Full-Service Dining Cars Return to the Lake Shore
I’ve written here on several occasions about the serious need Amtrak has for new equipment. Some time back, the “Heritage” era dining cars were taken out of service because of constant problems with every conceivable kind of breakdown … from purely mechanical to electrical to whatever.
However, those classic dining cars have been overhauled and renovated and are now being put back into service, initially on the Lake Shore Limited, running between Chicago and either New York or Boston.
The eastbound Lake Shore divides at Albany, New York, with one section heading down along the Hudson River into New York City, and another staying on an easterly course and terminating in Boston. That scenario is reversed on the westbound trip. An educated guess is that the newly renovated dining cars will stay with the New York City train, so Boston passengers will be without those diners for the 5½-hour run between Boston and Albany. Unfortunately, that’s right through the dinner hour on the eastbound train. Not to worry: Amtrak does provide a “cold meal service” for sleeping car passengers on that train. I’ll let you know if that changes once all the renovated dining cars are in service.It’s not perfect, but since dining car meals are – and have always been – the experience rail passengers most remember and most enjoy, the return of these refurbished dining cars is good news indeed.
The dining cars have been back on the LSL for weeks now. The diner-lite cars are still on the train and go to Boston for meal service.
Good Sir, alas, I share your fear!
But here’s the link to the news story:
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-01-11/amtrak-plans-to-buy-hundreds-of-locomotives-passenger-railcars.html
I checked Amtrak’s site, too, and came up dry. Don’t understand why it wasn’t there, unless somebody was indiscreet w/ a reporter.
As you say, Jim, fingers crossed!
I haven’t seen that yet and couldn’t find the release on their web site. The issue is going to be (a) will they get affordable responses to their RFP,(b) will they get the money from the feds to pay for the new cars and (c) will they be ordering enough and the right kind of new equipment (Superliners) to expand service by adding more trains and new routes? My fear is that the answer could be no to all of the above. We shall see. Fingers crossed!
Being old enough to remember the Fifties, this is pretty cool. Looks like they kept the Fifties spirit in the design.
Just saw where Amtrak announce the purchase of 100 locomotive and “hundreds” of cars. No word on timing, but welcome news just the same.