WHO’S IN CHARGE HERE? - All Aboard: The Complete North American Train Travel Guide - page 122

Because the LSA also pitches in and waits on tables, however,
there just isn't much time to spend on the niceties of dining. With-
out stewards on the trains, the emphasis is necessarily more on
getting people seated and served in a reasonable amount of time.
Whether it's a steward or an LSA, this is the person respon-
sible for making sure everyone gets fed, whatever it takes. Years
ago, I was on the Coast Starlight headed for Seattle when a power
failure knocked out all the ovens in the diner's kitchen. The stew-
ard hopped off the train at the next stop, dashed to a telephone,
and arranged for delivery of hot meals to the train at a station up
ahead. (I've often tried to imagine the scene in a KFC restaurant
when the phone is answered by a 20-year-old assistant manager,
and on the other end is an Amtrak LSA wanting 250 chicken din-
ners delivered to the local train station in 90 minutes. Sounds just
like a Bob Newhart or Bill Cosby routine, doesn't it!)
Service Attendant
This is Amtrak's gender-neutral term for waiter or waitress . Call
it what you will—on a long-distance train, it's really a tough job.
Each day he or she will start serving breakfast in the dining car
as early as 6:30 in the morning, while the final seating for dinner
often lasts until 9:00 P.M. In between, the service attendants could
have served as many as 450 meals. It's quite true that the chef and
his or her assistants in the kitchen had to prepare all those meals,
but the service people had the added responsibility of maintain-
ing a cheerful disposition throughout that 16-hour day. It's espe-
cially grueling on the western trains that take two nights to reach
the West Coast. After a scheduled 50-hour trip from Chicago to
Oakland, crews working the California Zephyr spend one night
in a hotel, then depart the next morning for the trip back home—
two more tough 16-hour days. A compensating factor, usually
the most important one for Amtrak crews, is that they'll get any-
where from five to eight days off before their next trip.