Though not as colorful as yesterday’s blotters, these offer some variety and show that GN was still calling its two-year-old train the “New Oriental Limited.” The first blotter is a convenient combination of a notepad and blotter. While this might … Continue reading
These attractive blotters advertised the not-quite-so-new Oriental Limited in 1926. The illustrations are signed “FG,” but I have no idea who that might have been. As we will see on later blotters, two years after the train began service, GN … Continue reading
Not as colorful as yesterday’s blotters, these provide examples of the variety of blotters GN used to advertise its premiere train in 1925. The first one shows the train pulled by a P2, 4-8-2 locomotive by Mt. Index in the … Continue reading
Here are some pretty blotters that GN used to advertise the Oriental Limited in 1925. Green blotters show the interior of a section sleeper while tan blotters show the train’s dining car. Otherwise, the blotters have different text and some … Continue reading
The 1924 Oriental Limited left Chicago at 11 pm and arrived in Seattle or Portland at 7 pm. This blotter doesn’t say how many days the journey required, but travelers departing Monday night wouldn’t arrive until Thursday evening, meaning the … Continue reading
These 1924 blotters all advertise the new Oriental Limited as a route to California. The first is aimed at Chicago residents, who would only take the GN on their way to California–a route that would add one to two full … Continue reading
Most of these blotters are from the Minnesota History Center where they are carefully filed by date in the Great Northern Advertising and Publicity Department‘s files. Those files go back as far as 1924, which also happened to be when … Continue reading
This hand-colored postcard claims to show the eastbound Oriental Limited ascending west towards the Great Northern’s old Cascade Tunnel. To reach the tunnel, which opened in 1900, the old line made a 180-degree turn at Scenic (the site of a … Continue reading
Great Northern issued this undated brochure after re-equipping the Oriental Limited in 1924. But the brochure mentions that “a tunnel seven and eight-tenths miles long is being bored through the Cascade Mountains at a cost of $16,000,000.” Since GN made … Continue reading
It’s 1947, and the newly streamlined Empire Builder no longer stops at Glacier Park on its 45-hour journey across the Northwest. Instead, the revived Oriental Limited is the train to use by passengers wanting to visit the park. The S-2 … Continue reading
