Someone collected this menu as a souvenir of a ride on a CN train from Cornwall, Ontario to Detroit on August 13, 1954. From the notes, it appears they ordered fruit juice, French onion soup, a sirloin steak (which is strange as sirloin steak isn’t on the menu), tossed salad, carrots, iced tea, and a strawberry sundae for dessert. The menu is a la carte; presumably the table d’hôte side was included as a separate flyer, but didn’t come with this menu.
Click image to download a 1.4-MB PDF of this menu.
According to CN’s 1956 timetable (which probably wasn’t much different from 1954), someone going from Cornwall to Detroit either took the La Salle or the Inter-City Limited, both of which were CN-CP pool trains on the portion between Montreal and Toronto. Only the La Salle would have served dinner.
The La Salle had a “dinette” from Montreal to Toronto and a “diner” from Toronto to London. Leaving Cornwall at 10:36 am, the train arrived in Toronto at 4:30 pm, and left after a leisurely 90 minute wait, arriving in London at 9:10 pm. So dinner would have been served between 6 pm and 9 pm. The train then arrived in Windsor at 11:25 pm, and from there Detroit passengers had to take a short bus ride, arriving one minute before midnight. The average speed of 38 mph (not counting the bus trip) would have been speeded to just 43 mph if the 90 minute wait in Toronto could have been eliminated, but that time was required to separate CN from CP cars and trade the dinette for the diner.