Interesting reading:
Of course it serves a political agenda, but there are some interesting facts.
The subtitle of the hearing, “Mismanagement of Food & Beverage Services,” suggests a kangaroo court.
Everybody knows there will be some employee theft, as there is in the food-service industry as a whole, as the agenda acknowledges. If Chairman Mica’s committee can figure out how to eliminate or significantly reduce that, it would be public-spirited of the committee to share its findings with the industry.
Otherwise, the quarrel seems to be with Amtrak losing money on the services, as the private rails did before them and as the airlines used to (before virtually discontinuing them). This calls for a hearing? Congress has bigger holes in its pocket than food and beverage services on Amtrak.
You didn’t read it, did you…[;)]
As best I could with my eyes glazed over. What do you think I missed?
It is a great example of a kangaroo court, a fishing expidition, a waste of time, a hand at partisan politics, a return for a payoff from (fill in the blank…or blanks, many blanks), and why a politician can’t be a businessman and a businessman can’t be a politician.
The most interesting thing I saw is that ATK has been breaking the law for about 30 years. The quickest way to get a stupid law changed is to obey it to the letter. Pull off the diners, lounges, and snack cars.
Mac McCulloch
I get your point, but am afraid this would just play into the hands of the Amtrak haters, hurting ridership and driving the operating deficits even higher, thus excusing killing Amtrak altogether outside of the NEC.
It’s a constant battle --with Democrats, not just Republicans; an Amtrak on-train rep pointed out to me that the worst train-offs were during the administrations of Carter and Clinton – but I suspect Amtrak will win this one too.
Well the item I saw of interest was the percent of labor cost per food item sold and the fact that Amtrak has to have it’s own commissaries. 12 of them in operation. Really? Nobody thinks this is wasteful? Whats the difference in food freshness if the food is assembled at an existing airport commisary vs a Amtrak commissary? Why on earth are 12 Commissaries being kept open when they basically duplicate airport commissaries in the same city.
Other then the above item, I would look at how much food is not sold on a Amtrak run and is thrown out due to expiration date issues, that would be another area of concern which I think the House is probably going to skip past looking at.
I for one do not think the “it’s always worked that way in the past” is an acceptable excuse. Private Passenger Rail was never efficient at running a food service operation.
Airport commissaries? Anybody who has flown within the past 4-5 years knows that airline food service on domestic flights is virtually non-existent unless you’re willing to pay exorbitant prices for sandwiches. Hot meals seem to be reserved for first class and business class. The last time I got a decent meal on a plane was on a foreign flag carrier.
Again businessmen are not politicians and politicians are not practicing businessmen…nor necessaryily practical. Today’s business climate is ruled by “bottom liners”: CPA’s and investment specialists (to be nice). Each movement, each operation, each job, in any company has to bring something to the bottom line directly or it should be done away with. In other words, they don’t look at a business as a “service” but as an individual product. In this case the politicians are looking at running trains and ignoring the whole operation as a service. You provide meals on long distance trains or wherever in order to entice and keep the patronage. If there were no meals (or sleeping cars) then there would be no riders. Add the meals (and/or the sleeping cars) and charge what’s possible and try to keep the fares high enough to offset the loses and still make a buck. At least that is the theory of providing passenger rail service rather than just running trains. COngress don’t get it, especially those paid off by the oil and gas lobby, the airline lobby, etc.
Business executives must keep in mind all of the entity’s key stakeholders, i.e. customers, creditors, regulators, employees, shareholders, etc. They know that they must add value for all of them, or they are out of business.
A business ultimately must offer goods and services that customers are willing to pay for in an arms length transaction. The goods and services must add value for the customer. Apple Inc., 3M, IBM, Wells Fargo, Caterpillar, Ford, Norfolk Southern, Southwest Airlines, Florida Power & Light, etc. are just a few examples of companies that understand the importance of customer service and deliver it every day. All of them have employees whose full time job is customer service and customer relations.
Businesses must pay attention to the bottom line over the long run. If
I spent more than 40 years flying commercial as part of my job. I never got a meal on an airplane that was very good. In fact, after the first couple of years, when the thrill of flying for business had worn off, I avoided the meals on the airplane even though they were priced into the cost of the ticket.
The domestic airlines finally figured it out, thanks in no small part to Southwest Airlines, which never offered meals. Most people want to get from point A to B as cheaply as possible. They don’t want meals that are prepared in a commissary, put on the plane, re-heated and served, especially when most of the meals were not as good as folks could get at their local cafeteria. Southwest figured out what the market wants.
