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The Canadian in 1959

Posted on March 29, 2022 by Train LoverJanuary 20, 2022

We’ve previously seen brochures about the Canadian from 1955, 1958, and an undated one that is probably from 1956 or 1957. Today’s brochure is dated 1959 and covers much of the same material.

Click image to download a 4.1-MB PDF of this brochure.

Railroads in the 1950s sometimes used artists’ paintings of passenger car interiors when trains were first introduced, and then substituted photos after they went into service. Canadian Pacific, however, continued to use paintings by Hedley Rainnie long after the Canadian was introduced. This one supplements Rainnie’s daylight paintings with night views of sleeping car rooms that I suspect were drawn by another artist. Continue reading →

Lake Louise & Banff in 1959

Posted on March 28, 2022 by Train LoverJanuary 20, 2022

This brochure describes Canadian Pacific’s two premiere Rocky Mountain resorts in the equivalent of six pages of a booklet. We’ve previously seen a 1953 20-page booklet and a 1960 8-page booklet about the same resorts. The declining page count may indicate that CP was losing interest in its hotel chain.

Click image to download a 3.0-MB PDF of this brochure.

Perhaps CP issued a booklet in 1959 as well and this brochure was just an alternative. However, the 1960 booklet was part of a series that CP issued to revitalize interest in its hotels; we also have ones for the Royal Alexandria, Saskatchewan, and Palliser hotels. Continue reading →

More Empress of Britain Lunch Menus

Posted on March 27, 2022 by Train LoverMarch 30, 2022

Today I have three menus, all for different days on the same voyage of the Empress of Britain as yesterday’s. The first has a photo of the Banff Springs Hotel that we’ve seen before in the upper left corner of a 1949 menu, but we haven’t previously seen it centered on the menu cover.

Click image to download a 1.1-MB PDF of this menu.

This menu was used on June 12 and had Irish stew, chili con carne, poultry livers, and calf’s brains as the main entrées. Other entrées include roast mutton, sirloin steak, Chaslick a la Russe (which seems to be a kind of kebob), and veal. Continue reading →

Kicking Horse River Lunch Menu

Posted on March 26, 2022 by Train LoverJanuary 20, 2022

We’ve seen this photograph before in the upper left of the cover on a 1949 menu for the Chateau Lake Louise. Here the photograph is in the center of the cover, and the caption is in the Bodoni type face. As I noted yesterday, Bodoni was used for captions on Canadian Pacific menus in the 1940s, but by the 1950s its use on dining car and hotel menus had given way to a more modern, sans serif type face.

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

The steamship menus continued to use Bodoni for a few more years. This menu, like yesterday’s, was used aboard a trans-Atlantic steamship, this time the Empress of Britain. The menu is dated June 8. According to CP’s April, 1957 timetables (available from the Chung collection), the Empress left Liverpool on June 7 with an arrival in Montreal scheduled for June 14, so this would have been the second day out. Continue reading →

Winter in Old Quebec Center Portrait Menu

Posted on March 25, 2022 by Train LoverJanuary 20, 2022

We’ve seen this cover photograph before in the upper-left corner of 1950 and 1958 dining car menus. Today’s menu places the same photo in the horizontal center of the cover. Another difference is that the 1950 menu has “Canadian Pacific” in script under the photo while this one says “Winter in Old Quebec” in Bodoni typeface.

Click image to download a 1.8-MB PDF of this menu.

What do these changes mean? Canadian Pacific continued to use center-portrait menus on dining cars at least as late as 1956 and on steamships until at least 1963. The Bodoni typeface disappeared from dining car menus in the 1940s but continued to be seen on steamship menus until at least 1957. Although Canadian Pacific had used menus that were unique to steamships, the steamships also used menus that were similar to those that had been used on dining cars, but often a few years after they had been discontinued on the dining cars. Continue reading →

Sentinel Peak 1956 Dinner Menu

Posted on March 24, 2022 by Train LoverJanuary 20, 2022

The front cover of this menu shows Sentinel Peak, which the caption says is visible from “the well-marked mountain trails that radiate from the Chateau.” The back cover shows the Chateau Lake Louise itself. The menu was used in the hotel restaurant and, as far as I know, this style of menu was never used in a Canadian Pacific dining car.

Click image to download a 1.3-MB PDF of this menu.

For $4.50 (about US$35 in today’s money), the menu offered what appears to be five-course table d’hôte meals. The meals started with a choice of appetizers including, among others, “stuffed egg Petersbourg” and “fruit cup Santa Barbara.” This was followed by the soup course: ox-tail soup, vichysoise, or consomme. Continue reading →

Empress of Scotland Programmes

Posted on March 23, 2022 by Train LoverJanuary 22, 2022

Helen Hruska carefully saved programmes for each day’s activities on the Greenoch-Montreal voyage, so I owe it to her to post them here. Most of them list music, films, dances, and games held each late afternoon and evening of the trip.

Click image to download a 506-KB PDF of this flyer.

They also provide information about baggage, rail transport in Canada, and customs, as appropriate for each day. Continue reading →

Gala Dinner on the Empress of Scotland

Posted on March 22, 2022 by Train LoverJanuary 31, 2023

We saw this same menu cover a few days ago when it was used for the Gala Dinner on Helen Hruska’s Empress of Scotland trip to Scotland. Here it is used for the Gala Dinner on the return trip. I’m not sure what the significance of a Gala Dinner was, but the term seemed to be applied near the midpoint of a voyage rather than the last night out, which was the Captain’s Dinner.

Click image to download a 868-KB PDF of this menu.

The items served on this menu are not more numerous than on menus from other nights but may be a cut above them. Instead of mere poached halibut, this one has salmon in Bearnaise sauce. Instead of beef tenderloins, this one has filet mignon. Continue reading →

Windsor Castle Dinner Menu

Posted on March 21, 2022 by Train LoverJanuary 22, 2022

Here is an Empress menu showing Windsor Castle. While yesterday’s menu was used on the Empress of Scotland on August 21, 1954, this one was used two days later, August 23.

Click image to download a 893-KB PDF of this menu.

For dinner that night, the chef recommended fried sea scallops and roast leg of lamb. Other entrées passengers could choose included calf’s head, beef tenderloin, or sweetbreads while the other seafood was halibut.

Balmoral Castle Dinner Menu

Posted on March 20, 2022 by Train LoverJanuary 22, 2022

On her return voyage from Scotland, Helen Hruska saved this menu showing Balmoral, a residence in Scotland that is unusual in that it is actually owned by the queen and not part of the crown estate. The land was purchased by the queen’s great great grandfather, Albert, Queen Victoria’s consort and he had the castle built. Judging from other depictions of the castle, the white-capped mountain in the background of the image on this cover is more artistic license than reality.

Click image to download a 880-KB PDF of this menu.

This menu is part of series of Empress menus depicting various royal residences on the covers. We’ve already seen another one that Helen Hruska collected on the same trip showing Hollyrood House, which is also in Scotland. I’ve also seen ones for Buckingham Palace, Sandringham, St. James Palace, and Windsor Castle. Each of the cover images also shows a soldier or, in one case, a gardener in the foreground.