I guess you don't understand the restaurant business or the rialway business very well.  There are not very many restaurants that can make money with just 12 tables (a typical 48 seat heritage dining car - Superliners probably seat more like 64).  Plus there are higher costs involved with operating a cramped little kitchen that moves.  

Tourist dinner train operations serve more patrons at once, seating 100 or more.  They also charge far more money than Amtrak or these restaurants at $60-100 per person.  They draw from a bigger potential client base however than does Amtrak.  Rather than drawing from the passengers traveling on a train, the clients on a dinner train are there specifically to eat a meal.

Amtrak would draw far fewer people per meal if Amtrak charged $60-100 per person for their meal. People ride Amtrak for travel not for the food - like with a dinner train.

Lastly, I think Amtrak tried some branded food service on the NE Corridor 20+ years ago.  And the franchisees did not make any money and they withdrew the program.

Dead right on, Jason.  A very recent trip on the Royal Gorge train in south central Colorado cost just $100 per person and included a very nice multi-course lunch.  You're right about the number of customers being greater than RAILWAYIST seems to understand.  And as usual, RAILWAYIST demonstrates no comprehension of economics whatsoever. Someone really ought to get through to the guy that there is a great difference between jpoint-to-point passenger rail service as virtually everyone in the world thinks of it and the entertainment and tourism business that is represented by excursion trips.  Royal Gorge route had no freight, just people, to no one's surprise.  Nor was it a surprise that at the end of the several hour ride, I ended up right where I had started.

I have to agree with Jason and Larry Railwayist. I think the only time you'll see someone eating fast food on a train would be a local commuter service and they carried it on.

In a newspaper letter some years ago, I proposed a club-car that sells booze, coupled with gambling and operated by the Indian Casino industry to supplement the revenues for the money-losing Caltrain commuter rail on the Bay Area Peninsula.  I was totally facetious.  In that same vein, how about duty-free shopping in an additional car outfitted for that purpose?

As they say, getting there is half the fun.

We didn't have the gambling (at least not legally), but there were some club cars on the Penn Central/Conrail Hudson Div. back in the 70s that did serve alcoholic beverages.  They were quite popular.

Duty-free shopping is a fine idea, but you'll have to make it an international run.  Airlines offer duty-free purchases on international flights, but the selection tends to be limited by weight considerations, which of course is not a problem for Railwayist's super-dooper passenger trains.

So would the Amtraks that go from US to Canadien points be considered international travel?

BacktotheFuture asks: So would the Amtraks that go from US to Canadien points be considered international travel?

To the best of my knowledge they would.  CBP has made a big thing about requiring a passport for citizens returning from Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean, areas that long required only identification such as a birth certificat, picture drivers license, etc.

So then these international Amtrak's can be made into Super Duper Duty Free Chain Restaurant Passenger Trains.  There could be like 65 cars on the train.  Applebee's car, Macaroni Grill car, Taco Bell car, duty free booze car, duty free tobacco car, don't forget the gambling car and of course a gentlemen's club car as well.  And since railroading in the old days was so awesome compared to today we could put a caboose on it...then rent it out for big bucks for the foamers.  Don't forget the steam locomotive too because this big long heavy passenger train will be an OPEC dream come true oil trough slurping gazzzoline eater.

Ooops I digressed.

MartinEngel, I think having a rail car or two for gambling and cocktails on long trips is a good idea and would help draw new customers.

Like you say getting there is half the fun.

Gambling has been done.  It has been tried on the Reno fun trains, and likely makes money.  I suspect it will be done on the DesertXpress high speed train to Las Vegas.  The real issue with gambling is that only in the state of Nevada is it legal statewide.  Everywhere else it is place specific, and for Indian Casinos it is only allowed on reservation land.  So it makes it difficult to do except on trains which travel across Nevada.

Booze has high margins, and Amtrak does sell beer and wine on board and my guess is that soda, beer, and wine make Amtrak more total contribution than food items.  The reason many commuter agencies dumped alcohol decades ago is the liability for serving a commuter who goes back to the park and ride and drives home drunk.

Duty free would only work on a few trains to Canada and could only be sold after leaving the last U.S. station.  So it would be of limited use.

Keep in mind that airlines have tried all these things except perhaps gambling, although I have been told that has been looked at in Europe.  While all of them probably add some level of contribution, there just are not enough "sinners" on one train trip, flight, etc. to make a huge profit and cover up the losses on food, sleeping cars, etc.

The difference with airlines and cruise ships is that they at least break even or make some money on the basic fare, and the other items are add-ons which are either expected to break-even or maybe even provide some additional profitability.  

Airlines lose money on food service as well - again too small a market.  That's why they have largely gotten out of it.  They also tried co-branding.  Right after 9/11 I remember United offering a TGI Fridays buffalo chicken salad for $5.  It was good, but apparently still did not make money, so now we have unbranded "snack boxes"

I hope Railwayist does not now propose joint franchising with Motel 6 or Hilton to recover sleeping car losses!

