Americans traditionally spend Thanksgiving with their families, but a few lucky people occasionally spent a Thanksgiving on board a train. The luckiest got to spend Thanksgiving on a train with a fancy dining car such as the City of Los Angeles. These cards would have been put on tables offering a special Thanksgiving dinner to such travelers.

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The first is printed on a paper with a nice background texture. It offered an elaborate dinner starting with a fruit cup, onion soup, or tomato juice, then a choice of olives or celery, a main course of turkey with dressing and cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and three other vegetables, pineapple and cottage cheese salad, rolls, a choice of desserts, and beverage, all for $3.

If this were aboard a Canadian Pacific ocean liner, the cheese and crackers would be a separate course from the sweet desserts, but it isn’t clear whether this is so from this menu. If so, that would make this a six-course meal.

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Today’s second menu is printed on plainer paper. It offered a choice of four appetizers, one of two hors d’oeuvres, then the same turkey and vegetables, a fruit salad with lime ice dressing, and then the same desserts and beverages. This dinner cost 50¢ more than the previous one.

The menu is marked “103-104” in the lower right corner, indicating it was intended for the City of Los Angeles. Although the previous menu doesn’t have a similar marking, it too was probably used on a streamliner such as the City of Los Angeles or City of Portland.

UP dinner prices grew steadily during the 1950s. This dinner was a bit fancier than most, with one more appetizer course and extra vegetables. Still, $3.00 seems steep for 1951 and low for 1953 while it seems about right for 1952. The $3.50 menu would then date from a year after.