asian airlines, but among European ones the best food I typically find on flights with Air France.

Air France! Yea I forgot that one. That was very good! Iirc they had warm hand towels before each meal that were real towels instead of packaged towelettes.

Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak

#116

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

wdewind wrote: post #35
SlowRobotAhead wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 "He…

Thts cool, yea ANA seems to get it. I also appreciated the bidets on the plane toilets :)

Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak

#117

Post by Retric »

jessriedel wrote: post #107
op00to wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much does the US subsidize air travel via FAA, airport subsidies, etc? What about road subsidies? It’s like somehow rail has to be profitable on its own, but not bus or air.

> How much does the US subsidize air travel via FAA, airport subsidies, etc? My plane ticket receipt contains fees for half a dozen various government costs, including airport fees and a general US transportation tax. The FAA is pretty trivial, having a budget of just under $10B out of total American spending on domestic air travel of more than $800B. https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/docs/miss... ht…

There are a lot of subsidies, but they tend to be individually small.

Essential Air Service subsidies Airlines serving rural communities which significantly increases overall ridership. Air Transportation Safety and Stabilization Act as just one example was 10 billion in loan subsidies after 9/11. Another example most Airports are heavily subsidies at least during construction, but so is some airline infrastructure like Indianapolis handing over $300 million for a United Repair shop. The military intentionally creates a huge stream of trained pilots without costing the Airlines a dime.

All of this is intentional so no one subsidy seem all that large, and adding up a thousand little pieces take enough effort that nobody complains.

PS: "Per passenger EAS subsidy in the 48 contiguous states plus Puerto Rico ranged from $10 to more than $977 per passenger in 2014" but it's only ~300 million per year so no big deal right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essential_Air_Service

Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak

#118

Post by noonespecial »

matthewmacleod wrote: post #52
borkt wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reconstructing an existing road is even worse. Want to repair a failing street? OK, but only if you make every aspect of the supporting infrastructure ADA compliant with the most current laws. We are legislating ourselves out of modern infrastructure.

Or, just maybe, it’s good to make infrastructure accessible?

He's got an unpopular opinion (and calling out the ADA specifically is probably the worst of the examples that can be chosen) but its worth a thought. When the choice is forced to be "perfect, or none at all", a possible outcome is none at all.

On the balance, I find most of these rules to be acceptable most of the time, but it should always be considered that it can be taken too far.

Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak

#119

Post by imh »

shriphani wrote: post #65
scyclow wrote: post #61

I took the Empire Builder a couple weeks ago, and the Lakeshore Limited + California Zephyr last year. As much as I enjoyed the trips, I have to admit that they longer lines are incredibly impractical. Amtrak is operating at a huge loss per passenger ($32 on average)[1], and the prices aren't even that much cheaper than flying. It's viable for people with more time than money, but most of the passengers are just weir…

I took the california zephyr after 2 harsh years (professionally); from Chicago to SF. So many inner demons were vanquished on that trip. That train route is truly a love-letter to America - the Colorado river, the Sierra Nevada, beautiful life-changing stuff.

That sounds beautifully scenic. What time of year would you recommend for it?

Re: Want airline food? Take Amtrak

#120

Post by IncRnd »

jlarocco wrote: post #99
scyclow wrote: post #61

I took the Empire Builder a couple weeks ago, and the Lakeshore Limited + California Zephyr last year. As much as I enjoyed the trips, I have to admit that they longer lines are incredibly impractical. Amtrak is operating at a huge loss per passenger ($32 on average)[1], and the prices aren't even that much cheaper than flying. It's viable for people with more time than money, but most of the passengers are just weir…

Do you know why they don't raise the price to cover the loss? $32 doesn't seem like a big deal for long distance transportation.

They regularly raise the rates, and they keep losing money.
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