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Caption: My recent postings of dining car interiors from trips on VIA 693 & 692 (Winnipeg-Churchill-Winnipeg), and VIA 1 & 2 The Canadian (Toronto-Vancouver-Toronto) prompted a reminder from my brother Terry about the dining cars we ate in while working summer extra gang jobs in 1969, 70 & 71 on CN's Great Lakes Region. This photo I retrieved from the CN archives on the 2nd floor at H.Q. when I worked there in the early 1980's is a great example of how upwards of 100+ men could be well fed three times a day in an old heavyweight passenger car converted to a dining room. Food was prepared in bulk and brought in from the kitchen by the cookee and placed at intervals the length of the table. In the morning, plates piled high with fried eggs, others with bacon and/or sausage, hundreds of slices of toast, buckets of oatmeal, pitchers of powdered milk, and always bowls of oranges & apples. I remember the General Foreman and his foreman always sitting at the end of the table closest to the kitchen car (served first), and how there was no talking (other than asking for something to be passed down the table), no smoking, and no loitering. When you were done eating, you got up, took your dishes to the end of the car, scraped the leftovers into a garbage can, put the dirty dishes and silverware in a bin, and left. Great days working and eating on the extra gangs, and now 50+ years later great days travelling and eating on VIA trains all over Canada. :-) (location Province chosen is a guess)
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This must be close to a one of a kind. So many photos taken from the outside of any crew car, few with the crew at the table. Very well done Paul.
Wonderful image of bygone times and a great caption to go along with it. Looks like there’s some serious eating going on there !
Thanks Brundle & Aitch. Yes, most of the heads are down and the forks are up in that photo.
I have a couple more late 60′s early 70′s shots from inside the old red fleet passenger equipment I will prepare for posting. Hopefully they make it so as to give a further glimpse into how ‘working on the railroad’ once was. Many thanks for your comments.
Look at the piles of sliced white bread ! No Harvest Sun Seed healthy bread here. And look at the “enamel” ware , b owls, water pitchers and coffee pots. Judging from the way most of the gang are “chowing down”, the food must have been OK , if not tasty, John
The food back then always seemed to taste great. I don’t know if that is because everyone was so hungry, or it really was good.
Everything used for food serving was in enamel covered dished. The dinner plates were Melmac. Deserts were especially good as everything was fresh baked daily. The pies, cakes, and other sweets were the best! I always enjoyed every meal.