I made 22 trips between the United States and Australia, where I lived and worked for five years. Most of my trips were on Qantas, although approximately 25 per cent of them were on United. The meals on Qantas and United were of similar quality and quantity. None of them, however, were what one could get at a decent middle grade restaurant.
Back in the day, back in the day is all nostalgic B.S. but…back in the day of competing railroads between any given city pair or other points prompted the need for better food service than the other guy. Thus there was pride in providing dining car services with specialties of the railroad…Rocky Mountain Trout on the Rio Grande comes to mind for instance. The dining menue could be the competitive edge in passengers selecting a given train or railroad. Today, however, serving food to the public has been downgraded to McCrap at the lowest cost with no conecpt of marketing or service. Eating is a necessary evil, like lavatories, got to provide them but they don’t add to the bottom line…er, ah…so to speak.
Food and beverage service on passenger trains never covered its costs but was viewed as a necessary part of the service. Even so, a dining car could still be an expensive place to eat which is why a lot of passengers packed their own lunches.
And ‘back in the day’ dining car operations did not add ‘directly’ to the bottom line. Food service, by itself, was a money losing proposition for the carriers; however, it was necessary for the overall passenger operation to be successful and profitable.
My Grandfather was Superintendent of the Dining Car and Commissary department of a fallen flag Class I carrier. I recall him commenting on the President of the carrier always pressuring him to reduce costs and increase personal services to the dining car customers - with the major emphasis on being enhanced pleasurable experiences of dining car customers. Major shippers & consignees of the carrier were repeat passenger train customers of the carriers in the days before air travel took over the business travel market. If operating dining cars at a loss kept the major shippers & consignees using the line for their freight business, it was considered a small price to pay for the freight business secured.
Business models and operations have changed.
You missed the main point!
That malfeasance by employees is only a minor issue.
It’s the whole cost of serving the food. Interestingly, two of those who are going to testify are from service where Amtrak does not supply the food and labor. The Downeaster uses a regional gourmet food company and the Piedmont trains use gasp vending machines.
Also, that Amtrak, by statute, is allowed to contract out the whole shebang (as happens on the Piedmont and Downeasters trains, and almost happened on the Empire corridor) and they
Well, they tried. Once. They tried to contract out the cafe car service between NY and Albany. They union threatened to strike, so Amtrak killed the cafe car service altogether. A LOSE/LOSE proposition. No jobs AND no food on the trains.
That all goes to my point of the difference between politicans running a business and businessmen running a government. Amtrak is caught in the middle and does what it has to to meet its service obligations and needs in any given circumstance or train service. Businessmen/invstors/bottomliners don’t understand the need for ancilliary services while politicians are trying to apease constintuants, party lines, and lobby money.
Part of what I find fascinating about this is comparing Amtrak’s food service to the restaurant industry. Over the past 25 years or so, there’s been an explosion in the number of meals eaten out and the menu variety. Restaurants are always changing their menu around to try to hang on to market share. Even the fast food guys are branching out. McDonalds has fancy salads and smoothies and flavored coffees. Arby’s has gourmet deli sandwiches.
Amtrak has burgers, pizza, basic deli sandwiches, same as always. The Cascades are a notably different. They have some local selections and it appears the Downeaster is similar in approach.
Even the Amtrak LD trains have a rather basic and limited menu. The food is OK, generally, but the menu is can’t compare with even a Chili’s or an Appleby’s, both of which are basically just grills.
So, why the lack of imagination at Amtrak? Is it because they use Gate Gourmet to stock their commissaries? Why not try to “brand” each service and contract out the whole thing for each service? Give the sleeper passengers a “voucher” for their dining car meal. The voucher would be good for a basic meal and the food service provider could have “premium” selections for a bit of extra $$.
Just a thought. [2c]
In COngress eyes the purpose is for Amtrak to run trains like a kid with a Lionel set: run trains; period. So food services are of no consequence to Congress and Amtrak has to cope. This topic has been explored many times and thus facts get placed all over and not all in the same place.
Dining services never made money directly to the bottom line.
Railroads offered dining services as a means of advertising and to be competitive.
Railroads hoped their dining services would please passengers to come back again and for shippers to look favorably on the service, meal, and hospitality they received.
Amtrak has no shippers to please and no direct rail competition to beat.
Bottom liners don’t understand the need for service beyound running a Lionel train set. Nor do many Congressmen, evidently.
American’s tastes and need have changed greatly, as have reasons and ways to travel. Thus there is less need to please business men because they are in their private or corporate jets, Families are in their cars. McDonald and Burger King has become the standards of mass restauranting rather than Delmonico’s. It is a different world.
Yes, it is a different world… which one is Amtrak sopposed to be in?