“Beginning June 20, 1949, the Northern Pacific will inaugurate new sightseeing bus service for Yellowstone Park travelers,” says this booklet, “to better reveal to them the majestic and inspiring mountain views between Livingston, Montana and the Gardiner Gateway.” Sadly, this was another way of saying that Northern Pacific had discontinued running trains from Livingston to Gardiner at the end of the tourist season in 1948.

Click image to download a 1.4-MB PDF of this 8-page booklet.

The railroad had carried passengers on trains to the entrance of Yellowstone Park since 1902, but apparently after the war it decided buses were less expensive for the number of its customers going to the park. It still ran a few trains for large tour groups, but even that ended in 1955.

The bus pictured in this booklet is a Flxible Clipper. The NP buses had larger windows than most Clippers, making them more useful for sightseeing. NP used similar buses to replace local trains in other places, such as Missoula to Polson, Montana. I believe the buses were 36 feet long and carried about 32 passengers, showing just how much demand for rail service to Gardiner had declined.

According to the booklet (which is courtesy of NPRHA — Lorenz Schrenk collection), the bus only went from Livingston to Gardiner and back once a day, leaving Livingston at 8:10 am and returning at 9:00 pm. That worked for passengers arriving from or departing to the east on the North Coast Limited, but not for passengers from the west, who arrived at Livingston in the evening and departed in the morning. Nor was NP’s secondary train, the Alaskan, particularly convenient, as it arrived in Livingston from the east at 2:45 am and from the west at 4:10 pm.