[HN Gopher] When railroad dining cars were the height of luxury
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When railroad dining cars were the height of luxury
Author : teleforce
Score : 49 points
Date : 2024-10-12 12:46 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnn.com)
| fsckboy wrote:
| "when wealthy people rode trains, they were accommodated"
| Freak_NL wrote:
| Back then, sure. But last month a dining car was introduced by
| European Sleeper with completely normal prices on the Brussels-
| Prague sleeper train:
|
| https://www.europeansleeper.eu/dining-car
|
| The Orient Express is a fancy fantasy tour, like a high-end
| cruise; great for Poirot re-enactors. But Europe's network of
| sleeper trains is slowly expanding again, and now features at
| least one dining car service. The best part is that while not
| cheap, they are certainly affordable.
| netsharc wrote:
| The whole article feels like an ad for the relaunch of the
| Orient Express next year.
| TRiG_Ireland wrote:
| I've been on the actual Orient-Express (which was a modern
| Euronightlines train) before it was withdrawn. I travelled
| on my InterRail pass. It has nothing in common with the
| luxury train service branding itself Orient Express.
|
| https://www.seat61.com/history-of-the-orient-express.htm
| netsharc wrote:
| Ah, true, as JWZ calls it, "brand necrophilia". Seeing
| that page again reminds me of my bucket list item of
| going from London to Instanbul by train (or trains, I
| guess). But it'd be funny because I would pass the city I
| currently live in.
| crabbone wrote:
| In Soviet Union... well, I'm not actually sure what were the
| rules for having a dining car on a train, but all trains I rode
| had one. And I was very poor. So poor I couldn't always afford
| a ticket.
|
| But, the system worked differently. There were "coupe" cars:
| the car is divided into small compartment for four people each.
| Each compartment has a door, a table the four have to share.
| Two double-decked beds. Upon request fitted with a hammock-like
| net that served as a crib.
|
| Then there were "platz-kart" cars: similar idea, but six people
| per compartment. No doors (you could see into compartments
| adjacent to yours). These also had "third floor" of beds (so,
| potentially could house nine people, but the top floor didn't
| have padding and was originally designed for luggage).
|
| Then there were "common" cars: these were usually the same as
| "platz-kart", but the third floor counted as a legitimate
| sitting place.
|
| Then, as times got worse, the "common" class of cars became
| more prevalent, and sometimes these would be repurposed short-
| distance train cars that didn't have any place to sleep at all
| (just chairs, like on a plain, or wooden benches).
|
| Any train had all kinds of cars, what was different was the
| proportion (as Soviet Union was headed towards its collapse,
| there were fewer and fewer "coupe" cars and more "common"
| ones). But, even in the worst times of the late 90's there
| still were dining cars. At some point train stuff stopped
| serving tea, which was the hallmark of any train travel: it
| came in special cups with heavy steel holders and with two
| bricks of sugar with the picture of train...
|
| In my last visit to the dining car, the only dish on the menu
| was pelmeni (Russian-style wantons) with vinegar (a more
| upscale version is served with sour-cream) and vodka for
| dessert... Even by the standards of the day it was sad. But,
| hey, they still had a dining car!
| dredmorbius wrote:
| High-speed rail in Europe (TGV (France), ICE (Germany), AVE
| (Spain), Le Frecce (Italy), Eurostar (UK-FR-BE), Lyria, (FR-
| CH), Nightjet (AT-DE-CH), etc. _are_ generally up-scale
| transport. Ticket prices are not exactly cheap. The ultra-
| wealthy might use private jets, but rail is fast _enough_ for
| inter-city travel, generally less problematic than commercial
| flight, enables work _en route_ , and tends to have better
| dining amenities aboard.
| scrlk wrote:
| Great Western Railway in the UK still operates a Pullman dining
| car on select services between London Paddington and Plymouth or
| Swansea: https://www.gwr.com/travelling-with-us/pullman-dining
| TRiG_Ireland wrote:
| There's also the Gerald of Wales service, now run by Transport
| for Wales.
|
| (GWR is no relation to the original company of the same name,
| by the way. It's a modern creation, named to capitalise on the
| positive associations of Brunel's memory.)
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| There are dining cars on Amtrack. Not the hight of luxury but not
| bad on a long trip...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTGywoIytSw
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| I actually love the Amtrak dining cars and being forced to make
| new friends. The food sure beats the snack car.
| stego-tech wrote:
| Seconded. As an introvert who took a cross-country trip on
| Amtrak for fun in 2023 (BOS - LAX), I thought I'd hate having
| to share a small booth with total strangers.
|
| Turns out it gave me confidence in defending my positions to
| strangers, improved my small talk game, and exposed me to
| viewpoints I'd never consider otherwise.
|
| And the food was amazing, too. Way better than anything I've
| had on a plane or in an airport.
| naberhausj wrote:
| I find it odd that they force you to sit with other people.
| I walked into a nearly empty Empire Builder dining car and
| was still forced to sit with people. Why not ask for
| people's preferences?
|
| During that trip, the company at breakfast was a nightmare.
| I sat across from two very drunk young men who were
| traveling on there father's money. At one point they
| started a fight with our waiter. Thankfully, our dinner
| companions made up for it by being delightful.
