I’ve been looking for this for a while, and finally found it ! It’s too good not to share with a new generation that may not have seen it before - or those who have seen it but may have forgotten it, or where it was, etc. - so I’ve risked Kalmbach’s wrath by retyping it below pretty much exactly as it appears in my copy (except that the line breaks, etc. and typeface have been changed).
So study the composition and wordsmithing of then-Editor David P. Morgan in the introductory and concluding paragraphs, and - now that the warmer weather is here - use these instructions to impress your non-railroad friends with the detail, and enjoy the subject yourself !
Paul North.
SECOND SECTION
The question occurs as we survey in retrospect [pages 20-33]; and thanks to the archives of chronicler Arthur D. Dubin, we may have turned up one of the answers. It is this: dwell on details, take for granted not even the simplest activity, dot your i’s and cross your t’s. Example: beer. Now wha
Paul, I remember this from when it was originally published. I don’t know whether copyrights expire like they used to, but you did the right thing by providing the reference.
Truly a lost art. But I daresay that the public would not know how to react if confronted by such a presentation today. I’ll bet that if the bottle (or can) were presented to the purchaser now, it would just be grabbed out of the server’s hand.
And this must have gotten old to the server after about three or four requests from the same passenger, who may have tolerated the entire procedure the first time, but wasn’t quite as genteel an hour or so later.
Gee, I’ve been pouring beer that way ever since whenever. OK at least since I stoped drinking generic American beers. But today I’m a swine, drinking a cold Killian’s from the bottle. Mmmm…
Paul: Thanks for reminding me of back in the day. I was riding in the parlor car on the Super Chief, at track speed in Kansas one Sunday summer day in 1963. The attendant brought me a beer, similar to the method described. The beer was sooo good. I asked for another when the attendant came by a little while later. He informed me we were then in a dry county, and was required to wait until we passed through the next wet county. He then brought me a soft drink without all the ritual.
You have been prechilling the drinking glass with ice before pouring the beer into the drinking glass after having poured the chilling ice into another glass?
Quoting PDN: “[* - These 3 appearances of “beer” are lower case in the magazine – but I have no idea why. - PDN.]”
Why? Because that is the way it is in the CommissaryInstructions of 1939 (pp 60-61).
There is further instruction on p. 23–“2. Pullman beer service is distinctive as rendered by the Pullman Company. Therefore it is necessary that all road service employees adhere strictly to these instructions–paying particular attention to the chilling of the glass, in the presence of the passenger, by bringing the glass (No. 11) to passenger with finely chopped ice (2/3 full) in it and pouring the ice out of the glass (No. 11) into empty glass (No. 12) in full view of passenger, being careful that no water remains in the chilled glass (No. 11) when ice is emptied into glass (No. 12). Of course, under no circumstances should beer be poured into the glass containing the ice.”
The Instruction book is FORM X29.919 of the Pullman COmpany.
It’s partly ‘theatre’ to do the byplay with the ice in front of the client – but, on the other hand, the chill on the glass starts disappearing the moment it comes out of the freezer, and by the time you’d have taken it All The Way Down The Train To The Client… you’d probably have to re-chill it anyway, and the only practical way to do that “in the field” is via some variant of the method described.
BTW, this is the secret of proper iced tea: EVERYTHING that touches the tea, no matter how small, has to be at very low temperature, even the glass stirrers. And you might think there is little difference between 36-38 degrees out of the fridge and zero degrees out of the freezer … but there is.
It’s amazing how important chilling the glass is … or the bottle, if you are a ‘binky’ person like me. There is something of an art to chilling the bottle without starting to freeze the beer. But it’s an art well worth learning…