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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 →

West Indies Menus from 1936 & 1937

Posted on March 19, 2023 by Train LoverFebruary 13, 2023

Most of the cruise menus presented here in the last few weeks have been for holidays ranging from Christmas to St. Patrick’s Day. The Chung collection has some ordinary menus from the 1936 and 1937 West Indies cruises aboard the Empress of Australia revealing that breakfast menus were cards and lunch and dinner menus were mostly in what I call the Charcoal Series of menus with Canadian Pacific hotels and ships on their covers. It may only be a coincidence, but the lunch menus had hotels on their covers while the dinner menus featured the Empress of Britain.

Click image to view and download a 1.0-MB PDF of this menu from the Chung collection.

This breakfast menu from a 1936 cruise has an amazing variety of foods that would not be found on a dining car breakfast menu. Just as an example, there are 11 different fruits, nine different kinds of rolls, 11 different kinds of other breads, four different coffees (plus Postum, a coffee substitute), and nine kinds of tea. Continue reading →

West Indies Cruises of the 1930s

Posted on March 18, 2023 by Train LoverFebruary 13, 2023

As I have mentioned previously, the addition of the second Empress of Britain to Canadian Pacific’s ocean liner fleet in 1931 was a momentous enough occasion that I am using that year to divide the 1920s from the 1930s. The Chung collection has no West Indies cruise memorabilia for 1932, but it does have items from 1933 through 1939. Today’s post will present some booklets and brochures while menus will be covered tomorrow.

Click image to view and download a 3.2-MB PDF of this brochure from the Chung collection.

This 1933 brochure seems to be the only item in the Chung collection from the West Indies cruises that year. Two 28-day cruises were offered on the Duchess of Bedford from New York, one leaving January 7 and one leaving February 8. The minimum fare was $280, or $10 per day. Ten dollars is about $230 today, or a total of $6,500. Continue reading →

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

Posted on March 17, 2023 by Train LoverFebruary 7, 2023

St. Patrick’s Day, which is observed by the Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, and Eastern Orthodox churches, was as good a reason as any for a party on a lengthy ocean cruise. In 1932, when this menu was used, the Empress of Britain was in the middle of a four-day voyage from Hilo to San Francisco, so a holiday to relieve the boredom was no doubt welcomed.

Click image to view and download a 1.0-MB PDF of this menu from the University of British Columbia Chung collection.

Unlike the Robert Burns birthday supper, which featured a traditional menu of Scottish foods, only a few items on this menu seem particularly Irish. Mostly, it is a typical eight-course meal that might be found any day on a Canadian Pacific ocean liner. Continue reading →

Canadian Pacific’s Last World Cruise

Posted on March 16, 2023 by Train LoverFebruary 6, 2023

In early 1938, Canadian Pacific thought that it could do a standard world cruise in 1939. But in July, increasing hostilities between Japan and the Soviet Union, as well as continuing troubles in China, led CP to revise the itinerary. The cruise would go to from Bangkok north to Hong Kong, then turn south again to the Philippines and Bali, then west to South Africa and South America. Not only would it not cross the Pacific Ocean, it would never even enter that ocean.

Click image to view and download a 111.8-MB PDF of this booklet from the University of British Columbia Chung collection. The Chung collection also has a smaller brochure.

The cover of the booklet advertising the cruise not only has a painting that wraps around the back, the back cover folds out to make an extra large picture. This extravagance served no purpose other than to display the large illustration that is signed “Simpson.” This refers to Charles Walter Simpson, a Canadian artist whose work for both CP and CN we’ve seen several times before. Continue reading →