We’ve previously seen a Union Pacific/North Western summer tours booklet from 1952. This brochure would have been an introduction to the 1950 version of that booklet.

Click image to download a 1.6-MB PDF of this brochure.

The 1950 brochure and 1952 booklet both describe the same nine tours, each with a code designation such as “C” (for California), “Z” (for Zion, Bryce, and Grand Canyon), and “SYD” (for Salt Lake, Yellowstone, and Denver). In the brochure, these tours range in price from $153 to $346, while the 1952 prices range from slightly higher to much higher depending on the choice of accommodations. The brochure assumes coach or two persons sharing a lower berth, but prices were higher for a single person in a berth, compartments, or drawing rooms.

The back cover states that, “to launch our 45th successful year of tour operation we present 9 excitingly different individual itineraries.” That’s a bit of an exaggeration, as there was a tour C and a tour Z and other similar tours in the 1942 tour guide. In fact, that guide had 15 tours compared with just nine in 1950. But the nine in 1950 were no doubt designed from scratch to account for different train schedules and better bus services in and near the parks. In any case, the nine from 1950 must have been successful as the same nine were used in 1952.