Proposed Amtrak Food and Beverage Service *alternative*

[oltmannd]

Arer not you simply reviving the SP automat car? I experienced it on the Coast Daylight. Ceertainly better than nothing but not prefereble in any way to what I experienced through the winter of 95-96, which was the latest I ate in an Amtrak diner.

I too was reminded of the SP “automat” (which provided vending machines, not a live kitchen like the Horn and Hardart Automats in New York City.) I never saw one, but in “Twilight of the Great Trains” (a superb book, by the way), Fred Frailey cites them as one of the many acts which, by generating bad PR, eventually contributed to the denial of the SP/Santa Fe merger, and ultimately cost SP its independence:

Partly it was a case of earlier cost-cutting practices coming home to roost. If the articulated, triple-unit diners adorning the Lark, Cascade, Shasta Daylight and Coast Daylight spoiled the customers, then what followed was a living nightmare for people used to being pampered. On July 31, 1961, the first of what would become 17 “automatic food and beverage service cars”–automat buffets, for short–emerged from Sacramento Shops…if cold sandwiches, hot casseroles in cans and machine-brewed instant coffee weren’t your thing, you would definitely not have liked automat buffet cuisine.

Everything old is new again, indeed.

Except now vending machines are a bit more sophisticated, reliable and robust…and we have microwave ovens! Much difference between a “Lean Cuisine” meal and an old TV dinner or can of Spaghettios of the early 60s.

[ecoli]

Arer not you simply reviving the SP automat car? I experienced it on the Coast Daylight. Ceertainly better than nothing but not prefereble in any way to what I experienced through the winter of 95-96, which was the latest I ate in an Amtrak diner.

I too was reminded of the SP “automat” (which provided vending machines, not a live kitchen like the Horn and Hardart Automats in New York City.) I never saw one, but in “Twilight of the Great Trains” (a superb book, by the way), Fred Frailey cites them as one of the many acts which, by generating bad PR, eventually contributed to the denial of the SP/Santa Fe merger, and ultimately cost SP its independence:

Partly it was a case of earlier cost-cutting practices coming home to roost. If the articulated, triple-unit diners adorning the Lark, Cascade, Shasta Daylight and Coast Daylight spoiled the customers, then what followed was a living nightmare for people used to being pampered. On July 31, 1961, the first of what would become 17 “automatic food and beverage service cars”–automat buffets, for short–emerged from Sacramento Shops…if cold sandwiches, hot casseroles in cans and machine-brewed instant coffee weren’t your thing, you would definitely not have liked automat buffet cuisine.

Everything old is new again, indeed.

Except now vending machines are a bit more sophisticated, reliable and robust…and we have microwave ovens! Much difference between a “Lean Cuisine” meal and an old TV dinner or can of Spaghettios of the early 60s.

The SP “automat” cars had microwave ovens beginning in 1966 (see Frailey’s book.)