After introducing the streamlined Empire Builder, the train’s menus featured paintings by Charles Russell, the cowboy artist who once lived in Great Falls on the Great Northern line. This is a breakfast menu offering meals from $1.00 to $1.35 (about … Continue reading
Here is a curious item, and not just because “soap leaves” have been replaced in modern life by wet wipes. Click the image to download a PDF of the front and back of this little packet of soap leaves. The … Continue reading
Passengers in the observation lounge car were invited to send letters using stationery decorated with this colorful letterhead. Click to download a PDF showing the entire first page of this four-page stationery. (The other three pages are blank.) In addition … Continue reading
The Great Northern promoted the streamlined Empire Builder by placing ads in Look, Life, Saturday Evening Post, and other magazines. These ads contained many of the graphics found in the Through Your Car Window brochure. None of these ads are … Continue reading
This is a colorful, 24-page brochure the Great Northern made available to passengers and potential passengers of its streamlined Empire Builder. This particular one is dated May 1949, but I suspect there were earlier editions. Click to download an 18.5-MB … Continue reading
When the Great Northern introduced the 1947 Empire Builder with much fanfare, General Motors helped with its own orange-and-green brochure advertising the locomotives used on the train. “On America’s crack trains, together with newly developed streamlined passenger cars,” the GM … Continue reading
The Great Northern produced this brightly colored four-page brochure to advertise its new Empire Builder and no doubt handed out thousands of copies to people visiting the train when it was on display in cities throughout the Northwest. Unlike some … Continue reading
The first overnight streamliner after the war was the Great Northern Empire Builder, which started service on February 7, 1947. The train’s bright orange and green colors have come to be known as the Empire Builder color scheme, yet it … Continue reading
