The previous Union Pacific coloring books we’ve seen both had color photos that children could use as guide for their coloring. But this took a lot of the imagination and creativity out of the process. This is more like a real coloring book, with cartoonish outlines of scenery, trains, and people. Still acting like control freaks, however, UP tells children which colors to use on some of the pages.
Click image to download a 13.3-MB PDF of this 32-page coloring book.
Spoiling it even more, the inside front cover has a note “to parents” explaining that the coloring book is not only designed to “occupy their time” during long train trips but to be “of educational value to our youth of today” by representing how railroads “play such an important part in our everyday lives” as well as providing “a pictorial representation of western vacation regions.” Trying to meet all these goals resulted in a booklet that was too busy with numerous little (and often overly detailed) images instead of the simplified outlines crayon users need.
Dated January, 1958, the booklet has the iconic image of the Domeliner City of Portland on the back cover. This, along with the information on the last three interior pages, shows that the booklet was as much an advertisement to the adults as it was a source of entertainment for the children.