It's an election year, and Central Florida-area U.S. Representative John Mica is going after Amtrak again with uber-theatrics in order to score points with the folks back home (his challenger this election cycle is a fiscally-conservative Tea Party candidate).
Not to be out Tea-Partied, this past week Representative Mica held hearings on the "mismanagement" of Amtrak's food service.
Coverage from Politico:
This has caused quite a bit of speculating
over at the Amtrak Limited Discussion Forum, where the old suggestion of making Amtrak sleeping car passengers "pay" for their food has surfaced again (hint: the price of meals is already included in the sleeping car accommodation charges, guys).
The worst coverage on this came from a blogger at the Gothamist, who
Hey, Gothamist, we have a bridge to sell you!...Or was that swamp land?
Here's the truth. When one takes the full costs of Amtrak's food service into consideration, Amtrak's costs are expensive. And that is to be expected. Still, food service onboard trains is a necessary passenger amenity.
Incidentally, that dining car on the 20th Century Limited where Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint dined together in the movie North by Northwest lost money for its owner New York Central, too. Too bad Representative Mica wasn't around back then to "fix" it.
Case closed.
--Jackson McQuigg