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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.

Brussels Hotel Plaza

Posted on March 19, 2022 by Train LoverJanuary 20, 2022

This has absolutely no railroad content, but I’m including it here because it is the only evidence we have that the Hruska sisters’ trip to Europe included time on the continent instead of just in Britain. This brochure includes 11 photos of Brussels and the Plaza Hotel plus a single paragraph of text repeated five times: once each in French, English, German, Dutch, and Spanish.

Click image to download a 2.8-MB PDF of this 16-page booklet.

“The Hotel Plaza, the most recently constructed, situated in the center of Brussels, is the only luxury hotel of the city,” says the paragraph. “Recently” meant 24 years before, as the hotel opened its doors in 1930. It remained in business until 1976, then shut down for two decades. After an extensive remodeling, it reopened in 1996. Today, it is quite busy and claims to be “one of the last independent hotels in Brussels.” Continue reading →

Empress of Scotland Dinner Menu

Posted on March 18, 2022 by Train LoverJanuary 31, 2023

We’ve seen a painting of this ship before on a 1937 menu, at which time it was called the Empress of Japan, having been built in 1930 to serve Canadian Pacific between Vancouver and Yokohama and other Pacific ports. With a length of 644 feet, she had room for 1,173 passengers in four classes of service: first, second, third, and steerage. Although she had three funnels, the third was only to ventilate the boiler rooms and galleys.

Click image to download a 798-KB PDF of this menu.

In 1939, she was pressed into troop service and in 1942 her name was changed to Empress of Scotland. After the war, she was the only one of six Empresses that was returned to Canadian Pacific, the others being sunk or damaged beyond repair. CP spent two years re-outfitting her for summer service between Montreal and Liverpool and winter cruise ship service. She took her maiden voyage from Liverpool to Montreal in 1950. Steerage having been eliminated, she had room for 663 first- and third-class passengers. Continue reading →