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La Ville de Québec Lunch Menu

Posted on March 16, 2025 by Train LoverFebruary 26, 2025

Although the front cover of this menu is labeled “the city of Quebec” in French, the photo mainly shows the part of Quebec that Canadian Pacific most cared about, the Chateau de Frontenac. This hotel, the back cover explains, was “key” to the historical and social contrasts found in “North America’s most famous historical landmark” that is “just overnight from fifty million people!”

Click image to download an 758-KB PDF of this menu.

The Canadian Pacific menu series page documents well over 100 CP color photo menus, mostly from the post-war era and mostly used on dining cars. This is the first new such menu that I’ve seen in many years. The muddy and poorly framed front cover photo is probably the reason why I haven’t found examples of this menu before now as CP probably didn’t make many of them. Continue reading →

1948 Northern Bounty Breakfast Menu

Posted on March 15, 2025 by Train LoverJanuary 19, 2025

We’ve seen menus from the Royal Alexandra Hotel before, at least one of which featured an image of the hotel on the cover. Today’s menu looks more like one that might be found on a dining car with a photo over a white or yellow background — this particular menu being faded enough that it isn’t clear what color it was originally.

Click image to download a 791-KB PDF of this menu.

The photo shows someone displaying the “bounty of the northland,” that bounty being lynx and skunk furs, which would no longer be environmentally favored today. The back cover identifies the trapper as Isaiah Clark, a Cree Indian from the vicinity of Norway House, a trading post nearly 300 air miles north of Winnipeg. At the time this menu was issued, neither a highway nor air service had reached Norway House, and its connection with the rest of Canada was via a steamboat on Lake Winnipeg. Continue reading →

Banff Springs Hotel Menu in Triangle Service

Posted on March 14, 2025 by Train LoverJanuary 18, 2025

This 1947 menu was used aboard a Canadian Pacific ship in “Triangle service,” meaning it shuttled from Seattle to Victoria to Vancouver and back to Seattle. We’ve previously seen two other menus in this series: a full-page photo with a little banner at the bottom captioning the photo. One was a 1950 menu showing Lake Louise on the cover; the other was a 1952 menu showing a steam locomotive entering one of the Spiral Tunnels. Like today’s, both were used on steamships.

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

The name of the ship isn’t on the menu but in 1947 Canadian Pacific used the Princess Kathleen in this service. The Kathleen and Princess Marguerite had been built in 1924 specifically for Triangle service and did so until requisitioned during World War Ii for use as troop ships. The Marguerite did not survive the war but the Kathleen did and by 1947 was back in Triangle service. In 1949, CP transferred her to Vancouver-Alaska service, but that’s a story for tomorrow. Continue reading →

Hotel Vancouver Breakfast Menu

Posted on March 13, 2025 by Train LoverMarch 13, 2025

In the 1930s, Canadian Pacific transitioned from what I call the “non-white” menus to “white” menus. The non-white menus came in a variety of colors and formats, with cover illustrations sometimes filling the front cover but more often printed on a yellow, black, or other color background. The white menus started out with an illustration, sometimes surrounded with fancy borders and a few words of text, dropped onto a white background. (In 1948 and 1949 the backgrounds were sometimes cyan, magenta, yellow, or grey, but I still group those with the white menus.)

Click image to download a 1.2-MB PDF of this menu.

This appears to be one of the first white menus. We’ve previously seen a menu with the same image of the Hotel Vancouver, but that menu is taller than it is wide while this one is wider than it is tall. Canadian Pacific did a similar tall menu for the Empress Hotel and I’ve also seen one for the Banff Springs Hotel. Continue reading →

A National Institution

Posted on March 12, 2025 by Train LoverJanuary 18, 2025

“The history of the Canadian Pacific Railway has been termed a tale of gallantry, honesty and steadfastness,” says this booklet. Apparently, the people who built the railway did so solely as part of their patriotic duty to the new confederation of Canada and not to earn profits or enjoy subsidies from the government.

Click image to download a 11.7-MB PDF of this 20-page booklet.

