Tag Archives: Streamliner Memories

Train nostalgia from O’Toole. The Great Northern’s Empire Builder‘s lounge and observation car:

“In addition to beverages, cigars, and cigarettes, the menu offers a few toiletries such as a comb or toothpaste. It also has valet-service prices for pressing clothes: $1 for a two-piece suit; $1.25 for a three-piece; etc. (multiply by 10 to approximate today’s dollars)…”

Cigars and cigarettes are verboten today on Government (Amtrak) Railroad.

Via Streamliner Memories

UPDATE:  You had to wear a suit, notice, and you had to have the coin. Passenger trains were for the upperclass, even the elite. Lower classes couldn’t afford the fare of a long-distance train like the Empire Builder. A first class sleeper, a private room, cost hundreds of dollars a day and night.