At first glance, this Spokane, Portland & Seattle timetable looks nearly identical to the one for yesterday’s. But a close look reveals one key difference.
Click image to download a 5.4-MB PDF of this timetable.
In 1958, the Great Northern and Northern Pacific each had three trains between Spokane and Seattle. GN, of course, had the Chicago-Seattle Empire Builder while NP had the Chicago-Seattle North Coast Limited. Second, GN had the St. Paul-Seattle Western Star while NP had the St. Paul-Seattle Mainstreeter. Third, GN had the Spokane-Seattle Cascadian (trains #5 & 6) while NP had an unnamed Spokane-Seattle train that was also numbered 5 & 6.
For both railroads, the transcontinental trains went over the Cascade Mountains at night while trains 5 & 6 went during the day. Both trains consisted of coaches with a cafe car.
To provide a similar service down the Columbia River, the SP&S offered a train between Pasco (where it met NP’s 5 & 6) and Portland. The SP&S train was also numbered 5 & 6 and had coaches, but no cafe car. While SP&S’ connection with the premiere trains made six stops between Pasco and Portland and the secondary train made nine, trains 5 & 6 made up to 32 stops. Twenty-five of them were flag stops, but the train made unconditional stops at Plymouth, Roosevelt, and North Bonneville, Washington, places skipped by both the primary and secondary trains.
Due to all of these potential stops, SP&S trains 5 & 6 took longer than the NP 5 & 6, which only had 15 flag stops. It took 7 hours and 20 minutes to go 250 miles from Pasco to Seattle in 1957, while the SP&S train required 9 hours and 30 minutes to go just 232 miles to Portland. This is in contrast with the SP&S sections of the premiere and secondary trains, which arrived in Portland before their sister trains arrived in Seattle.
In any case, both NP and SP&S 5 & 6 were in the 1958 timetable but disappeared from the 1959 timetable. GN’s Cascadian also disappeared at about the same time. As a result, this 12-page timetable was written for only three passenger trains operated by the SP&S: the connections with the premiere and secondary trains and a night train from Wishram, Washington to Bend, Oregon.