Beginning in 1975, Amtrak began using French Turboliners on the Chicago-Detroit Blue Water Limtied. The first new trains purchased by Amtrak, the French called them Rame à Turbine à Gaz (RTG), for “gas turbine train.” This brochure refers to the “sleek, new R.T.G. Turboliners,” so it was probably first issued in 1975.
Click image to download a 2.1-MB PDF of this brochure.
I picked up this combination welcome-aboard/along-the-way brochure in 1978, when I rode the train from Detroit to Chicago. I had just finished a lengthy tour of VIA routes with a train from Toronto to Windsor, arriving late in the evening. From there I hitched a ride across the Detroit River to Amtrak’s Detroit train station, where the agent was nice enough to open up the train–which would leave for Chicago first thing in the morning–for me to sleep in.