As previously noted, the Burlington celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1949, even though it previously had dated its founding to 1850. This booklet, which places the railroad’s 90th anniversary in 1940, is further evidence that it changed the birth year to allow Ralph Budd, who retired in 1949, to still be president for the centennial.

Click image to download a 19.8-MB PDF of this 44-page booklet.

Like the centennial booklet, this one was written by Richard Overton, who worked for the Burlington while getting his Ph.D. in history from Harvard. The 90-year booklet about two-thirds the length of the centennial version, so Overton expanded the text between the two versions.

I haven’t done a page-by-page comparison, but I suspect most of the text in the 1940 booklet can be found, somewhat rewritten, in the 1949 version, but the 1949 one has text not found in this one. Most of the photos are different, though the maps in the 1940 booklet seem to mostly be in the 1949 edition unchanged. As in the case for other booklets whose cover graphic wraps around to the back, I laid this 6″x9″ booklet out as a 12″x9″ brochure.