New Haven September 1951 Timetable

Posted on by June 16, 2024
Reply

Yesterday, I noted that the page numbering system, or lack of it, in New Haven timetables was annoying. Also annoying is that the main cover, the one shown below, is on the back. The railroad didn’t take advantage of this by putting a full-page ad on the front cover; instead, about half the page is devoted to a “table of contents” and the other half is an ad.

Click image to download a 25.3-MB PDF of this 40-page timetable.

In yesterday’s timetable, the ad was for Pilgrim Tours of New England, “the ideal way to enjoy your summer vacation.” In today’s, the ad is for through sleeping cars from Boston to Florida. It offered a choice of Seaboard’s Orange Blossom Special to Miami, Tampa, or St. Petersburg or Atlantic’s West Coast Champion to St. Petersburg or Miami. The through cars were only available from mid-December through early April. Continue reading →

New Haven April 1951 Timetable

Posted on by June 16, 2024
Reply

I find New Haven’s timetables almost as bewildering as Boston & Maine’s. Start with the fact that the railroad didn’t number the pages consecutively but instead put a number on the upper outside corner of each page equal to the number of the first schedule on that page. This particular timetable has a 1 on two different pages, followed by two 2s, one 3, and six 4s, but no 7, 8, or 9 because tables 6 through 9 all fit on one page.

Click image to download a 29.2-MB PDF of this 44-page timetable.

Another issue is that many of the trains are listed several times. Table 1 lists trains from New York to Boston and table 2 lists New York to Springfield while table 4 lists trains from New York to New Haven, including all of the New York to Boston and New York to Springfield already listed. Trying to avoid these duplicate trains, I count close to 200 trains per weekday. That includes about 21 trains that are called Boston commuter trains. Continue reading →

New Haven Pilgrim Tours in 1947

Posted on by June 16, 2024
Reply

After World War II, the New Haven Railroad began offering “Pilgrim Tours” of New England and eastern Canada. This booklet describes 51 two- to fifteen-day tours that were offered in 1947. The tours were unescorted but the ticket prices included transportation, lodging, and most food.

Click image to download a 17.5-MB PDF of this 40-page booklet.

These tours continued through the early 1960s. While the name “Pilgrim Tours” obviously relates to the Pilgrims who colonized New England in 1620, by the late 1950s the tours had expanded first to Washington, DC, and then to Florida. Somehow I doubt any of the original pilgrims ever went to Florida. Continue reading →

Boston & Maine April 1952 Timetable

Posted on by June 16, 2024
Reply

As someone who has spent little time in New England, I find the Boston & Maine to be totally bewildering. The area it served was considerably smaller than my home state of Oregon, which in 1952 was served by five major railroads that operated a total of around 18 passenger trains a day, seven of which served only one city in the state. In that same year, the Boston & Maine operated around 200 passenger trains a day on dozens of different routes — and it was only one of several railroads in New England.

Click image to download a 20.9-MB PDF of this 40-page timetable.

Most of these trains radiated from Boston on four major routes and several minor ones. More than 30 trains a day each went on routes to Concord, Haverhill, and Portsmouth and 18 went on the route to Troy. Not all of these trains went all the way to those destinations but some went beyond those destinations to places such as Portland and White River Junction. Among the trains that didn’t come from Boston were more than a dozen per day out of Springfield and a handful out of Worchester. Continue reading →

Golden Spike Centennial Folio

Posted on by August 5, 2024
Reply

I’ve presented this souvenir of the 1969 Golden Spike Centennial before, but at the time I was unable to make decent reproductions of the locomotive portraits contained inside. Also, I recently learned that the original folio contained four locomotive portraits instead of the two I had. I’ve since acquired one with all four portraits and photographed the portraits, which produced better results than my scanner.

Click image to download a 1.7-MB PDF of this folder.

