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Pacific Empress Menus of 1933

Posted on March 29, 2023 by Train LoverMarch 24, 2023

Two of today’s 1933 menus feature Canadian Pacific hotels and look to be part of a series that included one for the York Hotel shown here two days ago. All three menus are printed on nearly white paper with the hotel illustrations in bright colors and yellow stripes on either side of the menu card.

Click image to view and download a 798-KB PDF of this menu from the Chung collection.

The first menu, which shows the Chateau Frontenac, is for lunch on the Empress of Japan. The York menu was also for lunch in tourist class. This menu doesn’t specify what class it was used for, but it has about the same number of items of approximately the same quality of foods. Continue reading →

Meals on the Pacific Empresses in 1932

Posted on March 28, 2023 by Train LoverMarch 24, 2023

The Pacific empresses were a little slower, a little smaller, and had more water to cross between ports where they could restock supplies. This could have had an influence on the menus Canadian Pacific offered to passengers, but apparently it did not.

Click image to view and download a 971-KB PDF of this menu from the Chung collection.

This breakfast menu on the Empress of Russia lists 81 numbered items (making it easy for guests to order by number). That’s a lot more than were listed on the trans-Atlantic breakfast menus presented here yesterday. That may be because yesterday’s menus were for tourist class while today’s is unmarked but may have been for first class. Continue reading →

Tourist Class Menus on an Empress

Posted on March 27, 2023 by Train LoverMarch 24, 2023

Here are a number of tourist-class menus from a single trans-Atlantic trip aboard the Empress of Australia in 1931. There are fewer selections on these menus than on first-class menus, but no tourist-class passenger would go hungry on one of these voyages.

Click image to view and download a 461-KB PDF of this menu from the Chung collection.

First is a lunch menu featuring a scene on the St. Lawrence Seaway. The menu has no appetizers but otherwise has as many courses as a first-class menu. However, there are fewer selections in each course and the selections are lower quality, such as rump steak instead of sirloin steak. Continue reading →

Tourist Class on the Empress Fleet

Posted on March 26, 2023 by Train LoverMarch 24, 2023

Canadian Pacific’s tourist class was supposed to be a cut above third class but not quite as good as second class. Normally third class consisted of shared rooms with 8 to 12 beds. CP’s tourist-class rooms had just two to four beds. The rooms might still be shared if one person was traveling alone, but there was still more privacy and parties of two or four traveling together would not have to share with anyone else.

Click image to view and download a 14.4-MB PDF of this booklet from the Chung collection.

The cover of this booklet, which the Chung librarians date to 1929, makes “tourist third cabin” appear to be almost as good as first class. Interior photos make it clear, however, that the dining rooms and lounges are nowhere near as fancy or comfortable as first or second class. First-class lounge chairs, for example, were heavily upholstered, while tourist-class chairs were wicker. The booklet’s cover art is signed “E.B. 1927,” but I can’t find a Canadian Pacific artist with those initials. Continue reading →

Should I Write a Streamliner Memories Book?

Posted on March 25, 2023 by Train LoverMarch 24, 2023

Since I began Streamliner Memories in 2012, I’ve posted more than 5,000 documents relating to passenger train history. I’ve now posted almost everything in my own collection and I can’t help but wonder: what should I do now? For example, could I turn this web site into a book? I’m hoping you can help answer this question.

I started to think about this when I learned that Marc Choko, who co-authored two books on Canadian Pacific posters that I frequently use as references, has also written a much larger book: Canadian Pacific: Creating a Brand, Building a Nation. A publisher named Callisto released this 384-page book in three increasingly sumptuous editions, all of which are available from various book dealers. The standard edition, shown above, is 9″x12″, weighs 4 pounds, and originally sold for $70. Continue reading →

Trail Riders of the Canadian Rockies

Posted on March 24, 2023 by Train LoverFebruary 18, 2023

In 1923, Canadian Pacific publicist John Murray Gibbon organized a fishing trip for Country Life magazine editor Reginald Townsend; Rand McNally president Harry Beach Clow; Chicago artist Reinhold Palanske; and their wives. The group was joined by Banff photographer Byron Harmon and U.S. photographer H. Armstrong Roberts and guided by Windermere outfitter Walter Nixon.

