Union Pacific streamliners had an incredible variety of menus, most of which had a large photo of some sight along the rail line. This photo covered most of the front cover and wrapped around to about half the back cover. Below the photo on the front cover was the name of the train, while the back also had a three- or four-paragraph description of the photo and some small sketches that also evoked sights along the rail route.
Click to download a 1.8-MB PDF of this complete menu.
I have menus with more than 50 different photos, and I’m sure I haven’t exhausted the possibilities. For the City of Portland and City of Los Angeles, the railroad didn’t hesitate to use photos of sights that were on the route of another train in its system. But all of the City of San Francisco menus I’ve collected feature photos of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Click to download a 1.7-MB PDF of this complete menu.
These two menus are both dated July, 1951 and were for a special “Seagram City of San Francisco Special” carrying the “Seagram Distributors of America.” That means they don’t show the complete menus that ordinary passengers would see but only the limited selections (without prices) available to convention-goers. I have more City of San Francisco menus, from a few years later, that I’ll present in future posts.
Can you imagine the hilarity on a train full of “Seagram Distributors of America?” No reason to get off, no reason to make serious decisions, and presumably Seagram’s products might be very easily available. What a great trip that was.
Martin