Union Pacific says that its evocatively named Columbine began operating between Chicago and Denver in 1929. However, this June 1927 timetable (contributed by Tim Zukas) has a full-page ad introducing the train, which replaced the Colorado Special, one of three Chicago-Denver trains mentioned in the full-page ad on the 1920 timetable.

Click image to download a 45.8-MB PDF of this timetable.

Both the Columbine and the Colorado Special left Chicago at 10:30 am. The older train arrived in Denver at 4:30 pm, but the Columbine arrived at 2:00 pm, making it a 28-1/2-hour trip. The Columbine became Union Pacific’s premiere year-round train in the Chicago-Denver corridor, but the summer-only Denver Special, which took 28-1/2 hours in 1920, was speeded up to 27 hours and 25 minutes.

The Denver Special also had classier equipment. In addition to the diner and a club-observation car, it also had a buffet-lounge car, while the Columbine only had the first two. The Denver Special had a chair car while the Columbine had both a chair car and coaches. (Chair cars were more comfortable than coaches, which were designed for short trips only.)

The third Union Pacific train in the Chicago-Denver route was the Colorado Express, which took 32-1/4 hours to get from Chicago to Denver and was scheduled to take two nights and one day. Like the others, it was advertised as having a club-observation car, but it seems likely that it wasn’t as fancy as the ones on the other two trains.