Recorded in the TravelCommons studios outside of Chicago in the middle of the one week a year I refuse to travel — Thanksgiving Day week. With environmental and economic reasons to reduce unneeded car trips, how easy is it to take a train to and from the airport? The answer is mixed and it doesn’t look to get any better any time soon. We also talk about the deteriorating state of the rental car fleet — which is making public transit look more attractive. A listener sends in a comment on airport power station etiquette, and we talk about a collection of airline food menus from the past. Here’s a direct link to the podcast file. Read the rest of this entry »

Northwestern University Library just launched web access to their Transportation Library Menu Collection, which includes “more than 400 menus from 54 national and international airline carriers, cruise ships, and railroad companies, with coverage from 1929 to the present.” Most of the menus are from George Foster, a Northwestern alum, who appears to have mostly flown first class on his travels around the world for UNICEF and the World Health Organization.

Each page of each menu has been scanned. The lunch menu for a March 1969 United Airlines flight from San Francisco to Detroit supports United’s “Red Carpet” theme with a bright red accent on each page. The beverage list asks passengers to “Please be our guest” and order the “United Airlines Special Very Dry Martini (Gin or Vodka)”. On the facing page, we can see Foster commenting that the “Poached Quenelle of Scallops, Nantua Sauce” were “Excellent”. He didn’t note whether he chose the “Broiled Filet Mignon, Bercy Sauce” or the “Baked Langostinos Thermador” for his entreé. A bit different from the turkey wrap and the cold chicken salad I was offered when upgraded United’s First Class a couple of weeks ago.