The North Coast Limited (trains #1 & 2) traditionally went between Seattle and Spokane at night in both directions. In the 1930s, the secondary Alaskan went at night westbound but during the day eastbound. The unnamed #5 & 6, which only went as far east as Spokane, went at night eastbound but during the day westbound.

Click image to download a 1.1-MB PDF of this brochure.

Trains 5 & 6 had coaches with unreserved seating that probably weren’t air conditioned. To attract daytime travelers, NP in 1935 began offering a special reserved seat, air-conditioned coach on trains 4 and 5. A

From the photos in this brochure, this was more like a parlor car with individual swivel seats. Unlike parlor cars on many eastern trains, this one didn’t come with a waiter serving drinks and snacks, but the brochure advises that passengers can go to the “air-conditioned cafe-coach ‘next door'” for drinks or complete meals.

Although this reserved seat coach first appears in NP timetables in 1935, the schedules shown for trains on page 4 of this brochure more closely match 1938 timetables. This booklet is courtesy of NPRHA — Lorenz Schrenk collection.