Illinois Central Breakfast Blank

There’s no date on this blank menu, but I suspect it is from the late 1960s when rail ridership and service was rapidly declining. The menu itself is made of glossy paper laminated onto regular paper. The back of the menu (the part on regular paper) has an ad for eating in the diner (which seems redundant since anyone holding the menu would already be there) and, curiously, a space for people to take notes about the “highlights of my trip.”

Click image to download a 0.4-MB PDF of this menu blank.

Just barely visible in the background of the farm scene on the cover is a distant passenger train. Presumably this is supposed to be an Illinois Central train, but the illustrator was unable to give it the distinctive IC chocolate brown color using just the red and yellow covers on the menu cover.


Comments

Illinois Central Breakfast Blank — 1 Comment

  1. I think the idea with these menus is that you’d make notes about your trip and mail them to friends and relatives, kind of like a big postcard. I think the IC provided an envelope and even did the mailing. The advertising on the back makes sense then.

    Jim

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