Great Northern 1930 Dinner Menu

This plain menu is dated with an “Office of Supt. Dining Cars” stamp on the cover, suggesting it was used as a sample in office records rather than on board a train. The menu does not have a train name and is rather limited, so it was probably used on a shorter-distance train than the Empire Builder or Oriental Limited. According to a 1928 timetable, GN had dining cars on the Winnipeg Limited and Portland-Seattle trains and cafe-observation cars on trains between Helena & Great Falls and Duluth & Grand Forks.

Click image to download a 1.4-MB PDF of this menu.

The menu offers full dinners for $1.50 (about $22 today) with a choice of lamb chops, roast turkey, or tenderloin steak, all with appetizer, soup, potatoes, vegetable, tea biscuits, dessert, and beverage. In addition to those three entrées, the a la carte side has “various fresh fish,” baked ham, fried chicken, chicken pot pie, and “G.N. Montana Baked Beans,” plus a variety of other items.


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