Baked Potatoes and Stuffed Tomatoes

by Theresa Beck, Education Intern

With Thanksgiving coming around, it’s easy to get caught up thinking about food. Turkey, potatoes, old family recipes, and so much more. It’s gotten me thinking lately, what was it like to eat meals on a train? What kinds of things did people eat? 

People have been dining on the rails for a long time. Since the first dining car was invented in 1835, it’s been almost two centuries of meals on the move. During that time, both the cars and the meals served have evolved. They began with previously prepared food, stored on the train and served to passengers as ordered. While it was effective in reducing the amount of time spent at railroad stops, passengers were not satisfied with the quality of their meals. They wanted better, and so followed the evolution of the dining car. 

The next step in the line of progress was to create a car in which there was a proper kitchen, so that food could be prepared while the train was on the move. It ensured that the food was piping hot and fresh when it reached the passengers, as well as allowed for more customization of orders.

Building these kinds of cars was extremely expensive, which also caused the railroads to charge more for the meals that were being served. To justify the cost of the food to passengers, railroad companies began to advertise special menus, listing dishes that were unable or unlikely to be found elsewhere. Among them were the infamous two-pound baked potato of Northern Pacific and the Great Northern Railway’s Wenatchee apples from Washington. It was extremely common for railroads to boast dishes made from ingredients sourced along their routes, ensuring that many of their dishes were unique to their lines.

Some of the dishes offered on dining cars would be familiar to us today, with dishes such as pancakes, baked fish, and even peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches for children being served. However, some of them are far out there, like beef-tongue sandwiches, seafood-stuffed tomatoes and jelly omelets or sweet omelets, which as the name suggests, is an omelet filled with jelly or made with sugar. However, it was these strange and special dishes that drew passengers to order from dining cars. 

As the years passed and modes of transportation evolved, dining on the railroad became less of a necessity and more of a delicacy. With fewer and fewer passengers ordering from dining cars, the costs became too great for them to remain a standard on the railways. Instead, most dining on the rails was eventually reduced to its former practice of pre-made food and snacks, and dining cars were left for special occasions and outings.

Image credits: Scanned image of a historic Great Northern Menu from the Lake Superior Railroad Museum collection T2016.032.005.