(erielack) Dining Cars

["Montgomery, Edward T" <Edward.Montgomery_@_fcps.edu>]

I was reading about railroad dining cars in the current TRAINS and it brought up a memory.  I was riding Amtrak's "Montrealer" between Newark and DC in February of 1978.  I met an Amtrak public relations guy on the trip.  He was handing out questionaires and asking questions of passengers.  When he found out I was a railfan, he suggested we have breakfast in the diner.  We go to talking and he told me about trips he had made including a coast-to-coast trip making the across the platform connection at Dearborn between the AT&SF and EL.  He went on to tell me how good the EL food was, that they didn't seem to compromise on quality even though the passenger loads weren't great.  I never had the opportunity to ride an EL through line train but was wondering, how good was the food?  Did EL have some specialties?  Did they continue any of the specialties that DL&W or Erie originated?  As far as I can tell, the ex Erie diners were upgraded and had quite modern kitchens compared to what some other lines were using such as wood fired stoves.  I know EL won several dining car awards in the early 60s.  So, what was the EL diner experience like?
 
Ed Montgomery
 

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