Although I am sure there were variations according to road, what was the general use of the buffet cars? Were they unstaffed? Is a buffet car the same as a grill car?
Thanks,
Roy
I think a buffet car served drinks and light food - snacks, sandwiches maybe etc. There would be someone behind the counter to buy from. They wouldn't have full meals or I would guess hot food (until maybe the advent of the microwave oven, where they could warm up pre-packaged hamburgers or sandwiches.)
A grill car was sort of in between a buffet car and a regular dining car. It might have a long counter like a neighborhood diner would have. You could get hamburgers, hot dogs, grilled cheese etc. but not really full meals like a diner. As I recall I ate in a grill car on the GN as a kid and thought it was pretty neat.
wjstix I think a buffet car served drinks and light food - snacks, sandwiches maybe etc. There would be someone behind the counter to buy from. They wouldn't have full meals or I would guess hot food (until maybe the advent of the microwave oven, where they could warm up pre-packaged hamburgers or sandwiches.) A grill car was sort of in between a buffet car and a regular dining car. It might have a long counter like a neighborhood diner would have. You could get hamburgers, hot dogs, grilled cheese etc. but not really full meals like a diner. As I recall I ate in a grill car on the GN as a kid and thought it was pretty neat.
Al - in - Stockton
Amtrak's diners on the "SIlver" trains in the 80s and early 90s were buffet style. A steward would carry your tray and seat you, however.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
RoyPBower Although I am sure there were variations according to road, what was the general use of the buffet cars? Were they unstaffed? Is a buffet car the same as a grill car? Thanks, Roy
The only differentiation is between the types of checks--meal, beverage, and employes [sic] meal check. Meal checks were used on "Cars where Meals and Beverages are served," beverage checks were used on "Cars where Cigars, Beverages, Sandwiches, etc., are served." Employes meal checks were used on "All types of cars for Train or Pullman Employes Actually on Duty."
The only reference in the index to "buffet" refers to the section which forbids Pullman employees to keep personal belongings in the car or to make any personal use of the car when laying over; the only reference to "grill" is to grilling potatoes; the only reference to "lounge" is to the section forbidding employees on duty from lounging in the public area of the car.
Today, we are in the dark as to the distinctions that Pullman made seventy years ago--unless we have contributors who traveled by Pullman at that time, or someone has an authoritative text on the subject. Al - in - Stockton has apparently told us all that we can learn. Thanks, Al.
Johnny
oltmannd Amtrak's diners on the "SIlver" trains in the 80s and early 90s were buffet style. A steward would carry your tray and seat you, however.
wjstixA grill car was sort of in between a buffet car and a regular dining car. It might have a long counter like a neighborhood diner would have. You could get hamburgers, hot dogs, grilled cheese etc. but not really full meals like a diner.
This describes the original Skyline Dome Coffee Shop cars CP ran on The Canadian. Then they had excellent Dining Cars as well. Now VIA runs Skyline and Dining Car tandems where all the cooking is done in the dining car kitchen and there are three price levels. Regular Dining car service in the Dining Car portion, a coffee shop type experience in the main level of the Skyline car and a initimate higher priced experience under the dome seating section in the Skyline Car. I am myself curious about the various levels of service in the CP heavyweight coach era.
AgentKid
So shovel the coal, let this rattler roll.
"A Train is a Place Going Somewhere" CP Rail Public Timetable
"O. S. Irricana"
. . . __ . ______
Hi, I have several buffet menus in my menu collection. An Erie Buffet Menu from 1954 has food such as bacon & eggs, cereal, sandwiches (tuna fish sandwich $0.60 for example) and drinks (pot of coffee $0.30, can of Coke or Pepsi $0.20) as well as alcohol (bottle of beer $0.40) and pack of cigarettes ($0.30 INCLUDING TAX!!!)
A Frisco Lounge Buffet Car Menu from 1967 has basically the same type of items: Hamburger ($0.65) , Bacon & eggs w/ toast & butter ($1.25) chili,etc. By this time a bottle of beer was up to $0.45 and cigarettes were up to $0.35. A 1.6oz (airplane bottle) of Scotch was $1.00. All the food on these cars were freshly prepared on board, but offered the type of food service found in an Amtrak cafe car/lounge car today.
Dining cars of course offered full blown meals like a restaurant. For example, a Frisco Dining Car Menu from the mid 50's shows a "Frisco Luncheon", which consisted of Salisbury Steak,mashed potatoes, salad, bread& butter, pudding and coffee, tea, or milk for $1.40, again all cooked to order on board. An Amtrak long distance train like the Empire Builder or Capitol Limited of today with a full diner as well as a lounge pretty well exemplifies the way it was. Of course, current prices don't!
Ah, the good old days with good old prices. In 1970, I can remember buying a beer in a tavern for less than a dollar; a six pack of Schaeffer's beer (a NYC local brewery) was 99 cents at the supermarket but a six pack of Coke was $1.19.
Schaeffer had a wonderful jingle on the radio. "Schaeffer (pause) is the (pause) one beer to have when you're havin' more than one."
