# Food production on trains before 1940



## DAVID T. (Jan 3, 2012)

I had a dream and in the dream I entered a railcar where food production was done. It was a ver vivid detailed dream and I wonder if my dream actually showed what one of those railcars looked like on the interior ?


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## Bill Haithcoat (Jan 4, 2012)

DAVID T. said:


> I had a dream and in the dream I entered a railcar where food production was done. It was a ver vivid detailed dream and I wonder if my dream actually showed what one of those railcars looked like on the interior ?


try google railroad dining car service or something like that.


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## dlagrua (Jan 18, 2012)

Much of the current Amtrak dining car fleet comes from the 1950's and 1960's. Some are ex Southern RR cars (as on the Crescent) while others ran on the Rio Grand, California Zephyr and other lines. The main difference is in the number of chefs ( some dining cars had up to four) and the quality of the food served. I have a book entitled "Dining by Rail" that contained many of the old RR recipes for dining car food. We cooked many of these dishes and they were absolutely great. I was not around in the Golden Days of Railroading but it must have been an outstanding way to travel. Beautiful bar/ lounges, dome cars, gourmet quality food, fancy wood interiors and even such amenities like a barber shop and porters that offered to press your business suit and shine your shoes. The comfort of rail travel has really gone downhill but it is still enjoyable.


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## ehbowen (Jan 21, 2012)

Here are two pictures that I took today of the interior of railroad dining car kitchens from the 1940s.







The above picture is of the kitchen from the Burlington's _Silver Hours_, built in 1940 and used from 1945 on as the tail car of the _Sam Houston Zephyr_. It had this kitchen, a dining section with 24 seats at six tables, and a parlor-observation section with 22 swivel seats.






This photo is of the kitchen of Southern Railway dining car #3305, built by Budd in 1949. It is much larger than _Silver Hours'_ kitchen as this car seated 44 patrons. The foreground area contains the pantry and scullery where dishes were stored and washed and where cold meal items were prepared; obscured by the cooler and the tub of dishes is the kitchen proper where the chef worked on the stove and grill.






This is a look at the diner seating area for Southern 3305, seating 44 passengers at 11 tables of 4. Two of those tables are behind the glass partitions visible at the rear of the seating area; I believe that these were used for colored passengers during the segregated era.

Edit To Add: My thanks to the Galveston Railroad Museum....


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