Nothing Could Be Finer than a Frisco Diner

Food service on the St. Louis–San Francisco Railroad began with a single dining car converted from a coach and grew into a fleet of 34 dining cars serving the Frisco’s nine-state territory in the mid-1940s. Immediately after World War II, brand new streamlined dining cars were added to the Frisco’s fleet. It was a time when businessmen, celebrities and families on vacation routinely took the train to their destinations, and dinner in the diner was a special treat. Frisco's dining cars developed a reputation for serving the finest food on rails. Highly complimentary letters were common. One such letter, from a New York passenger in 1949, appeared in the railroad’s newsletter, All Aboard, complimenting the Frisco on its food and service, adding, "Other lines should send scouts to get ideas from your chefs!” This book preserves the memories of the people who made the dining car experience possible, and to pass on the lure of the dining car to generations that have never known the appeal of "dinner in the diner.”