Dining Cars

From their inception in 1831, American railroads wrestled with techniques for feeding passengers. Early passengers, plagued by long delays caused by derailments, faulty equipment, and the lack of signaling devices to control train movements, resorted to foraging for food, packing meals of varying quality and scent, or buying food of questionable quality from vendors at stations.

Eventually passengers could purchase food from an onboard “news butcher” who passed through the train selling all manner of sundries, or at scheduled stops at stations outfitted with eating houses established for the purpose. However, as the industry continued to consolidate, regional trunk lines formed between 1865 and 1900 to connect major cities, and competition among them for passengers and shippers intensified. With train speeds exceeding a mile a minute, it became inconvenient to stop a train every several hours so that passengers could eat.