As I’ve noted before, when Northern Pacific introduced the streamlined North Coast Limited in 1948, it left it on the same timetable as the previous heavyweight train. That kept it at a severe disadvantage compared with the Empire Builder and Olympian Hiawatha, both of which were fifteen hours faster between Chicago and Seattle.
Click image to download an 882-KB PDF of this brochure.
NP didn’t speed up its flagship train until late 1952, a full five-and-a-half years after the introduction of the streamlined Empire Builder. Even then, the brochure’s claim for a “faster” North Coast Limited only means that it was faster than the old North Coast Limited; according to the timetable in this brochure, it still took an hour-and-a-half longer to get from Chicago to Seattle than the Builder.
The brochure also notes that the Mainstreeter, Northern Pacific’s secondary train, would be introduced on November 16, the same day as the speeded-up North Coast Limited. This train’s schedule was competitive with the Western Star, but the Mainstreeter was still mainly heavyweight cars while the Star was entirely streamlined.