We’ve seen this menu before, at which time I dated it to 1956. I now think they were from 1954. The clue is the ad on the back bragging about CN’s order for “359 new passenger cars.” This dates it to 1954, when when CN placed what it called a “record purchase of new passenger equipment.”
Click image to download a 1.3-MB PDF of this menu.
We’ve seen an advertisement bragging about this purchase from the March, 1954, National Geographic. Below is a follow-up ad providing more detail from the April issue of the same magazine.
Click image for a larger view of this ad.
The ads don’t ever mention that the new cars are streamlined, suggesting that this was no longer considered exciting even though all of CN’s existing cars were heavyweights. In fact, the claims for why the new cars were so great were hardly persuasive. Supposedly, the lounge cars “are designed for relaxation.” Does that mean the old lounge cars were designed to make people tense? Dining car food will “taste even more delicious” aboard the new diners. That’s a good trick!
Although the new cars were placed in service as they arrived, CN didn’t really introduce a completely new train until April 24, 1955, when it inaugurated the Super Continental. Even then it still had some heavyweight cars; it just introduced a new name in order to compete with Canadian Pacific’s Canadian, which was introduced the same day. Stainless steel and dome cars completely outshone whatever excitement Canadian National could muster with its “record purchase.”