This was published by the Golden Spike Centennial Celebration Commission and is strange for several reasons. First, although the Last Spike was a joint effort of Union Pacific and Central Pacific (which later merged into Southern Pacific), the back of this folio has a Union Pacific logo with a Big Boy steam locomotive and Centennial Diesel, but no Central Pacific or Southern Pacific logos. This suggests that UP helped pay for these folios, so I’m counting this as UP memorabilia. Continue reading →

Union Pacific May 1969 Timetable

Posted on by August 18, 2024
1

Despite the loss of so many trains, Union Pacific still managed to fill a 36-page timetable. This meant there were a lot of blank columns in schedules that once showed several trains and now showed only one.

Click image to download a 22.9-MB PDF of this 36-page timetable.

This timetable still has separate pages of condensed schedules for Chicago-Los Angeles, Chicago-San Francisco, and Chicago-Portland even though there was only one (in the case of San Francisco) or two trains each way each day. Starting in 1960 or 1961, UP had saved a page by putting the City of Denver on the same page as the City of San Francisco, but it would have been better to combine the City of San Francisco and City of Los Angeles (which were one train east of Ogden) on one page and the City of Portland and City of Denver (which were one train east of Julesburg, Colorado) on another page. Continue reading →

Union Pacific June 1968 Timetable

Posted on by August 17, 2024
Reply

With this timetable, the City of St. Louis was gone and replaced by the City of Kansas City as the Wabash had decided to stop participating in a through train on this route. Wabash still had a St. Louis-Kansas City train that it called the City of St. Louis that connected (via a 35-minute layover) with Union Pacific’s Kansas City-Cheyenne train (which was joined with the City of Los Angeles west of Cheyenne), but there were no through cars.

Click image to download a 23.9-MB PDF of this 36-page timetable.

Train 27 & 28 (the former San Francisco Overland), which Union Pacific had previously truncated to Omaha-Laramie, had disappeared completely from this timetable. A look at Southern Pacific’s timetables shows that its secondary Ogden-Oakland train, which had been listed as 21 & 22 Mail in its 1967 timetable was gone from its 1968 timetable. Continue reading →

Union Pacific April 1967 Timetable

Posted on by August 16, 2024
Reply

By 1967, Union Pacific only had one train a day between Chicago and San Francisco and just one between Chicago and Portland. But, in addition to the combined City of Los Angeles/Challenger, this timetable still shows a second train between Chicago and Los Angeles, one that was known only as train 5 & 6.

Click image to download a 24.0-MB PDF of this 36-page timetable.

Primarily a mail train, in 1967 train 5 & 6 carried a sleeping car and buffet-lounge between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, giving people an opportunity to travel overnight between the two cities. It also carried a coach between Los Angeles and Omaha. At Omaha, the train connected with Milwaukee Road’s train 19 & 20 with a four-hour layover westbound and a 2-1/4-hour layover eastbound. This was obviously not a train for transcontinental travelers but east of Las Vegas it provided daytime service to many cities that were only served by the City of Los Angeles late at night.

Union Pacific April 1966 Timetable

Posted on by June 16, 2024
Reply

Here’s another timetable contributed by Tim Zukas. Since yesterday’s timetable, issued 10 months before this one, the page count dropped from 44 to 36. This was mainly by combining schedules that had previously taken up two pages into one page.

Click image to download a 23.9-MB PDF of this 36-page timetable.

One train had disappeared: the Park Special, a train between Pocatello and Victor that served visitors to Yellowstone National Park. That train, sometimes called the Yellowstone Special, had gone as far as West Yellowstone through 1960. The 1961 timetable shows it only going as far as Victor, Idaho. In 1966, it was discontinued completely and Yellowstone passengers were bused from Idaho Falls or Pocatello.

Union Pacific June 1965 Timetable

Posted on by June 16, 2024
Reply

We’ve previously seen an April 1964 timetable. This one, whose scans were (like yesterday’s) generously donated by Tim Zukas, is similar but in both timetables the number of trains has thinned out from the previous decade.

Click image to download a 27.5-MB PDF of this 44-page timetable.

The Las Vegas Holiday Special was still on the 1965 timetable. Train 27 & 28, once known as the San Francisco Overland, has been downgraded to operating only between Omaha and Laramie while another train of the same numbers operated between Ogden and Oakland. The Omaha-Laramie train had just a coach with no food services. Continue reading →