Click image to download a 1.0-MB PDF of this 1929 breakfast menu.

The group enjoyed the trip so much that they decided to form the Trail Riders of the Canadian Rockies to make similar trips available to more people. The Trail Riders sponsored guided trips each summer and encouraged people to return by offering certificates and buttons when they have ridden 50, 100, 500, and more miles in the Canadian Rockies. Continue reading →

Empress Menu Cards

Posted on March 23, 2023 by Train LoverFebruary 17, 2023

After spending the last several weeks scrutinizing Canadian Pacific’s ocean cruises, I plan to spend the next several weeks looking at Canadian Pacific menus, including a few dining car menus but mostly menus used aboard ships in ocean liner (as opposed to cruise) service. Some of these menus will be from my own collection, but most will be from the Chung collection.

Click image to view and download a 822-KB PDF of this menu from the Chung collection.

I’m starting with a couple of menu cards used aboard different CP ships. These cards typically had a small colorful drawing at the top showing some sight or destination reachable by CP trains or ships. The menus were cards rather than folders because they were for something less than first-class passengers. The above lunch card from 1928 was used aboard the Duchess of Atholl, which was a cabin-class (second-class) ship, meaning it didn’t have a first class. Continue reading →

Canadian Pacific Post-War Cruises

Posted on March 22, 2023 by Train LoverFebruary 15, 2023

After World War II, Canadian Pacific resumed its West Indies and Mediterranean cruises from New York but not its world or South America-Africa cruises. The earliest cruises documents in the Chung collection are from 1953, but it seems likely that West Indies cruises, at least, began before that.

Click image to view and download a 13.4-MB PDF of this booklet from the Chung collection.

In 1953, Canadian Pacific offered a 15-day New York-West Indies cruise beginning February 18 and two 17-day cruises beginning January 30 and March 7. All three cruises visited St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands; Puerto Cabello, Venezuela; Curacao; Panama (with a train ride to Balboa); Havana; and Kingston, Jamaica. The 17-day cruises also visited Trinidad. Fares ranged from $375 to $1,405 ($4,000 to $15,500 today) for the 15-day cruise and from $425 to $1,600 ($4,700 to $17,600 today) for the 17-day cruises. Continue reading →

A North American Cruise

Posted on March 21, 2023 by Train LoverFebruary 14, 2023

As noted yesterday, Canadian Pacific doesn’t seem to have held a Mediterranean from New York in 1939, probably due to European troubles. Instead, the company offered a summer cruise of major North American destinations, including Cuba, Panama, Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska.

Click image to view and download a 12.5-MB PDF of this brochure from the Chung collection. This file also includes a 1932 brochure about a Mediterranean cruise from Southampton.

For the cruise, the Duchess of Richmond left Montreal on July 1 and New York on July 6, returning to New York on September 3 and Montreal on September 7, thus taking a maximum of 69 days. Fares ranged from $595 per person (about $13,000 today) for an inside room on a lower deck to as much as $1,250 per person (about $27,000 today) for an outside room with a bath on an upper deck. Continue reading →

Mediterranean Cruises of the 1930s

Posted on March 20, 2023 by Train LoverFebruary 13, 2023

Unlike the booklets advertising the world cruises, the 1930s West Indies cruise booklets we’ve seen didn’t have lavish paintings on their covers. However, the Mediterranean cruise booklets are more impressive. This may be because the West Indies cruises were short, 28 days or less, while many of the Mediterranean cruises were 66 days or longer, and perhaps Canadian Pacific thought they needed or deserved more attention.

Click image to view and download a 71.9-MB PDF of this booklet from the Chung collection.

The 1932 booklet, for example, has a beautiful color painting of what appears to be Cadiz, Spain, which was the third port visited by the cruise. The painting is signed G.S. Bailey, which means Geoffrey Spinks Bailey (1901-1992), an English artist who moved to Canada in 1929, where he made posters and other illustrations as well as war-related paintings during World War II. He returned to England after the war and settled in Rye. Continue reading →