Jason - you are a step ahead of RWY-ist on your last paragraph.

Jason Kuehn wrote:  "Airlines break even or make some money on their base fares."  As John McEnroe exclaims in his National Car Rental commercials, "You can't be serious."  If that were so, why are the airlines nickel and diming us for everything from an assigned seat to baggage checking, to food, to pillows and blankets?  I think the record is clear that the airlines are losing a lot of money on their base fares and just about everything else they do.  Perhaps RAILWAYIST can find an airline blog and can help save that industry.  

Ok, I haven't commented on many entries lately because they're rather tripe, but this one deserves some attention.  Mainly because of violence involved in some of the incidences that this exact topic brought up a while back.

Amtrak has a Union.  A ridiculously powerful Union that maintains a VERY HIGH COST per employee and very LOW EFFICIENCY per employee by passenger count.  I've said time and time again, that if Amtrak operated at Virgin Rail efficiency, under the current fare prices and ridership levels Amtrak would turn 50-250 Million in PROFITS per year.  You can simply do the math by checking out Amtrak's Financials and Virgin Rail Financials.

But I digress, but the employee costs and Union Power are pivitol to understanding why food service continues to be the problem it is on Amtrak.

Subway, and other vendors have bid and tried to operate service on trains.  The volume of people an entity like Subway can serve on a train with a 200-300 captive person train is massive.  Far better than a lot of their stores.  In addition to that, even if Subway paid FULL PRICE (2-3 Million) for an ENTIRE car to be added to a train they could turn a profit, and a respectable one at that.  However, every time Amtrak has tried to bid out food service, the Amtrak Union gets all hot and bothered, often threatening Amtrak and Subway.  There was an incident, not heavily reported, that a Subway (remember, the sandwich shop, not the real subway) worker was attacked by what appeared to be Amtrak Union Members.  Of course, they weren't identified except by the victim, so little credibility was given to the attack because the entire Union balked at the thought that a member might do that.  But just look at the empirical evidence of Union members being attacked and attacking others and much of the doubt dissipates.

Fact of the matter, remove the Union from providing  food service and let them stick to operating the trains.  Let food service entities provide food service and you will see vast improvements.  The food, as suggested above, doesn't have to be a preposterous $50-100 bucks a plate, that's just insane (albeit would provide for some world class cuisine).

Another covet.  There are thousands of food establishments, diners, etc, that provide food service with a few bar stools and a couple tables, and they make out just fine - providing employment for 3-6 people easily.  Waffle House does so with many of its establishments and Waffle House runs no more than 1-2% of its establishments at a loss.

The idea that Passenger Rail can't provide quality, profitable, sustainable jobs in food service is preposterous.  The math is there, the facts are there, one just has to step out of the paradigms of the past.  Sure, we can't offer food service of the caliber the Santa Fe did in 1955, but then of course based on inflation people don't pay Amtrak $450 dollars for a coach seat from LA to Chicago anymore either.  (which mind you, in the 50s provided for a net profitable passenger rail service, which so many people tend to just ignore that fact)

Adron: Perhaps Amtrak management should deal more aggressively with the union responsible for on-train food service, and perhaps Congress should allow Amtrak management to do just that.  My only comment is that I don't think Santa Fe had an all-in profit in the 50s.  It may have had an operating profit, but I feel quite certain that it did not have net income on a fully allocated basis.

It is hard to gauge if their profit covered the rails, because nobody seemed to calculate that back in those days.  Because if the passenger train was net profitable of operations that was perfectly good.  Some rail lines expected much more from their passenger service - but I digress...

...yes, above rails for sure, I'm not sure about covering capitol costs.  Considering how much more efficiently they were operated comparatively, and how much higher the prices were - a full train would absolutely make more revenue then, then it does now.

...I'd love to see the finances of the system back then.  I've only been able to piece together very small pieces of what Santa Fe had - and have run up against the limits of the 24 hr day trying to get that much.

Regarding RAILWAYIST's original suggestion, I was reading my own assumptions into his proposal and whilst I agree with what Jason and Larry said in immediate response to his proposal, I would suggest that you could have a "restaurant" car licensed to a fast food chain. So there are only 12 or so tables for "sit in" customers but everyone else can "take out" and go back to their seat in the other cars. I for one would prefer this because someone might grab my seat while I was away discussing Congressional business over my Veggie Beanburger with large fries.

Yes, you could have a restaurant car licensed to a fast food chain, but would you want to?  The food leaves a lot to be desired and the attraction of real dining cars - for those of us old enough to have experienced them - was the high quality food and service that fast food chains do not provide.  The biggest argument against such operations is that no train will move until labor agreements are negotiated.  I realize this will cause Adron to lose sleep, but it's a reality that must be dealt with.  Unlike Adron who damns unions from ideological grounds, I neither love nor hate them, but accept them as the legal representatives of the wages, benefits and work rules that apply to their members.  They are neither good nor bad, they simply are.