Observation-Lounge Service

This beverage menu, which I photographed at the Minnesota History Center, was printed for the streamlined Empire Builder in 1949. The Pullman logo at the bottom of the front cover indicates that Great Northern had contracted out lounge-car service to Pullman.

Click image to download a 720-KB PDF of this menu.

In addition to beverages, cigars, and cigarettes, the menu offers a few toiletries such as a comb or toothpaste. It also has valet-service prices for pressing clothes: $1 for a two-piece suit; $1.25 for a three-piece; etc. (multiply by 10 to approximate today’s dollars). The barber shop in the heavyweight Empire Builder had space for pressing clothes, but the streamlined train didn’t have a barber shop so I’m not sure where clothes were pressed.

Someone punched holes in the top to put this into a binder. I covered up the holes using Photoshop but in a few cases the holes also cut out letters, which I didn’t try to fix.


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