Scenic Line of the World

This four-page brochure describes the Rio Grande’s two routes between Denver and Salt Lake City with twenty small photos on the interior pages. The black-and-white photos have a hint of green tinting which isn’t always appropriate.

Click image to download a 1.4-MB PDF of this brochure.

The cover art is signed “Philips,” which refers to Denver illustrator Frank L. Philips, who used watercolors and crayons on this and other Rio Grande brochures. His work, says John Gruber of Trains magazine, “suggests that we vacation to be awed and informed, not to fulfill desire or be entertained.”

The brochure is undated, but the back page says that the Scenic Limited through the Royal Gorge and Panoramic through Moffat Tunnel were both “thoroughly air conditioned.” That dates it to sometime between 1935 and 1938; if it were from 1939 or later, it would have mentioned the Exposition Flyer. The scans of this brochure were contributed by a Streamliner Memories reader.


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