As the cover notes, the North Coast Limited was streamlined, but unlike almost every other streamliner ever introduced, that didn’t save passengers time. Northern Pacific continued to operate it on its pre-streamlined schedule, which meant that it took 58-1/2 hours to get from Chicago to Seattle. The Empire Builder was on a 45-hour schedule.
Click image to download a 25.3-MB PDF of this 36-page timetable.
Unlike Great Northern’s secondary train, the Western Star, Northern Pacific’s secondary train, the Alaskan, only went as far east as St. Paul. Both coach and Pullman passengers who wanted to continue towards Chicago had to change trains.
Even though the Western Star made a lot more stops and took a longer route through Grand Forks, it was 15 minutes faster from Chicago to Seattle than the North Coast Limited, and arguably had more luxurious lounge and dining facilities. Great Northern scheduled it to leave Chicago 15 minutes after and to arrive in Seattle at exactly the same time as the North Coast Limited, which I have to wonder if this was some kind of one-upmanship on the part of the Big G.
Meanwhile, counting the connecting Burlington train from Chicago, the Alaskan required 22-1/4 hours more to get to Seattle than the Western Star. In fact, the Alaskan didn’t even go all the way from St. Paul to Seattle. The timetable shows that the westbound North Coast Limited and Alaskan were combined in Spokane. Eastbound, the two trains were on different schedules.
The timetable also notes that, from October through January, the Alaskan‘s sleeping car between St. Paul and Fargo went via Great Northern trains 9 and 10, the Dakotan. The Alaskan‘s Pullman service consisted of a sleeping car between St. Paul and Mandan, a sleeping car between Billings and Spokane, and before October a sleeping car between St. Paul and Fargo.
Westbound coaches went from St. Paul to Spokane where they were added onto the North Coast Limited. Eastbound coaches went all the way from Seattle to St. Paul. The only dining facilities on the train was a cafe car during its daylight trip from Seattle to Spokane; otherwise, passengers were expected to eat in station restaurants.