While making breakfast in our spacious kitchen this morning, I got to wondering about the great food that came from the cramped spaces of a typical old-style full-service railroad dining car. There are many articles and photos - even a special issue of Trains (April 2006 - see: http://trc.trains.com/Train%20Magazine%20Index.aspx?articleId=64350&view=ViewIssue&issueId=5593 ) - but I’m not aware of any lengthy video documentary studies of how a typical dining car operates, with all the chefs, cooks, and waiters interacting in those small areas.
Of course, there are many cooking and food shows on TV now. Anyone know of a video or show on the ‘working side’ of dining car operations ?
Here’s a link to a transcript and a 3 min. 25 sec. video piece by ABC on Amtrak’s dining cars - “Rolling Into the Past in Old-Time Dining Cars” - from January 7, 2007, on the Empire Builder: http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Travel/story?id=2777294&page=1
I don’t know of any videos of old time dining car operation but I read things about how the system operated. Usually my reading was from a waiter’s perspective. Certainly those guys had to get along with each other as they worked in close quarters for a long time. But they did it.
link is to a video featuring the New Haven’s ‘Yankee Clipper’’ at about six min I to the video there are scenes of the Food Service operations on the train… note: Waiters in the Dining Car and waitresses in the grill car… In New Haven the train changes from steam to electric (a ‘Little Joe’ electric?).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQupCrYLLbk Featuring the ‘Olympian Hiawatha’ a video that runs about 41 minutes. Lots of scenes from inside the MILW’s ‘Olympian Hiawatha’. a Milw Road shameless advertisement video!
[What I find interesting is how folks dressed to ride the train (or Planes) during the 1950’s, 1960’s and before.]
[ It seems these days that the manner of dress is anything north of skivvies, and a light coat of oil. I guess, if you are going to be pated down, mauled or whatever by a total stranger, we are probably lucky that the dress code still includes clothing ]. But I digress! [:-,]
In the heyday of passenger train travel; as operated by the railroads themselves, there was great competition among the various railroads to provide high levels of service, as well as a level corporate pride as a means of attracting riders, willing to pay premium fares…
Scattered among the videos are additional videos of various passenger trains that reflect the mid 20th Century quality of tr
Probably an EP-4 – one of the prettiest passenger electrics ever built (there was a freight version, EF-4, that was just as good looking!) The underframe of these locomotives used the same general construction as GG1s (and you may remember that the GG1 chassis design actually came from the New Haven, PRR types at the time favoring the ‘stretched-P5’ 2-Do-2 design of the R1…)
Dave Klepper will fill in more details on this as appropriate.
A very pedantic narration. Opening scene shows a couple of operating Washington DC street cars in the distance. at 6:50 there is a segment on the diner, at 8:45 there is a segment on making up a berth.
Thanks for the video of the Yankee Clipper. It brings back memories. As I recall the New Haven ran at least a grill car on all of its Shore Line Trains. And often there was also a dining. car.
But the fares were not all that bad. There was a one day excursion ticket. You paid full fare one way and 55¢ to return. Both trips had to be within 24 hours. In college I would take the NIght Owl from New York to Providence. It left a little before midnight but the one day excursion was honored.
John WR, the Yankee Clipper video shows a train which pre-dates me by a few years but it did rekindle memories of the years I commuted weekly from college in Boston to home in southern Connecticut. I used the Gilt Edge out of Boston which left at 4 pm after my classes and I returned Sunday evening on TheCommander which flew out of Stamford at 9 pm, dropped a freight car of paper off at R. Donnelly printing plant in Rhodie Island and tore into Back Bay around midnight. The Gilt Edge had a lovely diner where I frequently had the famous baked scrod dinner …she almost had the panache of the 5 pm Merchant’s Limited. The Acela cannot hold a candle to either of them!
I never rode a New Haven passenger train that included a freight car. I confess I have mixed emotions about the New York New Haven and Hartford Railroad. Yes, the dining cars were everything you say. And I remember the scrod. You could also get a small pot of baked beans. And those little silver plated coffee pots. But I also remember standing from Providence to New Haven. That wasn’t much fun.
Doubt that it was a ‘freight’ car, more likely it was a Railway Express ‘head end’ car. Express and Storage Mail cars frequently look like box cars - but they are not. Freight cars are not equipped to run at passenger train speeds or with passenger train braking. Express & Mail cars are equipped for passenger train service having steam lines, signaling lines and passenger air brake valves that permit a graduated release of the brakes as well as trucks that can operate at passenger train speeds.
Give me a break, that was over 50 years ago! Yes, it was the only NYNH&H train I ever rode which dropped off a carload of freight. This railroad had the most extraordinary collection of passenger cars known to man: I commutted to high school in the 50’s and one morning we had some couches with open vestibules…probably dated from 1910… John WR, I too stood on the NYNH&H, many times from Boston to Stamford sitting on my luggage but, at least I was allowed to make the trip! At holiday travel times, any number of trains had extra sections as The Advance Yankee Clipper which ran just before or after the named train by a few minutes…all without computers, and that terrible “load management pricing” of Amtrak…
I sat on my suitcase too. I was prepared to be enraged with you for getting on at Boston and taking my seat. Now I can’t. Who can I blame?
(Actually I started riding in the late 50’s – 1959 when I went in the Army. I never rode in a car with an open vestibule but a friend used to joke about cars heated with stoves.