Originally Posted by marcelin
I have a completely different impression of Amtrak's Dining Car product. It is true that there are excellent people here and there, but in general, I encounter lousy food and lousy service in dining cars.
In places like D.C. and Chicago, where there are food choices in stations and also nearby, I usually eat before boaring.
I'm sorry to hear that, and you are of course entitled to your opinion.
I, on the other hand, have almost always received good food in the dining car. Additionally, I have spoken with many people both railfans and non, and almost all have found the food acceptable.
Originally Posted by marcelin
These look like Coast Starlight menus. I have never seen such a large variety of dishes actually available on the other long-distance routes, and I've covered most of them.
I can assure you that they were not used solely on the Coast Starlight. The three menus at my link were used on a rolling basis on all trains, to avoid having someone traveling coast to coast seeing the same exact food for all meals.
I ate off of those menus twice on the Lake Shore, once on the Chief, and once on the Crescent, prior to their having been replaced with a new set of menus a few months ago. I can also direct you to dozens of trip reports by railfans, where they too ate off of those menus.
In fact one can still view Amtrak's
press release announcing those menus when they were new. It clearly states that those menus were for all of Amtrak's long distance trains. The only exception, not noted, was the Autotrain that has its own unique menu.