Mr. Clyde Howard has been a good friend of the site since its early days. When I put out my call for personal stories of travel from the World War II years, he had this gem of a tale about a trip that his mother had taken him on as a toddler to visit his father in 1944, as told to him years later by his mother:

I obviously (about a year old at the time) have no recollections of the trip or the time we spent in San Francisco, but here goes.

Dad had been transferred from NAS, Dallas to the West Coast and was in San Francisco (actually, Treasure island) and arrangements were made for Mom to go out.

She and another young navy wife, with a child about my age, managed to get reservations to go out (Olan was also out at Treasure island), Pullman, Mom had the lower and Louise the upper. She mentioned that the diner was only certainly available to first class passengers (amount of food on board, it seems - and sometimes after priority passengers, which didn't always mean Navy wives, the menu was often sparse. but they always had milk for the babies, and usually baby food), and that a couple of times the train made a meal stop and EVERYBODY got off and headed for cafes and/or Harvey House if there was one.

The train was full. Pullmans and chair cars. She didn't mention ever using/visiting a lounge car. Spent, it seems, a fair amount of time taking sidings for higher priority trains - troopers and maybe some hot-shot freights. Well, there was a war on... She said she was REALLY glad they had a section instead of riding coach.

May have had to change cars at Brownwood, but as best i can recall, she didn't mention having to do that, and the impression i had was through car from Dallas to Oakland. Trip was apparently tiring. So - mainly riding the train, then riding some more.I gathered they were pretty tired of the train by the time they got out of texas, nd then three more states to cross. She mentioned  the diner being pretty heavily used, never any empty seats and the crew working hard and steadily. And sometimes running out of most menu items.

All the cars were standard heavyweights of course. Reasonably comfortable, didn't say anything about being unduly hot or cold, so HVAC was working.

She said they had meal stops a couple of times, but i only recall Needles as named. Apparently the diner was out of supplies at that point (or possibly had been cut off for some reason after breakfast), because everybody who intended to eat had to get off and go some eating establishment. Weren't going to have too long (don't recall her giving a specific time, but apparently not generous, said everything was hurried). In any case they got off and the nearest place that didn't already have a line snaking out the door and down  sidewalk was at least a couple of blocks away. And here were these two young wives, each with a baby who had to be carried. Weren't sure they could get down there, fed, and back as quick as needed. Couple of young officers (I think Army, possibly fliers) just grabbed the babies and said "Come on!" and headed down the sidewalk at a brisk walk. With the wives chasing after. Everybody got fed, and back to the train before it left town, and they then ran on up to Oakland, where Dad and Olan met them and on over to San Francisco to settle the girls and babies in the rooms they had been able to find - not apartments, but rooms with bath and kitchen privileges in  houses.

Trip is remembered as long, not one that would make you remember rail travel with great affection, but better than driving. But Mom was still always willing to use trains after the war, particularly in the summer time. Air conditioning, which not many cars had (except some luxury models and not all them) in those times.

So it would appear that the mere presence of a dining car in the consist would not obviate the need for meal stops in this time period. There is also the possibility that the train was running in multiple sections, and that there might not have been enough dining cars to equip every section with one. By this time, Santa Fe and Fred Harvey had reopened the Harvey Houses which had been closed during the Depression and had called the "Harvey Girls" out of retirement to staff them. They faced a near-impossible challenge, as the War Department did not notify them of troop train movements in advance...so one day might be slow, and the next day they might have to feed lunch to a thousand passengers and troops. The famous "Fred Harvey Standard" suffered irrecoverably as a result.