Like the Duchess of Idaho menu shown here a few days ago, this is a menu we’ve seen before but one that wasn’t actually in my collection. Now that I’ve acquired one, there are only two UP photo menus I know about that I still don’t have: one showing the University of Idaho at Caldwell and the other looking straight at a Cable Car on Nob Hill.
Click any images to download a 1.3-MB PDF of this menu.
Union Pacific had several menus looking down on the Sun Valley Resort. The winter menus usually had skiers who looked bored, probably because they were having to stand still for the photographer. The summer menus often had horseback riders standing next to their horses. The riders in this picture look happier than the skiers, possibly because they were glad to finally get off the horses.
This particular menu was used in the café-coffee shop car on the City of Los Angeles in 1960. Among other things, it offers a sirloin steak dinner for $2.70 (about $23 today), which is a good price considering the bargain-priced Challenger menu from 1956 offered the same meal for $3.50 whereas in the full diner in 1960 it was $5.00. Unlike the one in the café car, the steak dinner in the diner didn’t even come with dessert.