Intrigued by the Union Pacific’s Transcon, which I had never heard of before acquiring yesterday’s menu, I hoped that this 1946 timetable would provide more information. The timetable I mentioned yesterday was a condensed version, so I thought the full version would tell me a little more. It did, but very little.
Click image to download a 38-7-MB PDF of this timetable.
Perhaps the most important thing about this timetable is a negative: here the Union Pacific was inaugurating a new train providing a new coast-to-coast sleeping car service, so you’d think it would deserve a full-page ad in the timetable. Instead, it is hardly mentioned. Except for a back cover ad for reserved seat coaches that lists the Transcon with five other trains, the new train is simply one of many included in the schedules and equipment lists.
Unlike the condensed timetable, the full timetable shows the schedule of the connecting trains to New York and Washington. It shows a PRR train, probably the Admiral, leaving New York at 3:40 pm and arriving in Chicago at 7:40 am; another PRR train, probably the Liberty Limited, leaving Washington at 5:20 pm and arriving in Chicago at 8:25 am; and a New York Central train, which would have been the all-Pullman Commodore Vanderbilt, leaving New York at 3:45 pm and arriving in Chicago at 7:45 am. Since the Transcon left Chicago at 11 am, the railroads allowed two to three hours to shunt cars from Lasalle and Union stations to the North Western station.
Eastbound, the Transcon arrived in Chicago at 12:15 pm. The Washington sleeper left Chicago, probably also on the Liberty Limited, at 3:40 pm and arrived at 8:50 am. The New York sleepers left Chicago at 2:30 pm and arrived in New York at 8:30 am; on Pennsylvania that would have been on the General and on New York Central that would have been on the Commodore Vanderbilt.
The westbound Transcon also served as the Chicago connection for the Columbine, which in 1946 went from Omaha to Denver. The Columbine left Omaha 2-1/2 hours before the Transcon, but with additional stops it arrived in North Platte just five minutes before the Transcon, and a Chicago coach and sleeping car were transferred to the Columbine there. Eastbound the Columbine was its own train to Omaha, where Chicago passengers had to make an across-the-platform transfer to C&NW train number 14, which C&NW called the Chicago Express even though it made more stops and took at least an hour longer than any other train on that route.
There was a big piece torn out of the cover of this newsprint timetable which I “repaired” in PhotoShop. However, I was unable to repair the same hole on page 2, so I left it blank. The text on that page should be pretty similar to the text on page 32 of the 1947 timetable.