A Newly Digitized Menu Collection Shows Off America’s Lost Railroad Cuisine

I don't know if that still exists within the normal person's financial means.

Dinner train rides are a relatively new type of excursion, hearkening back to the days of yore when one could enjoy first class cuisine while traveling by train. Today's experiences lack an extended, multi-day journey and typically last just a few hours. Along with providing passengers with an excellent meal these trips usually include some type of entertainment, such as a play, murder mystery, or train "robbery." In addition, there has been a growing and increasingly popular trend of providing alcohol on-board which is either included with the dinner or presented as a wine/beer tasting event. You will typically find such offerings at finer organizations such as the Strasburg Railroad, Verde Canyon Railroad, and Grand Canyon Railway. This section covers either exclusive dinner trains or regular excursions in 2019 featuring a dinner/meal, all of which are broken down by state. Please note! The information included here highlights only tourist railroads (and only those including a dinner/meal setting), most of which host day-trips to the general public lasting just a few hours. If you are interested in long-distance, intercity passenger service please visit Amtrak's website, the national rail provider.

There are dining cars on Amtrak, but traditional service (except for the Auto Train) can only be found west of Chicago or New Orleans. The termination of traditional dining service that went into effect on Sept. 30 did not reach that far west. Given the recent past, this might be a temporary situation. The is a definite trend toward reducing services on Amtrak, including reducing labor costs by eliminating crew members who serve meals to passengers. So a blanket obituary about dining cars is premature, but maybe not by much.


At one time, the dining car was a popular feature of rail travel. This writer remembers delicious regional food specialties prepared and served on the train, when railroads were proud of their dining service and dining car crews. The dining car was always a cost center and the railroads knew that, but it brought passengers to the trains, and it provided good publicity for the railroads. As late as 1966, the Pennsylvania Railroad touted its dining cars, particularly on its feature train between New York and Chicago, the Broadway Limited. The railroad’s ads described the dinners available to passengers and contrasted those offerings to airline food. Today, under the leadership of a manager who spent most of his career managing airlines, Amtrak serves airline-style food, provided by an institutional-food provider.

Yes, you heard me right, and I believe it’s part of a plan to dismantle the National Network—shutting down most, if not all, long-distance trains, to focus on the Northeast Corridor, Midwest (Chicago) and California short- and medium-distance services, and state-supported trains. More on that later.


This morning (April 19), I received a press release with the following headline:


New and Contemporary Dining Soon on Two Amtrak Routes. Capitol Limited and Lake Shore Limited sleeping car customers to be offered fresh choices for meals this summer.