Someone imperiously stamped “Official File Do Not Remove” on the front and back covers of this timetable. But since the New Haven Railroad is defunct, it got removed and somehow found its way into my hands.

Click image to download a 30.5-MB PDF of this 48-page timetable.

Even though the area served by the New Haven Railroad was smaller than West Virginia (which is the 40th-largest state), it ran a lot of passenger trains in that area and so has a very thick timetable. Seven of the 48 pages are devoted to full-page ads. The first advertises the Merchants Limited and Yankee Clipper, first-class trains on the Boston-New York route. These were “all-Pullman” trains in the sense that all they carried were parlor cars operated by Pullman.

The second ad promotes half-hourly commuter train service between New York City and Westchester County. Another ad promotes Hertz’ car rental service for train passengers needing mobility once they arrived at their destinations. The fourth ad invites people to “go by train to the football games” played by Dartmouth, Harvard, Yale, and other New England colleges. The fifth ad promotes the “spectacular, unforgettable” New York World’s Fair, with its “Railroads on Parade” exhibit.

Towards the back of the timetable are full-page ads for discounted round-trip coach tickets and New Haven grill cars “featuring low cafeteria prices” such as ham sandwiches for 15¢ (about $2.50 today) and chicken fricassee for 55¢ (about $9.25 today). One of the less-than-full-page ads is for the sale or rent of “surplus real estate” in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, and Rhode Island owned by the New Haven Railroad.

Like so many other railroads, the cover shown above is on the back cover. I have to wonder why some railroads did this and others did not. I can imagine that the way timetables were folded and displayed in racks influenced the placement of the cover. But if putting the main cover on the back allowed for better display, then why didn’t all railroads do it?