Brian, well put.
My Grandmother was born in Durango in 1909 and attended the University of Denver. She would have been 18 in 1927, well before the modernized San Juan in 1939. During that period I have no doubt she logged plenty of railroad miles between Durango and Denver during her college years. During the war (WWII), my Grandfather was in the cavalry and was stationed in Tennessee and California before going to the South Pacific. My Mom was born in Durango in 1940, and she and my Grandmother spent the duration of the war in Durango, which is to say my Grandmother also probably took the modernized train back and forth a couple times. I knew her pretty well growing up and I am here to tell you that the railroad was a faster, more comfortable option than the roads of the era. Just the same, she didn't give a darn about trains, ever. She was happy to wave us off at the depot platform, though.
The menu is not bad for the time and place and the kitchen. Most people expected less back then, and so long as you only had to stock some bread, ham, eggs and cheese, you could make quite a few things out of those ingredients. More impressive is the mention of sardines and pasta. I recall Mal Ferrell mentioned that you could arrange with the attendant to purchase a steak in Durango, but depending upon when you had your big meal, you would probably enjoy the steak for lunch sometime after Dulce, or for dinner after Cumbres. The daily train did not enjoy the fine dining experience reported on the Beebe excursions. And...the dinner with Al Perlman likely occured while standing still in the Durango yard.
I know all of us would donate our left pinkie to ride the train each way for a week and happily nurse a cool beverage on the rear platform during a blizzard with a smile on our faces the entire time. But this was plain and simple transportation for these folks back then, and the 8-hour trip needed some distraction just like our airplane trips today. More telling is the group at the table, the train crew entertaining the two ladies. Now THAT was one of the benefits of being the conductor on this run!
