Economy Lunch on the Beaver

Most menus in this series don’t identify the train they were used on, but this one says it was for the Beaver, Southern Pacific’s overnight economy train between Portland and Oakland. Probably inspired by the Challengers, this train began operating in 1940 and was terminated, I suspect, when the Shasta Daylight was introduced in 1949.

Click image to download a 1.1-MB PDF of this menu.

The 1941 menu offered an “economy plate luncheon” consisting of king salmon or chicken pot pie accompanied by salad, potatoes, string beans, bread, dessert, and beverage for 60 cents — about $10 in today’s money, which is indeed a bargain. I am grateful to a Streamliner Memories reader for providing scans of this menu as well as the menus that I’ll present in the next three days.


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