The Detroit-Cleveland Mercury was New York Central’s first streamlined train, though it was actually a heavyweight with shrouds over the steam locomotive and passenger cars to make them look streamlined. Originally introduced in 1936 and designed by Henry Dreyfuss, the train’s inverted-bathtub-style steam locomotives weren’t as nice as his later 20th Century Limited locomotives, but they impressed the Central enough to give him the contract to design the Century. More important, the train’s interiors were both cheerful and innovative.
Click image to download a 1.1-MB PDF of this menu.
Despite the older equipment, the original Mercury managed to average nearly 60 mph, partly because it made only one stop, in Toledo. This dinner menu is undated, but someone has helpfully pencilled in “3/28/46,” by which date a second stop had been added, the Cleveland suburb of Linndale.
The train was so successful that it not only inspired the Central to buy a whole fleet of new streamliners, it added two more trains with the Mercury name connecting Detroit with Chicago and Detroit with Cincinnati. A 1946 New York Central timetable advertises the Chicago Mercury but I can’t actually find a schedule for it. If this menu is from the Cleveland Mercury, then it would be for the southbound train, which left Detroit at 5:30 pm and arrived in Cleveland at 8:45 pm, providing plenty of time for a pleasant dinner in the diner.
This menu meets the New York Central’s high standards of the time. Table d’hôte meals offered a choice of baked shad with roe, fried scallops and oysters, roast ham, and a half a grilled chicken. All came with plenty of side dishes and cost between $1.50 and $1.75 (about $20 to $23 in today’s money).