“Train travel approaches perfection” on the Golden State, gushes the ad on the front cover of this timetable. The ad mentions El Paso, Douglas, Tucson, Chandler, Phoenix, and Palm Springs as important destinations between Kansas City and Los Angeles.

Click image to download an 20.4-MB PDF of this 36-page timetable.

I can understand most of these cities, but why is Douglas on the list? Its population was only about 10,000 at the time and it wasn’t a resort town; it was an industrial town whose reason for existence was a copper smelter owned by Phelps-Dodge. While the populations of Phoenix and Tucson more than quadrupled in the 1950s, Douglas’ population grew by only 26 percent.

Chandler is also questionable, as it had only about 5,000 residents in 1955 and while its population more than doubled in the 1950s it was not known as a major resort destination like Phoenix, Tucson, or Palm Springs. While Chandler today has more than 275,000 residents, it is really just a suburb of Phoenix, which has grown from fewer than 107,000 in 1950 to more than 1.6 million today, making it the fifth-most-populous city in the nation.

The Golden State was quite speedy between Tucson and Chandler, taking 90 minutes to go 98 miles (65 mph). But from Chandler to Phoenix, the train took 55 minutes to go 23 miles (25 mph). I’d question whether Chandler should even have been a stop on the Golden State; it certainly wasn’t one worthy of being mentioned in an ad with Phoenix and Palm Springs.