In the four years since yesterday’s timetable, Burlington reduced the number of pages in its system timetables by four, which meant giving up the full-page ads on the inside and outside back covers. The other two pages were saved by condensing some of the condensed timetables.

Click image to download a 22.4-MB PDF of this 36-page timetable.

For example, the 1942 timetable devoted a full page to a condensed timetable for the Adventureland, Burlington’s train to Billings with through cars that went from Chicago, Omaha, and Cody to Glacier Park on the Great Northern. A train by that name was still on the 1946 timetable but it no longer had through cars west of Billings. A condensed schedule for the train was on the same page as condensed schedules for other trains between St. Louis/Kansas City and Lincoln/Denver.

Between now and mid-June, I will present nearly 50 more Burlington timetables. Someone on a rail forum recently asked about the relationship between the Western Star and Burlington Black Hawk: was the former always incorporated into the latter for the Chicago-St. Paul portion of the route or did the Star sometimes operate as a separate train? The same question can be asked of Northern Pacific’s secondary trains as well.

I’ve collected and solicited scans for as many Burlington timetables as possible to help answer questions like these. As of 1946, both the Empire Builder and North Coast Limited operated as separate trains, 15 minutes apart between St. Paul and Chicago, while the westbound Black Hawk left Chicago about 2 hours before and eastbound left St. Paul 90 minutes after the Empire Builder.

Great Northern didn’t have a secondary transcontinental in 1946. Northern Pacific did, the Alaskan, but it didn’t have through cars to Chicago. Northern Pacific’s timetables from that era noted which Burlington train from Chicago would connect with the Alaskan “when on time,” suggesting that neither railroad would guarantee connections between their trains.