In 1957, Palm Springs was served twice daily by the Golden State and Imperial. Both of these were Southern Pacific trains, yet this brochure claims that the resort area was “served by Union Pacific Railroad.” Putting it mildly, that’s a stretch.
Click image to download a 2.2-MB PDF of this brochure.
As revealed in the fine print on page 4, “Palm Springs is 55 miles east of Riverside or San Bernardino; an hour and a half trip by car.” Travel agents could arrange for a Grey Line limousine to take up to seven passengers from Riverside or San Bernardino to Palm Springs for $26.50 (roughly $300 today). That’s not exactly the same as being “served by Union Pacific.”
Of course, railroads often claimed to serve places they didn’t really serve. Great Northern and Northern Pacific both urged passengers to take their lines to California. For people living in Fargo, that might have been efficient just as people living in Omaha might have found Union Pacific an efficient way to get to Palm Springs. Still, the “served by Union Pacific” headline is deceptive.
Beyond this, what marketing genius had the idea of printing all the photos in this brochure in brown ink? As Southern Pacific knew, the exciting thing about the springs was that they made the brown desert green. Union Pacific wasn’t the first to make this mistake: in 1946, Santa Fe issued a Palm Springs brochure that also used brown-and-white photos. Of course, Santa Fe didn’t serve Palm Springs any more than Union Pacific did.
The Sunset also stopped at the North Palm Springs station. Back then, the Golden State provided daytime service eastbound, while the westbound Sunset allowed a late afternoon arrival in L.A. By 1957, the Sunset’s running mate, the Argonaut, had been cut back to a New-Orleans-Houston stub.
I wouldn’t beat up on Uncle Pete too badly. Passengers on the westbound City of St. Louis could probably catch the eastbound Golden State by getting off at either San Bernardino or Riverside and taking a short cab ride to Colton. Of course, SP didn’t actually stop in Palm Springs, the station was in North Palm Springs.
As for the use of brown ink, keep in mind that this was long before modern printing technology. Four color printing was tremendously expensive then, and the use of sepia tones to add visual interest was actually pretty common.