The Royal Alexandra was Canadian Pacific’s hotel in Winnipeg. We’ve previously seen a 1931 dining car menu with the hotel pictured on an otherwise nondescript cover. Today’s menu cover is anything but nondescript.

Click image to download a 2.4-MB PDF of this menu.

“The Expression of a Nation’s Character” was a series of menus used by Canadian Pacific in what I presume was an effort to distinguish itself from upstart Canadian National. Each menu featured a CP hotel on the front cover with the back cover showing small paintings of twelve hotels. We’ve previously seen this series featuring Chalet Lake Louise, the Empress, Hotel Vancouver, Banff Springs Hotel, and Chateau Frontenac. I’ve also seen one with Calgary’s Palliser Hotel.

CP used this menu series in the hotels, on board steamships, and in its dining cars. The hotel and steamship menus I’ve seen all have dates between 1928 and 1932, while the dining car menus are undated. Today’s menu was used aboard a dining car, probably for a train in Montreal-Toronto corridor as it is in both English and French. Unfortunately, prices didn’t change during that time period so I can’t use that to date this menu. I suspect, however, it was from before 1931 because it would otherwise have overlapped with the 1931 Alexandra menu mentioned above.

The a la carte breakfast menu is typical for the period, featuring sirloin steak, lamb chips, and fried chicken as well as today’s more usual egg dishes, griddle cakes, French toast, and some cereals. The menu’s printer code reads “Bos.-4,” which I understand means this was used on a Montreal to Boston train.