1941 Map of Banff

The colorful map on the back of this brochure shows purple mountains, green valleys, blue rivers, a solid red line showing the route of the Canadian Pacific, and dotted red lines showing what must be hundreds of miles of trails. The front, however, is a puzzle since it doesn’t really have a cover and none of the text mentions the map on the back. Instead, one panel describes Canadian Pacific hotels, another lists activities in and near Banff during the 1941 season, while the third, shown below, promotes “the world’s greatest travel system.”

Click image to download a 6.5-MB PDF of this brochure, which is from the David Rumsey map collection.

It’s easy to see why map collector David Rumsey would want a copy of this map, but it is harder to see why Canadian Pacific wanted to published it in the first place. It is possible that something is missing; perhaps this is an insert in a longer booklet or brochure.

Chateau Frontenac Expression Menu

We’ve already seen an Expression-series menu featuring the Chateau Frontenac from the Chung Collection. I managed to find this one for my collection with yesterday’s Royal Alexandra menu and is in both English and French. Like yesterday’s, this one has the mysterious “Bos.–4” printer code. Unlike yesterday’s, this one is just marked a la carte (as opposed to Breakfast a la carte), which means it was used for either lunch or dinner with an insert listing daily table d’hôte meals.

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

Of the twelve hotels pictured on the back of each Expressions menu, I’ve so far seen menus for eight (and have posted ones for seven). That leaves the Emerald Lake Chalet, Royal York, Algonquin, and Hotel Saskatchewan. Of the eight I’ve seen, the large illustrations on the front covers match the smaller ones on the back in six cases. The pictures of the Empress and Palliser hotels,. For some reason, use different illustrations, from a different viewpoint, of those hotels.

The Royal Alexandra Hotel Expression Menu

The Royal Alexandra was Canadian Pacific’s hotel in Winnipeg. We’ve previously seen a 1931 dining car menu with the hotel pictured on an otherwise nondescript cover. Today’s menu cover is anything but nondescript.

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

“The Expression of a Nation’s Character” was a series of menus used by Canadian Pacific in what I presume was an effort to distinguish itself from upstart Canadian National. Each menu featured a CP hotel on the front cover with the back cover showing small paintings of twelve hotels. We’ve previously seen this series featuring Chalet Lake Louise, the Empress, Hotel Vancouver, Banff Springs Hotel, and Chateau Frontenac. I’ve also seen one with Calgary’s Palliser Hotel. Continue reading

The Duquesne Incline

This booklet pertains more to urban transit than to intercity passenger trains, but someone gave it to me with some other items, so I’ll include it here. Pittsburgh once had at least 17 different inclined planes — railcars that went up and down steep hills, usually drawn by a cable — but by 1960 only two of them were left.

Click image to download a 1.9-MB PDF of this 8-page booklet.

The Duquesne Incline was built in 1877 and went up and down a 58 percent grade, rising 400 feet in a 793-foot trip. Two different cars counterbalanced each other on two tracks, allowing first steam and later two 50-horsepower electric motors to easily move the cable pulling the cars up and down the hill. The cars were on 5-foot gauge tracks and each car had wooden bench seats for about 24 people. Continue reading

Chesapeake & Ohio September 1949 Timetable

The Chesapeake & Ohio was not big on passenger trains. Most railroads were still optimistic about the passenger business in 1949, but this timetable is so sparse it could be from the late 1960s. That’s partly because it is for “mainline trains,” meaning it is a condensed timetable, but even so it reveals some gaps in C&O’s passenger system.

Click image to download a 4.1-MB PDF of this 8-page timetable.

Most importantly, a map in the timetable shows the C&O’s main line went from Washington to Chicago via Cincinnati, but its passsenger trains only went as far west as Cincinnati. A few cars went on to Chicago on the New York Central but most passengers had to change to a New York Central train. Continue reading

Frisco Buffet Car Menus

These little flyers were inserted in the Frisco Lines and Ozark menus presented here a couple of days ago, but that must have been done by some other rail collector as the 1967 dates on these flyers doesn’t match the dates when the menus would have been issued. Since those menus (or menu blanks) both had images of steam locomotives, Frisco would not have used them after 1952, when it was fully Dieselized.

Click image to download a 141-KB PDF of this flyer.

The first flyer is actually an advertisement for the buffet car, not a buffet car menu itself. It lists four entrées plus a few other items. Continue reading

The Texas Special Menu

We’ve seen the cover illustration of the two locomotives before on a postcard advertising the Texas Special (represented by the locomotive with the star on the nose) and the Meteor (represented by the locomotive with the Frisco logo on the nose). This menu is obviously only for the former train.

Click image to download a 755-KB PDF of this menu.

The Diesels date this to sometime between 1947, when the heavyweight Texas Special was replaced with a Diesel-powered streamlined train, and 1959, when Frisco stopped operating its share of the St. Louis-San Antonio train, leaving M-K-T to run the train from Kansas City to San Antonio. Continue reading

A Bit of the Ozarks

Like yesterday’s, this menu doesn’t have an actual menu printed on the inside, though there are some filagree lines printed in red for trim. Also like yesterday’s, this menu has the “Frisco Faster Freight” logo on the back, dating it to 1945 plus or minus a few years.

Click image to download a 800-KB PDF of this menu.

The front cover photo of a steam-powered passenger train in a station at night claims to show “a bit of the Ozarks.” This is probably in Springfield, Missouri, which is where Frisco’s two main lines between Kansas City-Memphis-Birmingham and St. Louis-Dallas-Oklahoma City crossed. Springfield also calls itsef “the Queen City of the Ozarks.” Continue reading

Frisco Lines Menu

This rather plain menu doesn’t actually have a menu on the inside, but the inside is printed with an elaborate logo and some blue trim. The logo includes the face of a steam locomotive, while the back cover has the “Frisco Faster Freight” logo, which dates the menu cover to before 1952, after which the railroad was fully Dieselized and stopped using the Faster Freight slogan.

Click image to download a 993-KB PDF of this menu.

The back cover also has a map showing Frisco’s lines in nine states. Based on the map, it is a wonder that Frisco had any passenger trains at all, at least in the post-war era, as it didn’t really have any direct lines between any two major cities. It served St. Louis, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Kansas City, Memphis, Birmingham, and Oklahoma City, but most of its routes between the largest cities were not the shortest. Continue reading

Union Pacific 1942 Calendar

This calendar appears to have been printed before December 7, 1941 — at least, it has a page for that month — yet the cover suggests the Union Pacific was already prepared for war as part of the “strategic middle route.” Inside, there are scenic views of Sun Valley, Mt. Hood, and the Grand Canyon, but most of the photos are of industries such as mining, wood processing, and agriculture. It is doubtful those industry photos would have been included if there were no war clouds on the horizon considering that the 1940 calendar exclusively used scenic photos or photos of UP trains.

Click image to download an 8.0-MB PDF of this calendar.

The photos for January (Sun Valley) and June (Grand Canyon) would later appear on post-war menus. The Grand Canyon photo had also previously appeared on the July 1940 calendar. Although UP had several post-war menus featuring Mt. Hood, the photo of Mt. Hood on the April 1942 calendar does not appear to have been used on a menu cover. Continue reading