In 1956, CN reduced the size its timetables from 88 to 84 pages, a size it would maintain through the rest of the 1950s. A number of branchline trains were apparently dropped: I mentioned two days ago that the 1954 timetable had about 300 tables of routes, while this one has only about 200. The index of stations is still formidable but doesn’t quite fill up eight pages as opposed to yesterday’s nine.

Click image to download a 54.3-MB PDF of this 84-page timetable.

By the time this timetable was issued, the 359 new passenger cars that CN had ordered in 1954 had been delivered. The back cover shows color photos of the interiors of a coach, sleeping car, diner, and lounge used on the Super Continental. While the cars in the photos look comfortable, there is nothing particularly special about them, especially when compared with Canadian Pacific’s Canadian, which was inaugurated the same day as the Super Continental. In addition to domes and fancier lounges and other food service cars, the Canadian‘s coaches had Sleepy Hollow seats, which were much more comfortable than those on the Super Continental.

When CN added the Super Continental, it kept the Continental (dropping the word “limited”) as a secondary train. Both had coaches and sleeping cars that went all the way from Montreal to Vancouver, though dining and lounge cars were for some reason changed in Winnipeg. This must have been an annoyance as both eastbound trains and the westbound Continental arrived in Winnipeg during mealtime hours.

One very strange thing that I noticed about this timetable is the page numbers are not all the same size. Some of them appear to be 6 points while others are 7 or 8 points. This is not something most people would notice but it makes me wonder what was going on. In retrospect, the same thing was true of yesterday’s 1954 timetable.