We’ve previously seen a Great Western timetable from 1881. In 1882, that railway was purchased by and became the Great Western Division of the Grand Trunk, allowing the latter to extend its reach from Halifax to Chicago. Although Grand Trunk had lots of branch lines, the timetables in this brochure focus on the Great Western Division, with most trends ending up in Chicago on the west and Halifax, Montreal, Detroit, New York, or Boston on the east.

Click image to download a 13.7-MB PDF of this timetable, which is from the David Rumsey map collection.

Passengers to Chicago from points east of Buffalo could take an all-U.S. route south of Lake Erie or take a slightly shorter route north of Lake Erie through southern Ontario. Much of this brochure encourages people to take the latter route. As we will see tomorrow, however, fewer miles does not necessarily translate to time saved, especially since the Grand Trunk’s route from Buffalo to Chicago was only 5 miles shorter than the Lake Shore‘s all-U.S. route.