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Heaven’s Peak Dinner Menu

Posted on September 10, 2023 by Train LoverAugust 21, 2023

In 1923, Ralph Budd was president but Louis Hill was still chairman of the board of the Great Northern Railway. This menu is from a Chairman’s Special Western Trip taken that year and is for dinner on Friday, October 12. October was too late for a comfortable trip to Glacier so the destination was more likely to be Seattle.

Click image to download a 390-KB PDF of this menu from the Minnesota History Center.

As I read the menu, it offered a six-course meal: celery or olives, cream of tomato soup, lake trout, cucumbers to clear the palette, green peppers stuffed with sweetbread or roast chicken accompanied by mashed potatoes and cauliflower Hollandaise, dessert, and a beverage. Either the railroad or Hill himself wanted to appear frugal as the menu is printed on a card rather than a folder as would appear in a regular dining car.

Only National Park on a Main Line of a RR

Posted on September 9, 2023 by Train LoverAugust 21, 2023

The Santa Fe had a branch line that went directly to the rim of the Grand Canyon and Northern Pacific and Union Pacific both had branch lines that went to the border of Yellowstone. But only one national park was on the main line of a railroad, mainly because Congress designated that railroad as the park boundary, probably at the instigation of Louis Hill himself.

Click image to download a 757-KB PDF of this blotter from the Minnesota History Center.

This blotter reminds potential passengers of that fact. I found it in the Minnesota History Center with other items from 1923 and 1924. If the blotter had been published in 1924, it would have prominently featured the New Oriental Limited, so I conclude it is from 1923. Continue reading →

Major General Wolfe and Westerham

Posted on September 8, 2023 by Train LoverAugust 21, 2023

James Wolfe died leading the British at the Battle of Quebec in the French and Indian War. Despite the loss of their leader, the British won the battle, leading France to cede Quebec to Britain. Wolfe had been born and raised in Westerham and his house, now known as the Quebec House, is now part of the National Trust.

Click image to download an 805-KB PDF of this menu.

This menu’s cover painting, by the mysterious Lendon, shows Wolfe standing on the village green with four buildings in the background and the village church looming behind them. I’m not certain if those four buildings actually existed in 1757, which would have been the last time Wolfe was in Westerham, but they certainly exist today and their modern versions were probably used by Lendon to make his painting. Continue reading →

Oliver Goldsmith 1959 Dinner Menu

Posted on September 7, 2023 by Train LoverAugust 21, 2023

We’ve previously seen empress menus featuring William Shakespeare, Robert Burns, and John Constable. To this artist series we can add today’s menu honoring Oliver Goldsmith, an eighteenth-century Irish writer whose play, She Stoops to Conquer, is still often performed today. The cover drawing of Goldsmith is based on a portrait by Joshua Reynolds.

Click image to download an 912-KB PDF of this menu.

This dinner menu was used on the Empress of England, Canadian Pacific’s newest ocean liner in 1959. The menu offered two kinds of fish, either beef a l’Anglais, apple fritters, baked ham, roast turkey, cold lamb, and home made brawn, which is apparently made from a boar’s head and is known in the U.S. as head cheese. The left side of the menu suggests that passengers pick one of these as the entrée, plus an hors d’Oeuvres, soup, vegetable, potatoes, and–for a bit of indulgence–two desserts before ending the meal with fresh fruits.

Kickinghorse River Dinner Menu from 1952

Posted on September 6, 2023 by Train LoverAugust 21, 2023

This menu’s cover photo with a young woman precariously perched next to the river had also been used on a 1949 menu from the Chateau Lake Louise and a 1957 menu used on the Empress of Britain. This one differs from the other two in the rose colored background on the covers. The flag in the lower left corner of the front cover signals this was used on a steamship, in this case on in Alaska service.

Click image to download an 2.0-MB PDF of this menu.

The inside front cover has photos of sights people would see if they continued on north of Skagway: a view from a White Pass train; a steamboat running the White Horse River rapids; a highway bridge across the White River; and Dawson City, Yukon. The unpriced menu offered halibut, cod, fried bananas, roast pork, spring lamb, and duck. Continue reading →

Banff Springs Hotel Lunch Menu from 1947

Posted on September 5, 2023 by Train LoverAugust 21, 2023

As marked on the cover, this menu was used at the Banff Springs Hotel. It is a little larger than CP dining car menus of that period: about 8″x11″ vs. 6-3/4″x9-3/4″. However, the same photograph was used on a 1950 Alaska steamship menu, which were the same size as dining car menus, so it is likely that this photo could also be found on a dining car menu.

