Sgt. Joe Friday Wrote:
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> What most people fail to realize, but David P.
> Morgan saw clearly in 1959, is that taking people
> from one place to another is not a profit-making
> activity without some degree of taxpayer provided
> infrastructure: highways, airports, the national
> air traffic control system, ports, you name it.
> But because Amtrak is tiny and politically feeble,
> it gets treated as the red headed stepchild, a
> convenient punching bag for innumerate legislators
> to beat up on when they think they need to look
> "tough on spending."
>
> Airline food served at your seat? Sure, THAT's
> going to make people want to take the train. I get
> it that some degree of pre-preparation is needed;
> what the hell, Southern Pacific understood that as
> long ago as the 1930s and 1940s, and people
> thought SP served pretty good meals back then
> IIRC.
>
> Amtrak's unions would not like it, but the best
> way to improve the on-board food service and
> contain costs would be to let Landry's and the
> other major restaurant operating companies bid
> competitively for the franchise to operate
> Amtrak's food service. Amtrak could write a
> specification setting minimum standards for
> differing types of service, and then give a 3 or 5
> year exclusive franchise to the successful
> bidder.
>
> Many people have likened long distance trains to
> hotels on wheels. OK, I get that but there is an
> expectation that Amtrak should do everything in
> house, and elsewhere in the travel and hospitality
> business that's generally not how things work.
> When you stay at a hotel, the company that owns
> the real estate seldom manages the hotel, and a
> different operator entirely runs the hotel's bar
> and restaurant. Why not apply the same thinking to
> Amtrak?

When this airplane boy first announced he was dumping the Pacific Parlour cars on the Coast Starlight, I wrote a detailed letter to him explaining what an asset he had in those cars, and that he should at least take the time to investigate getting sponsorship for them to at least help with the costs of the cars if not not totally covering them. I would think that there are some well known hospitality or food service companies out there that would like the opportunity to present their name in front of the traveling public in such a manner, and would advertise accordingly. It would help them, and boost Amtrak's ridership and revenue in the same way. He replied simply stating his well publicized "maintenance/age/costs" BS, and never once addressed the sponsorship or any other ideas that could be used to promote the product. We all know what happened to the Parlour cars. This guy, in my opinion, could care less about Amtrak. He is on a mission. And it is definitely not to see Amtrak succeed as we know it today.