In order to get British Columbia to join the fledgling nation, the government had to promise to build a transcontinental railway. Grand Trunk, Canada’s largest railroad in 1880, refused to build it saying the costs were too high and the potential returns too small. The government itself tried to build it but ended up spending twice as much as private parties would spend. Continue reading →

E.R. Rochester’s 1931 Tours

Posted on March 11, 2025 by Train LoverMarch 13, 2025

“Think of traveling in your own Private Pullman Train, with congenial people, stopping at high-class hotels, enjoying the best sightseeing trips, freed of all the little vexations of travel, nothing to worry about, just enjoying God’s great out-of-doors,” Mr. Rochester pitched to potential travelers in January 1931. I don’t usually collect memorabilia from third-party touring companies, but the Canadian Pacific menus shown in the last few days intrigued me about E.R. Rochester’s tours.

Click image to download a 2.6-MB PDF of this brochure.

Rochester offered a 39-day tour (the one that the menus of the last few days were used for), two 16-day tours, and a “special 51-day tour” of Europe for a “small party.” The two shorter tours focused on Colorado and Yellowstone or Colorado and Bryce-Zion-Grand Canyon. Since both 16-day tours left and returned the same dates, I suspect they operated together on the Colorado portions of the tours. Continue reading →

Moraine Lake Lunch Menu

Posted on March 10, 2025 by Train LoverJanuary 18, 2025

Whoever collected yesterday’s lunch menu must also have kept this menu from their return trip aboard the Empress of Scotland, which left almost six weeks after they arrived in England on the Empress of France. The Scot departed Southampton on August 30 and was scheduled to arrive in Quebec City on September 6, so this menu, dated September 2, was used mid-voyage.

Click image to download a 555-KB PDF of this menu.

Like yesterday’s menu, this one is for third-class passengers and as such it is adequate but not particularly memorable. The menu offers no hors d’œuvres but it does have a choice of two soups, four entrées, a buffet, salads, a couple of desserts, and coffee or tea. One of the entrées, Gnocchi Romaine, which is something like pasta alfredo only baked. The other entrées are similarly low-cost items: steak, kidney, and mushroom pie; roast mutton; and pork cutlet. Continue reading →

The Old George Inn, Salisbury

Posted on March 9, 2025 by Train LoverJanuary 18, 2025

This lunch menu was used for third-class passengers on the Empress of France on July 23, 1930. The Empress had left Quebec City on July 16 and was scheduled to arrive in Southampton on July 23, so this may have been the last meal served on that voyage, though an evening supper was a possibility.

Click image to download a 887-KB PDF of this menu.

With hors d’œuvres, soup, fish, a choice of four entrées including roast lamb, a cold buffet featuring salmon, pork, beef, ham, and mutton, salads, desserts, and coffee or tea, this menu is adequate but nowhere near as fancy as the first-class menus we have seen. Although roast lamb sounds attractive, the other entrées were noodles Livournaise (basically spaghetti with an olive-and-caper tomato sauce), cottage pie, and sheep’s tongue — all reasonable but clearly not first class. Continue reading →

Hotel Saskatchewan Breakfast Menu

Posted on March 8, 2025 by Train LoverJanuary 18, 2025

This is the last menu I have from the 1930 Rochester tour. It is a breakfast menu dated August 16. The menu cover doesn’t say so, but the picture shows Canadian Pacific’s Hotel Saskatchewan. This hotel survives today but is now a Marriott.

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

Based on these menus, it appears that tour guests were on board a train from lunch on August 13 through breakfast on August 16. In 1930, a Canadian Pacific-Soo Line could take three nights to get from Banff to Chicago, so that must be the part of the tour these menus were used for.

More Rochester Tour Menus

Posted on March 7, 2025 by Train LoverJanuary 18, 2025

Here are two more dining menus from the 1930 E.R. Rochester tour that went through the Canadian Rockies. The tour traveled from Vancouver to St. Paul and Chicago, stopping at Lake Louise and Banff on the way, so these menus were probably used between Banff and St. Paul.

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

First is an August 14 menu with the same cover image as the one presented the day before yesterday, except this menu is larger than the normal CP menu. Where the other menus are about 6-3/4″x9-1/2″, this one is 8″x11″. Yet that extra space isn’t used for more a la carte menu items; instead, it presents a six-course meal with a choice of four entrées. Moreover, there are no prices, so at least some meals were included in the price of the tour. Continue reading →