Nostalgia & History > Midweek Menu - Erie

Since I did the Lackawanna last week, I thought this would be a good week to do the Erie.

Since the Erie was probably the weakest competitor in the New York to Chicago market, it was forced to start offering dining car service fairly early to compete with the NYC, PRR and even the B&O. The early menus reflect that kind of high end dining experience. By the time of the Depression, the Erie's dining cars more reflected the kind of passengers it served: not so much that New York to Chicago passenger but perhaps the Jamestown, NY to Marion, Ohio traveler. A meal on the Erie was more like Sunday dinner at home.

Photo 1: Menu from the 1890's
Photos 2 & 3: Menu from 1901

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Photos 4-6: Menu from WWI

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Photo 7: The last page of the menu from the WWI era
Photo 8: Breakfast menu from 1951
Photo 9: Letter discussing dining car operations in 1945

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Photos 10-12: 1959 menu

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Photo 13: Erie diner in 1901
Photo 14: Erie diner in the 1940s.
Photo 15: Publicity phot from the late 1950's. As mentioned last week, the dining car departments of the Erie and the Lackawanna merged before the railroads did. Here you see one the the Erie's fleet of modernized (circa 1948) diners, using Lackawanna china!

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Photo 16: The "Hornell" pattern was in use around the turn of the 20th century
Photo 17: The "Gould" pattern was in use during the 1920's
Photo 18: The "Starrucca" pattern was the standard used from the 1940's until the EL merger. In fact the EL never ordered its own china pattern, so this became the defacto standard pattern of the EL.

I hope you enjoyed a look at the Erie's dining car service.

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What an excellent collection of Erie dining service items.
The dining car operation letter was really interesting.
This brought back some memories of the few times I was lucky enough to eat in an EL diner in the 60's.

Thanks for posting these.

Gary

Thanks for the detailed examples.

Erie also had the practice of swapping dining cars into trains while en route. Places like Jamestown, Huntington, etc. Freshly stocked cars, rested crews.

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Lackawanna484 Wrote:
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> Thanks for the detailed examples.
>
> Erie also had the practice of swapping dining cars
> into trains while en route. Places like Jamestown,
> Huntington, etc. Freshly stocked cars, rested
> crews.
>

Correct - they had some great utilization of dining cars.

Those of you who are into model railroading may be familiar with Harold Werthwein's HO representation of the Erie's Delaware Division. The setting out and pickup of dining cars made operation of the passenger trains almost as interesting as the through freight trains on his layout.

Thanks for these great images and menus!

Best wishes,

ShastaDaylight

Thanks for taking the time to post these. I wonder if Amtrak will ever serve Ox Tongue? I'm sure it would be a hit with kids and adults alike...

Todd should give you some recognition for the most complete historical post of the day!
Oyster gift certificate perhaps? LOL!

mp51w Wrote:
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> Todd should give you some recognition for the most
> complete historical post of the day!
> Oyster gift certificate perhaps? LOL!

I do these to highlight the story of dining car operations on America's railroads. These guys worked incredibly hard and provided amazing meals - I like to say that when the diner was passing through a town, it was the best restaurant in town! Plus while popular culture talks about the role Pullman porters played in the civil rights movement, dining car chefs and waiters were a key part of it too.

Also, I try to provide a little piece of the dining car experience for people at home. Please search the web for the "Phoebe Snow Company" to see our line of original roast coffees, bake mixes, and other items from the dining car!

Ti