In addition to the color photos on the cover, this timetable makes some interesting if questionable uses of color. The inside front cover pictures two cars from the Prospector and one from the California Zephyr using black-and-white photos but with the Prospector cars colored in orange. Since stainless steel prints almost as grey anyway, this makes the photos look like they are in nearly full color.

Click image to download a 11.3-MB PDF of this timetable contributed by Ellery Goode.

The back cover has an ad for Rio Grande vista-domes picturing the Prospector train and the Colorado Eagle, which went on Rio Grande rails between Pueblo and Denver. The photos are in black-and-white, but a Rio Grande “Main Line Through the Rockies” logo is in yellow and cyan.

Meanwhile, the inside back cover has a full color photo of a Rio Grande freight train on the Grande (Colorado) River west of Glenwood Springs. “Ship it Rio Grande,” urges the advertisement. But this is where the use of color becomes questionable.

The timetable has four-color photos on the front cover, which means the cover — both front and back — had to be imprinted four times. For very little extra cost, it could have put four-color photos on the back cover, but except for the logo it used black-and-white. Instead, it put a four-color photo on the inside back cover, but didn’t take advantage of that by putting a four-color photo or photos on the inside front cover. Whoever designed this timetable wasn’t thinking about or didn’t care about costs.