We’ve previously seen a 1937 Rock Island booklet that was printed in rather gloomy blue and black ink. This one from 1940 is brightened up with some red highlights. While the cover shown below (which is the back cover) tints the sky, one of the horses, saddles, and distant roofs in red, red is used on other pages in the booklet only in a few circles, geographic shapes, and on one page lines on a map.

Click image to download an 15.0-MB PDF of this 16-page booklet.

Both booklets ask “the all-important question,” which was “where shall we go this summer?” The answer, which of course was supposed to be Colorado, was told in text and photos that for the most part were practically identical in the two booklets.

The big difference is that today’s booklet devotes a full page to the Rocky Mountain Rocket, which had been introduced in 1939. This page includes eight photos of the new train, while the 1937 booklet included only one small photo of the Rocky Mountain Limited, which the Rocket had replaced. To fit the new page in, a full-page map in the 1937 booklet was reduced to half a page and combined with a list of Rock Island ticket agents.