We’ve previously seen eight different timetables with this cover, including May 1964 and May 1965. Somehow I overlooked this January 1965 edition.

Click image to download a 16.7-MB PDF of this 28-page.

In the mid-1960s, Great Northern published three timetables a year: January, May, and October. There weren’t a lot of differences between them. The May timetables note that a passenger services representative rode the Western Star and Empire Builder in the summer months to help passengers obtain the best experiences on board the trains. The Empire Builder‘s 60-seat coach for short-distance passengers didn’t require reservations in the winter but did in the summer.

The May timetables for both 1964 and 1965 show an extra half-hour added to the westbound Empire Builder, 45 minutes added to the westbound Western Star, and 35 minutes added to the eastbound Western Star. My guess is that this extra time was to allow for the additional flag stops the trains were likely to make in the busy summer months.

Due to reduced demand GN included only two dome-coaches on the Empire Builder in the winter and usually put the third one on the Western Star, which must have been a treat for the latter train’s passengers. Since the Western Star was slower, GN probably didn’t have enough dome cars to guarantee a dome for every train, so this wasn’t listed on the equipment page for the trains.