This is the condensed version of the 28-page timetable shown yesterday. Tables for all ten of GN’s trains, from the Empire Builder and Western Star to the Portland pool train and the Havre-Great Falls branch line train, fit on the equivalent of 2-1/2 8″x9″ pages, leaving room for a map, some ads, and this cover.
Click image to download a 2.3-MB PDF of this timetable.
GN kept running a train to Great Falls long after it had dropped trains to Billings and Butte. Originally, Great Falls was on the GN main line. In a superb act of planning, James J. Hill managed to build 520 miles of railroad from Minot to Great Falls in one construction season. His goal was to reach the mines of Great Falls and, shortly thereafter, Helena and Butte, and then to look for a pass across the Rocky Mountains.
Aside from the freight traffic generated in Great Falls, Hill probably had some investments in the city. Unfortunately for Great Falls, the pass found by John F. Stevens was pretty much due east of Havre, and a southern side-trip to Great Falls added nearly 120 miles to the journey, so passenger service to the city slowly dwindled.
I’m sure that was a fine steak you could have on the EB, but a black-&-white picture of it doesn’t much do it justice.