Wagon-bar

Wagon-bar – Croque-monsieur: to eat in or take away? This delightfully old-fashioned history of railway catering is like a family album. Who doesn’t remember that meal tray with the slice of ham that was too pink, or the croque-monsieur that was too toasted? From the very chic dining cars of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits, a pioneer in this field at the end of the 19^th century, to the orange and green design of the Corail bar in the 1980s, this book tells the fascinating story of the evolution of “on-board gastronomy”. The luxury and refinement of the inter-war years were followed by a host of innovations in the 1950s and 1960s: bars and snack bars, street food and meal trays all responded to the changing eating habits of travellers. The 1970s marked a major break with the disappearance of on-board catering and the spread of takeaway sales. Whether advertising photographs or documentary archives, these images trace the contours of a railway history as much as a cultural one, feeding – at high speed – our intimate mythologies.