Mark Twain Zephyr Dinner Menu

Posted on by August 21, 2022
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This is an elegant little menu for an elegant little motor train. An image of Mark Twain apparently groping a rather alarmed-looking Huck Finn (or perhaps Tom Sawyer) is deeply embossed on the cover. The menu is all printed on one side of the heavy paper and folded twice so it looks like a conventional menu folder. (Click here to download the menu completely unfolded.)

Click image to download an 330-KB PDF of this menu.

The Mark Twain Zephyr trainset was originally used on Burlington’s line between Burlington, Iowa and St. Louis. However, it was often “loaned” to other routes, including Chicago-Twin Cities, Chicago-Denver, and Dallas-Houston. In September 1938 (according to one source), the train was put on a St. Louis-Kansas City route, which required that it use the tracks of the Alton Railroad for part of the trip. Despite the different route, it was still called the Mark Twain Zephyr. Continue reading →

Burlington Glacier Park Breakfast Menu

Posted on by August 21, 2022
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The Burlington used this photo of a tour boat on St. Mary Lake in front of the Going to the Sun Chalets on blotters and a postcard. Burlington also used this style of menu with a painting of Rocky Mountain National Park on the cover.

Click image to download an 705-KB PDF of this menu.

Based on text on the back, I dated the Rocky Mountain Park menu to 1936. Today’s menu has rail fares to Glacier Park on the back that could probably be used to date it, but I don’t have a complete set of timetables (which usually include fares) to date it. Continue reading →

America’s Playground for Americans

Posted on by August 16, 2022
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We’ve previously seen a 1922 Burlington booklet about Colorado and Utah that proclaimed the two states were “America’s Playground for Americans.” This one, which says the same thing, is from 1926. The two share some of the same black-and-white photos, but the text is quite different.

Click image to download a 14.8-MB PDF of this 36-page booklet.

Both of them are also similar to some Northern Pacific booklet’s we’ve seen, including this 1915 booklet about Pacific Coast Attractions. For both the NP and Burlington booklets, the front cover is half photo, half text, all in a somewhat ornate frame. What I would call the main cover (shown above) is on the back, and is split into two in case the booklet is folded in half. Continue reading →

Pickerel River Buffet Menu

Posted on by August 16, 2022
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The Pickerel River flows west across a heavily glaciated part of Ontario before joining with the east-west French River. The latter river, says Wikipedia, “is considered the dividing line between Northern and Southern Ontario.” In fact, the vast majority of Ontario’s land is north of the river while the vast majority of its population is south of the river. Canadian National’s main line west of Toronto crosses the Pickerel River on a bridge built for predecessor Canadian Northern in 1906.

Click image to download a 742-KB PDF of this menu.

“Some of the finest fishing in the province is to be found in the Lake Nipissing district, watered by the French and Pickerel Rivers,” says the back of this menu. The 1952 menu adds that nearby “Algonquin Park, with its more than 1,200 lakes and rivers, is famous for camping and fishing.” In 1985, most of the French and parts of the Pickerel rivers were added to French River Provincial Park. Continue reading →

Jasper Park Lodge in 1938

Posted on by August 16, 2022
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We’ve already seen a 1938 CN booklet about Jasper National Park, which inevitably included a lot of information about the lodge as well. Today’s booklet, which is from archive.org, focuses on the lodge but with six pages of photos of the park. Despite this seeming overlap, the two appear to be completely different.

Click image to download a 15.3-MB PDF of this 28-page booklet.

Both booklets include several color photos. But the 48-page Jasper Park booklet includes 18 pages describing and pricing tours, lodging, and other activities in the park. This information is not included in the lodge booklet. The park booklet also has a fold-out map that is missing from the lodge booklet. Continue reading →

Jasper National Park in 1937

Posted on by August 16, 2022
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CN’s Jasper booklet for 1937 uses some of the same photos as in the 1938 booklet, but with substantially different text. I don’t yet have a 1936 booklet to compare it with.

Click image to download a 13.0-MB PDF of this 42-page booklet.

Unlike the 1938 edition, this one came with an insert that lists lodging rates and describes one- to four-day tours of the region. Rooms in cabins started as low as $7 per night, single-occupancy, with a detached bath and $9 with a private bath. Tours cost about $12 to $14 per person per day, including transportation, lodging, and some meals. Multiply prices by about 16 to get today’s U.S. dollars. Continue reading →

Canadian Rockies in 1937

Posted on by August 16, 2022
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In 1937, Canadian National changed its Rockies/Triangle Tour advertising from a booklet to a brochure. The brochure has the equivalent of about 18 pages of text and photos, which made it unwieldy to open and read, so this change seems questionable.

Click image to download a 8.6-MB PDF of this brochure.

We’ve already seen a similar brochure from 1939. The two contain some of the same graphics and headlines, but the headlines are in a different typeface and the text is mostly different as well. Curiously, in 1940 CN returned to a booklet format for its Rockies advertising, publishing a 16-page booklet that had about 15 percent fewer square inches of space. Continue reading →

The Canadian Rockies in 1936

Posted on by August 16, 2022
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Canadian National issued several annual booklets about travel in the western provinces that complemented and blended into one another. The Jasper Park booklets described the lodge and the park and included a detailed list of activities and costs in the back. The Jasper Lodge booklets described the park and the lodge but did not include such activity schedules. The Canadian Rockies booklets, including this one, described Jasper but also included the Triangle Tour, meaning CN’s lines from Jasper to Vancouver and Prince Rupert and CN’s steamship route between the two. Finally, it published the Alaska & Yukon booklets that promoted trips to Skagway and Dawson City.

Click image to download a 14.4-MB PDF of this 26-page booklet.

Today’s Canadian Rockies booklet is from archive.org. The way archive.org presents this and similar publications is a puzzle. First, it cut the cover (shown above) in half, using the left half as the first page and the right half as the last page of the PDF. Since they are two halves of the same page, that’s obviously nonsense. I’ve merged them together and, based on similar CN documents from other years, placed them as the back cover of the booklet. Continue reading →

More Empress Breakfast Menus

Posted on by January 31, 2023
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Here are two more breakfast menus from the same voyage of the Empress of England whose menus have appeared in the last few days. Unfortunately, I don’t have lunch or dinner menus for these days.

Click image to download a 254-KB PDF of this menu.

Scotch pancakes were featured on the September 7 menu, so in keeping with the three-day rotation between Scotch, buckwheat, and whole wheat pancakes, Scotch are back on the menu for September 10. However, other foods must not have been on a three-day rotation as there are quite a few differences between these two menus. Continue reading →

September 9 Aboard the Empress

Posted on by January 31, 2023
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Today’s Empress of England menus are all dated Friday, September 9, 1961. As with yesterday’s menus, we’ve seen the breakfast and lunch menu covers before but the dinner is new.

Click image to download a 260-KB PDF of this menu.

Today’s breakfast menu offered wholewheat griddle cakes. Based on the menus I’ve seen, Canadian Pacific’s Empress kitchens rotated between buckwheat, Scottish, and wholewheat pancakes. Continue reading →