When Eisenhower became president, his brother Milton (then president of Penn State University) sent him a 15-page memo arguing that federal policies that discriminated against the railroads — policies devised when railroads were the only effective form of transportation — … Continue reading
This classic image of New Orleans’ St. Louis Cathedral graces the cover of a 1970 beverage menu from the Panama Limited. The cathedral dates to 1850 and was preceded by other churches on the site dating back to 1718. Click … Continue reading
In 1963, the Florida East Coast Railroad, which was just emerging from bankruptcy, decided to buck the union work rules that had been accepted by the rest of the railroad industry. This allowed the railroad to operate much more efficiently, … Continue reading
This menu appears to show a succession of six locomotives used during the Illinois Central’s long history. However, the first one is questionable. The Illinois Central was first conceived in 1836, but little if anything was built before 1850. Yet … Continue reading
The City of Miami required four different railroads to make the 1,500-mile trip between Chicago and Miami, and Illinois Central had the longest segment between Chicago and Birmingham. The trains left Chicago/Birmingham early in the morning and arrived at the … Continue reading
This menu is about the same size and uses the same paper as the previous three, so is probably from the same late-1960s era. Unlike the breakfast and dinner blanks, this one is a four-page folder and not just a … Continue reading
This 1968 menu offers a respectable range of dinners from six different sandwich baskets to four “grill specials” including veal cutlets and a “grill sirloin butt steak dinner.” The steak dinner includes juice, French fries, a dinner roll, and beverage … Continue reading
This blank menu is clearly contemporaneous with yesterday’s, which if my guess is correct means it is from the late 1960s. The backs of the two menus are identical. Click image to download a 0.4-MB PDF of this menu blank. … Continue reading
There’s no date on this blank menu, but I suspect it is from the late 1960s when rail ridership and service was rapidly declining. The menu itself is made of glossy paper laminated onto regular paper. The back of the … Continue reading
This blotter bragged that Illinois Central’s three daily trains between Chicago and St. Louis were all “air-cooled.” Note that only the Daylight is “mechanically air-cooled” while the other two trains are merely “pre-cooled.” Good luck in staying cool on the … Continue reading
