For most of its history, the San Francisco-Los Angeles Lark left its respective terminals at 9 pm and arrived at the other end at 9 am. That didn’t leave much time for dinner, yet the train carried a massive, three-unit … Continue reading
Category Archives: Southern Pacific
The San Francisco-Los Angeles Lark was originally an all-Pullman train providing overnight service. By 1948, when the menu below was issued, it had been completely streamlined and ran on a twelve-hour schedule — 9 pm to 9 am — between … Continue reading
This menu card was issued the same year as yesterday’s breakfast folder and suggests that in the mid-1960s Southern Pacific used the fancy folding menus only for breakfast and dinner, even on its premiere train. Of course, just four years … Continue reading
Here’s another in the series of Sunset Limited menus used by the Southern Pacific in the early 1960s. This menu is from the Ira Silverman menu collection at Northwestern University, and I’m including it here so I can display as … Continue reading
For most of its history of passenger service, the longest ride anyone could take on the Southern Pacific was the Sunset Limited, so the railroad considered this its number 1 train even though it probably didn’t attract as many riders … Continue reading
We’ve previously seen this cover photo on a menu from someone else’s collection, but I’ve since added one to my own collection. But first, here is a 1941 dinner menu from the New York Public Library. Click image to download … Continue reading
The University of Portland football team had a terrible season in 1939, winning just one game. That game took place in San Francisco and was quite possibly the occasion for this menu, as only one other game would have required … Continue reading
We’ve previously seen a Southern Pacific menu with the Golden Gate Exposition’s Pacifica statue on the cover, but this one is different, with a more close-up view of the statue. The previous menu was used for a tour group but … Continue reading
These menus aren’t from my collection, but they fill out the series of menus whose front covers have silhouettes showing some scene or icon along Southern Pacific lines. The first page of the menus is 5 inches wide while the … Continue reading
Yesterday, I wrote that most of the Forty-Niner menu covers used images taken from the heart of Southern Pacific territory, so of course today would be the exception: an engraving of Colonel Fremont speaking with Indians at Fort Laramie, Wyoming. … Continue reading