Nostalgia & History > Midweek Menu - Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac

The RF&P provided dining cars as part of the pool of equipment used on various Pennsylvania - Atlantic Coast Line - Seaboard Air Line - Florida East Coast trains. In 1950, Pullman-Standard delivered ten 36-seat dining cars to the RF&P to fill in their portion of the various New York - Florida trains.

Photos 1 - 3: Menu from 1943.

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Photo 1 - one of those Pullman 36 seat diners - the "Henrico".
Photo 2 - Over the years the RF&P used several different china patterns featuring their triangle logo. This pattern was the "Fredericksburg" pattern.

A brief look at the unique dining car operation of the RF&P, as required to compliment the dining car services of its larger passenger partners.

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How were the cars scheduled? One day a week on certain trains?

Marty Bernard

The WWII menu from the peak of the wartime shortages is really interesting. Want two spoonfuls of sugar? Get the iced tea. You know you are in the South. I assume the tongue was beef, so that is the only beef item I spot on the menu.

MartyBernard Wrote:
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> How were the cars scheduled? One day a week on
> certain trains?
>
> Marty Bernard

My guess is that these diners simply went into a pool of cars, owned by several railroads. Think of the "CB&Q transcons"....which all were turned over to other RRs to further their trip west. There was at least one PRR Pullman in the CZ pool, probably one for each of the 6 sets.

AA

Stanford White
Carmel Valley, CA

AA, then why was there a separate RF&P menu if the diners were in the pool?

On the CZ, I assume the PRR Pullman was a through car from New York all the way to Oakland and were not assigned to CZ sets.

Marty

MartyBernard Wrote:
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> AA, then why was there a separate RF&P menu if the
> diners were in the pool?
>
> On the CZ, I assume the PRR Pullman was a through
> car from New York all the way to Oakland and were
> not assigned to CZ sets.
>
> Marty

I was an RF&P dining car. Just guessing here, but, using the CZ for example......a CB&Q dining car would have a CB&Q menu, same with the other two CZ partners.

AA

Stanford White
Carmel Valley, CA

The CZ had its own menu which was specific to that train.

The PRR owned Silver Rapids which was the New York-Oakland
thru sleeper. The NYC leased a sleeper from the Rio Grande
if I remember correctly. If you were on the New York sleeper,
you had a one in six chance in riding in the Silver Rapids.

CJV in Illinois

With RF&P contributing diners to certain through Florida trains, its dining car crews probably participated in the service too. I am guessing that a major name through train had a menu for the train, but I believe that you can find instances where a foreign line diner and crew used its own railroad's menu on a through train.

As for the RF&P menu, the railroad operated a few trains between Richmond and Washington that were not part of a through service. I am guessing that this is where our wartime menu was used.

Also given the limited selections, I think you're probably correct. At least post-war most joint trains had branded dining cars and you'd never know the owner of the particular car: CZ, Golden State, Cities, Empire Builder, North Coast Ltd. Think also true for Chicago-Florida trains, Crescent, etc

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