This 1951 brochure contains gorgeous color photographs of scenery and drab black-and-white photographs of the interiors of UP passenger trains. I can’t help but think this did not show the railroad at its best.

Click image to download a 2.2-MB PDF of this brochure.

The cover photo shows Otter Crest on the Oregon Coast. Inside are photos of Crater Lake, Multnomah Falls, Mount Hood, the City of Portland in the Columbia River Gorge, and — the only photo in Washington state — a floating bridge across Lake Washington. The dazzling colors make the interior photos even more boring in comparison.

As is typical of these 8-1/2″x11″ brochures, the fourth page is used to promote other destinations, in this case Yellowstone, the Tetons, and Sun Valley. These, too, are illustrated by brilliant color photos.

Not illustrated by photos, the text also mentions Cheyenne Frontier Days and the Pendleton Round-Up as possible stop-overs people could make on their way to the Pacific Northwest. The brochure doesn’t mention that both of these were attended by special Union Pacific passenger trains: Frontier Days by a train from Denver sponsored by the Denver Post and the Round-Up by a train from Portland sponsored by the Oregon Journal.