The Abington Pennsylvania high school band rode the Rio Grande on January 3 and 4. The menu doesn’t say what year, but it must have been 1962, when the band marched in the Pasadena Rose Parade.

Click image to download a 251-KB PDF of this menu.

The picture at the bottom of this menu card was also used on one of the postcards promoting the California Zephyr. When I presented that card here, I noted that it appeared to be a colorized version of a black-and-white photo. The colors on this menu are more intensely saturated than those on the postcard, a possible indication of colorization rather than a natural color photo.

Unlike Union Pacific postcard menus, whose card could be torn off and used for mailing, this photo is simply for decoration. The Abington band, however, weren’t on the California Zephyr, which made its trip across Rio Grande territory in just one day. Since this menu is dated January 3 and 4, they were probably on the Prospector, which was scheduled to leave Salt Lake City at 5:15 pm (in time for dinner in the diner) and arrive in Denver at 8:00 am.

It is also possible they were on the Royal Gorge, which also left Salt Lake at 5:15 pm and split from the Prospector at the appropriately named Grand Junction and was scheduled to arrive in Denver at 3:00 pm. Going through the Royal Gorge in daylight would have made up for missing most of the scenery in and west of Glenwood Canyon.

Although a card and not a menu folder, the menu lists four different entrées, more than the usual one or two for tour groups. First up was the Colorado mountain trout, one of the best entrées on regular Rio Grande menus. The other items weren’t quite so fancy but there were enough choices to satisfy any non-vegetarians.