Art
On the New Haven, both dining and grill cars served full meals. The distinction was that the diner had more room, served a high price and more varied menue, and seated people traditionally at four to a table with tables on each side of an aisle. The grille car had a lower priced and more limited menue, the aisle was wider to permit waitresses to work more efficiently, and seating was backs to the windows and sideways table with the customer facing the center aisle. Generally waiters worked dining cars and waitresses worked girll cars. One menue item common to both was smoked srod (fish). The first grille cars came with the 1934-1935 Amiercan Fluer lightweights, which were rebuilt into reclining seat coaches for the Montrealer and State of Miane when the postwar grill cars arrived.
Buffet cars on the New Haven were only the Pullman operated buffet-bedroom-compartment cars operated on overnight trains. I don't remember any New Haven buffet cars for coach passengers.
On trains without diners or grille cars, food could be purchased from the "News Butcher" as they rolled their traveling cart through the center aisles of the coaches.
Deggesty RoyPBower Although I am sure there were variations according to road, what was the general use of the buffet cars? Were they unstaffed? Is a buffet car the same as a grill car? Thanks, Roy I thought that the Pullman Company's Commissary Instructions (1939) would help answer the question, but my copy (a reprint of copy No. 3763) does not. The cover and the first page of general instructions simply indicate that the instructions for Broiler, Buffet, Club and Lounge Car Service are to be found in the book. The only differentiation is between the types of checks--meal, beverage, and employes [sic] meal check. Meal checks were used on "Cars where Meals and Beverages are served," beverage checks were used on "Cars where Cigars, Beverages, Sandwiches, etc., are served." Employes meal checks were used on "All types of cars for Train or Pullman Employes Actually on Duty." The only reference in the index to "buffet" refers to the section which forbids Pullman employees to keep personal belongings in the car or to make any personal use of the car when laying over; the only reference to "grill" is to grilling potatoes; the only reference to "lounge" is to the section forbidding employees on duty from lounging in the public area of the car. Today, we are in the dark as to the distinctions that Pullman made seventy years ago--unless we have contributors who traveled by Pullman at that time, or someone has an authoritative text on the subject. Al - in - Stockton has apparently told us all that we can learn. Thanks, Al. Johnny
Keep in mind that generally railroads owned and operated dining cars and such. Even on the "All Pullman" heavyweight Twentieth Century limited, the only non-Pullman car was the New York Central owned and operated diner. (Even the combine was a Pullman car!)
Plus I would assume Pullman operated full dining cars would be more common than Pullman grill or buffet cars - usually those kind of cars were put on trains by railroads trying to save money, and/or where there weren't enough passengers to justify a full diner - both situations where generally it wouldn't pay to get Pullman involved I would think.
Apologies, meant "broiled scrod", not smoked srod. Really great food.
daveklepper Apologies, meant "broiled scrod", not smoked srod. Really great food.
Deggesty daveklepper Apologies, meant "broiled scrod", not smoked srod. Really great food. I knew you were referring to young cod (young haddock have also been called "scrod") My wife likes it. Johnny
Yumpin' Yiminee, sounds like "Torsk" to me, eh Sven??
artschlosserAh, the good old days with good old prices. In 1970, I can remember buying a beer in a tavern for less than a dollar; a six pack of Schaeffer's beer (a NYC local brewery) was 99 cents at the supermarket but a six pack of Coke was $1.19. Schaeffer had a wonderful jingle on the radio. "Schaeffer (pause) is the (pause) one beer to have when you're havin' more than one." Art
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nrRlXlbWCU
The AAR defined a buffet car as a coach or chair car provided with cooking facilities to prepare and serve meals. A dining car was one fitted with regular kitchen, tables, chairs, or sears, with or without bar, carrying cooks and waiters. A cafe car was a car fitted with kitchen, one compartment used as cafe where meals or beverages were served with smoking allowed, with other compartment of car fitted with regular dining room, lunch counter, or card room carrying cooks and waiters. A lunch counter lounge was a car fitted with a lunch counter and kitchen, the other portion equipped with seats or movable chairs. A buffet-lounge car was similar to a buffet car except car is provided with a compartment to serve as smoking, reading or card room. A grill room car was very similar to a cafe car. There were other AAR classifications of cars providing food services, but I'm getting tired.
Mark
artschlosser Ah, the good old days with good old prices. In 1970, I can remember buying a beer in a tavern for less than a dollar; a six pack of Schaeffer's beer (a NYC local brewery) was 99 cents at the supermarket but a six pack of Coke was $1.19. Schaeffer had a wonderful jingle on the radio. "Schaeffer (pause) is the (pause) one beer to have when you're havin' more than one." Art
Anybody else old enough to remember when sixty second commercials were standard??
Shaefer Beer ad
trainfan1221 Nowadays you could get in trouble for suggesting having more than one beer.
Nowadays you could get in trouble for suggesting having more than one beer.
Wasn't there a cigarette ad that said something like "three out of five doctors recommend Chesterfield"??
wjstixWasn't there a cigarette ad that said something like "three out of five doctors recommend Chesterfield"??
There was the Camels ad that stated that Camel cigarettes were good for your "T zone"--taste, throat and something else.
And, if you wanted "a treat instead of a treatment," you should smoke another brand (which I have forgotten).
"When cigarettes taste hot and dry, Kool's the cigarette to try."
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