The nine photos on the cover of this menu depict such sights as the S.S. Prince George cruising to Alaska, Niagara Falls, and Maligne Lake in Jasper National Park, all of which were accessible from CN trains (and steamships). At 52 pages, the timetable is thicker than almost any U.S. railroad timetable would have been in 1969.

Click image to download a 25.0-MB PDF of this 52-page timetable.

A few days ago I presented a 1960 brochure advertising CN’s two transcontinental trains, the Super Continental and Continental. I noted that the Continental would have disappointed any long-distance traveler as it didn’t have much in the way of food services and only intermittently had sleeping car accommodations.

In April 1964, CN announced that it was “adding a new train” (but really replacing the Continental) called the Panorama, which was supposed to have services and facilities equal to the Super Continental. It was billed as “the first new transcontinental train to be placed into service since 1955.”

That wasn’t quite true, at least judging from the 1969 timetable. The Panorama was actually two trains, neither of which went the full length of the continent. One went from Montreal/Toronto to Jasper and the other from Winnipeg to Vancouver. Westbound passengers arriving in Jasper on the first train had an eight-hour layover before the second train departed for Vancouver. This was supposed to give people a chance to do some sightseeing, but eight hours isn’t really enough to see much of what CN often billed as the largest national park in the world.

There were no through sleeping cars from east of Winnipeg to west of Jasper, so through passengers also had to find a place to store their belongings before doing any sightseeing. Thus, it’s not a surprise that 1969 was the last year this train was on CN’s timetable.