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

Unlike the Alaska steamship and most dining car menus of this period, this hotel menu has a photo on the back as well as the front. The back cover photo shows Lake Louise in a clear effort to entice hotel guests to make a trip to the lake. The back cover also lists CP hotels at the time, of which there were 15-1/2 (since one of them, the Hotel Vancouver, being halfowned by Canadian National). Continue reading →

Mount Eisenhower Dinner Menu from 1947

Posted on September 4, 2023 by Train LoverAugust 21, 2023

This is an example of what I call the Bodoni series of menus because the title of the photograph is printed in all-capital Bodoni letters on the front. The Bodoni series closely resembles the Script series, such as this one with a similar but not identical photo of Mount Eisenhower. The front covers of both menus were printed in 1946, though today’s menu has a date inside indicating that it was used on the dining car of Canadian Pacific’s Dominion in 1947.

Click image to download an 1.6-MB PDF of this menu.

Portraying one of the most photogenic features of Banff National Park, the very same photo that is on today’s menu was also used on a 1948 menu with a blue cover that was used on an Alaska steamship; a 1948 dining car menu with a gray cover; a 1949 menu with a white cover from the Banff Springs Hotel; and a 1951 dining car menu with a yellow cover. Indeed, this particular photo may have adorned more varieties of Canadian Pacific menus than any other. Continue reading →

Notes by the Way Through the Canadian Rockies

Posted on September 3, 2023 by Train LoverSeptember 3, 2023

The rather boring but heavy-duty cover of this odd-sized (approx. 4-5/8″x9-5/8″) booklet hides the fact that it contains many beautiful photos inside, and in particular four in full color, plus one color painting. Canadian Pacific was one of the first railroads to take advantage of Kodachrome, which had been introduced in 1935, in its advertising and menus.

Click image to download a 19.9-MB PDF of this 46-page booklet.

Still, it is a little bit of a surprise to see color photos in an along-the-way booklet. Passengers generally saw such booklets only after they had purchased tickets and were on the trains, so there wasn’t any need to use color photos to sell the trip. However, Canadian Pacific still wanted to sell visits to its hotels in the Rockies, and the color photos used here helped do that. Continue reading →

Old Acadia in Nova Scotia

Posted on September 2, 2023 by Train LoverAugust 22, 2023

As previously noted here, the Dominion Atlantic Railway had been a wholly owned but independently operated subsidiary of the Canadian Pacific since 1911. The railway served Nova Scotia, which had once been occupied by French-speaking Acadians. During the French & Indian War, most Acadians had been forcibly deported, with nearly half dying in transit. Nearly a century later, the sad plight of the Acadians was covered in a Longfellow poem called Evangeline.

Click image to download a 7.4-MB PDF of this 28-page booklet.

In the 1920s, Dominion Atlantic noted that large numbers of descendants of the surviving Acadians were returning to Nova Scotia as tourists. To promote this tourism, it bought land near the former site of a community where Evangeline was supposed to have lived known as Grand Pré, which just happened to be on the railway’s main line. It made this land into a park, planting gardens, opening a museum, erecting a statue of Evangeline, and raising funds to build a replica of a church that once served the community. Eventually, in 1957, the railway sold this park to the Canadian government and it is now a national historic site. Continue reading →

Resorts in the Canadian Rockies in 1930

Posted on September 1, 2023 by Train LoverAugust 5, 2023

The Chung collection has a Canadian Pacific booklet about resorts in the Canadian Rockies dated 1906. Between the Chung collection and archive.org are annual editions of the booklet from 1910 to 1933. From 1911 to 1923, these have a color painting on the cover and black-and-white photos inside.

Click image to download an 25.0-MB PDF of this 28-page booklet.

The 1924 issue has color paintings on both front and back covers. The front cover painting is signed GFG, meaning Gordon Fraser Gillespie, who eventually worked full time for CP but in 1924 was working on commission. The back cover painting isn’t credited, but it was by an artist named Carl Rungius. From 1925 to 1931, color paintings by a variety of Canadian fine artists were featured on many of the interior pages as well. Continue reading →