In 1965, Rock Island drastically changed the format of its timetables. Instead of the usual 8″x9″, the pages of the new timetables were 4″x9″. With 12 pages, they had the same amount of space as six pages of the older style. I’ve seen fall 1964 timetables in the old style and spring 1965 timetables in the new style so I’m confident the change was made then.
Click image to download an 3.4-MB PDF of this 12-page timetable.
Among the changes from yesterday’s 1964 timetable, trains 21 & 22, once called the Cherokee, continued to serve between Memphis and Tucumcari but carried nothing but chair cars. Actually, that may have been true in yesterday’s condensed timetable, but it didn’t include an equipment listing.
Trains 17 & 18, once called the Twin Star Rocket because they connected Minnesota with Texas, were now called the Plainsman and only went as far south as Kansas City. They did carry a chair car that went through to Los Angeles on the Golden State.
The Golden State was the only Rock Island train left that still carried sleeping cars. It and the Plainsman were the only trains to have a full diner — at least I’m presuming that what the timetable calls “club diner” was a full diner. The Des Moines Rocket, the Chicago-Omaha Corn Husker and Corn Belt Rocket, and the Peoria Rocket carried a “snack beverage car,” while other trains offered no food service.
Rock Island managed to fit the schedules for 13 trains, plus a few buses, in this diminutive timetable. The timetable also has a station index, equipment list, two pages of fare information, a half-page of “general information,” and a few small ads. The once giant centerfold map has been reduced to about a third of one of the 4″-wide pages, mainly by making it abstract like a subway map.
The Rocky Mountain Rocket was no longer operating, nor was any Rock Island passenger train to Colorado, yet table one in this timetable is titled “Chicago – Denver – Colorado Springs.” In fact, trains in the table only go as far as Omaha. Similarly, Rock Island no longer had trains to Texas, yet table three was titled “Chicago – Kansas City – Texas” and table five was titled “Minneapolis – St. Paul – Kansas City – Texas.” Apparently, who ever wrote the timetable needed a better copy editor.
Interestingly enough, the through chair car between Minneapolis and L.A. was westbound only.
The equipment listing for the Golden State shows no stand-alone lounge car, so I would guess that the “club diner” is actually a diner-lounge car. Of course, by this time SP had begun using the deliberately vague “meal and lounge service” terminology, so travelers were never entirely sure what they were going to get until they were actually aboard the train.
In February 1968 the Golden State came off for good.