|
| I completely agree about the quality of the food. For
| dinner I ate the steak, and it was quite good.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| My favorite Amtrak dining car "meet your neighbor"
| experience: taking the Southwest Chief between Chicago and
| (in our case) Santa Fe/Lamy, and having dinner with a couple
| of guys from LA, one a fashion designer, the other a
| rapper/beat producer.
|
| So there I was, a late 50s anglo-american white programmer
| having a polite disagreement with a mid-30s african-american
| rapper about why Kanye West was either shit or a genius. For
| the record, I was in the shit camp.
|
| Amtrak - bring America together, slowly.
| jdougan wrote:
| The rail bar car beats the airplane cart service anyday.
|
| I'd occasionally take the train from Vancouver, BC to Seattle
| when visiting a girlfriend, and I was far less messed up
| after I got there.
| bokchoi wrote:
| I just got back from a short vacation on Amtrack. It was my
| first sleeper car experience -- I slept poorly, but the dining
| was not too bad. Much better than airplane food and with an
| excellent view of the fall foliage.
| cdchn wrote:
| It might beat airplane food but just barely. I rather eat
| McDonald's.
| cdchn wrote:
| I took the Lake Shore Limited between Boston and Chicago and
| got a sleeper car and the full-service dining car was the most
| depressing dining experience I had in years.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| Late 70s, early 80s in Europe we'd take the train for 1200 km
| (about 750 miles). First my parents and grandparents would
| _drive_ their cars onto the train, then we 'd go inside a cabin.
| There were 1st class and 2nd class cars/cabins. Then for dinner
| we'd go eat in the restaurant car.
|
| This wasn't a luxury thing that said: we had a Lada (btw
| shittiest car brand ever and the Lada Niva, the 4x4, is the
| shittiest, scariest, piece of turd of a 4x4 ever made: this thing
| will flip over at 12 mph in S-turn no question asked and if you
| think Lada made good cars you know jack shit about cars). OK, ok,
| now I digress: maybe it's because my parents had a Lada and it
| was an utter piece of junk that I now drive a high-end luxury
| car: surely a seven years long psychoanalysis would figure that
| one out.
|
| So yup, loading the Lada on the train and eating in the
| restaurant car.
|
| The people doing the same around that time were typical middle
| class (and I don't dispute TFA saying that before that it used to
| be the height of luxury).
| jerven wrote:
| I must say when ever I have the chance I do really enjoy the
| Cff/sbb dining cars on the swiss network. A real sense of luxury
| to see the Alps go by drinking a ok coffee or decent beer in a
| nice environment. Feels nicer than bussiness class on a plane.
| zokier wrote:
| Lot of transportation dining was luxurious at the first half of
| 20th century. Ocean liners were of course famous for their
| dinners, afaik zeppelins had at least decent food available, and
| airplane travel had some glamour too.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Queen Mary 2, the only still-existing ocean liner, is still
| famous for its dinners and generally sense of luxury.
| joezydeco wrote:
| If you watch aviation channels on YouTube, the middle eastern
| airlines keep trying to outdo themselves with private enclosed
| suites/apartments on long haul aircraft.
| Ichthypresbyter wrote:
| In my experience in Europe, dining cars seem to be more of a
| Central (and maybe also Eastern) European thing.
|
| Benelux doesn't have dining cars at all, and in France and Italy
| the best you can usually hope for is a cafe-car that will give
| you coffee or at most a microwaved snack to take back to your
| seat.
|
| On the other hand, the German, Swiss and Polish railways still
| have services with true dining cars where you can sit at a table,
| a waiter will take your order, then bring you a good-quality hot
| meal served on a real plate with real silverware (and at least in
| Poland, actually cooked to order on the train).
|
| Oddly, in some cases eating the dining-car food at your seat is
| seen as a more premium experience. On Swiss trains, only
| standard-class passengers need to use the dining car- a member of
| staff walks through the first class section taking food orders
| which are then brought to your seat. In my experience of Poland's
| flagship high-speed EIP services, there are no chairs in the
| restaurant car- you can either stand and eat at one of the small
| bar-type tables, or order your food to be brought to your seat.
| magnuspaaske wrote:
| The food is still microwaved on the ICE and presumably in other
| countries too, but the presentation is fantastic. The
| experience of eating in a proper restaurant while seeing the
| landscape roll by is amazing and while not all services need a
| restaurant or can support one I don't expect restaurants to go
| away. More automation might mean more people can work on the
| presentation of the food while the kitchen can take up less
| space which should overall improve the economics of the onboard
| eating experience.
| futureshock wrote:
| Polish trains can have some really excellent dining cars. We
| take the Warsaw to Berlin regularly and they have fresh cooked
| food like friend eggs for breakfast, or breaded cutlet. Shorter
| distance trains have the standard snack bar.
| silisili wrote:
| Today we have trains of nothing but luxury(ish) dining - I
| remember https://www.kydinnertrain.com/ , I assume others exist?
|
| Though obviously not the same, as these are meant solely for
| dining and sight-seeing, not actual travel.
| dbcurtis wrote:
| In the USA the Great Northern continued to run its own
| commissaries even after most other railroads turned dining car
| operations over to the Pullman company. During the 1930's, the
| Empire Builder famously would slow going over a particular bridge
| in western Montana so that the kitchen crew could "hoop up" a
| package of freshly caught trout. I find that factoid unreasonably
| charming.
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