Many B&O meals. Seafood was always great on the Baltimore-based diners. I almost always got the baked apple for dessert.
Riding north from Evansville, Indiana on the C&EI (the Hummingbird, which had come up from the south on the L&N) I ordered breakfast on an L&N diner. When it was served, I saw a blob of white stuff on my plate and asked the waiter what it was. "Them's grits!" he replied, obviously shocked that this northern boy didn't know. Then he graciously showed me how to load them up with butter and a little salt & pepper. I can't say I fell in love with grits, but my introduction to them was a pleasure.
A wonderful dinner on PRR's General. I think I had roast beef. It was marred by the dessert, which was under-ripe cantaloupe. I didn't complain.
Then as now, the opportunity to dine with someone completely new and different is a special experience that too many Americans never get to have.
Tom
Randall Gustafson's story in the June issue of Trains about dining on the Santa Fe Super Chief and then years later encountering a former Super Chief waiter on the Amtrak Lake Shore Limited reminds several of us 'older timers' of the way it was.
As a thiry five year Santa Fe employee I enjoyed many fine meals in their dining cars, but not in the Turquoise Room. I also traveled on the B & O Capital Limited, the UP's Portland Rose, the California Zephyr and the IC's City of New Orleans where I was also impressed with both the food and the service. Perhaps other Trains readers will wish to share impressions of 'the way it was'.
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