The Scenic Columbia River Route

Posted on by July 1, 2024
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This gorgeous booklet has an unusual but not unique design. Though it is the standard 8″x9″ format used for many railroad booklets and timetables, the front cover is only about 4 inches wide, leaving half of the title page exposed. When I saw this on a 1923 Union Pacific booklet, I thought at first someone had cut off half the cover.

Click image to download an 21.6-MB PDF of this 36-page booklet. Click here to download a 2.7-MB PDF of the full cover of this booklet.

I’ve since seen the same design on Canadian National booklets from 1922, 1924, and 1925. I’m not sure what the point of it is but maybe marketers thought exposing part of title page would make it more inviting. Continue reading →

A Los Angeles Limited Romance

Posted on by April 25, 2024
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Today, we have a real treat: a romantic novel (or, really, short story) written to promote Union Pacific’s Los Angeles Limited. We’ve previously seen an 1889 brochure that told a fictional story of a romance in wonderland to advertise Northern Pacific trains. Today’s item is a hardbound book that tells a story of a romance on board the Los Angeles Limited.

Click image to download a 4.9-MB PDF of this 38-page booklet.

In the story, a 23-year-old “Boy” (the capitals are in the story) falls for a 22-year-old “Girl” on a trip from Chicago to Los Angeles. Sadly for him, he discovers near the end of the trip that she is married and has a baby daughter. The story concludes with him asking her to raise the baby to be “as nearly like you as possible” because “I’m going to wait for her.” This may have sounded romantic when this was published but today would be considered creepy. Continue reading →

California Sights and Scenes

Posted on by July 1, 2024
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Today is the twelfth anniversary of Streamliner Memories, and I’ve often used this date to show Union Pacific menus that I’ve collected in the past year. As it happens, I haven’t found a previously unseen UP color photo menu in more than two years, which suggests I have them almost all of them except the Moderne version of a Mount Rainier menu. Instead, I will begin presenting some Union Pacific booklets and timetables.

Click image to download a 15.1-MB PDF of this 36-page booklet plus fold-out map from the David Rumsey collection.

Despite the name, this booklet is mostly text. The “sights and scenes” it contains consist of ten engravings, mostly of San Francisco and Yosemite Valley. One of the engravings is credited to Rand McNally; another one to the Photo Electric Engraving Co., New York. The rest are uncredited. Continue reading →

Chicago & North Western April 1958 Timetable

Posted on by April 29, 2024
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Yesterday’s April 1955 timetable was probably the last C&NW timetable before Union Pacific yanked its streamliners away from the North Western and over to the Milwaukee Road. It was 44 pages long, and this one is a respectable 36. Clearly, the North Western still operated a lot of passenger trains.

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

The timetable devotes two pages to Chicago-Minneapolis trains, one to Chicago-Duluth, one to Chicago-Rapid City, two to Chicago-Omaha and nearby trains, two to trains to upper Wisconsin, two to Chicago-Green Bay, one to Chicago-Milwaukee, and one to Chicago-Madison. The timetable also includes four pages of mixed or freight-only routes. Continue reading →

C&NW April 1955 Timetable

Posted on by April 29, 2024
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The city-of-everywhere Gold Coast, which was included on yesterday’s timetable, is gone from this one. The columns used to display it were filled on this timetable with the National Parks Special (which Union Pacific timetables called the Yellowstone Special), a train from Chicago to West Yellowstone that also sent cars to Oakland (on the San Francisco Overland and Los Angeles (on a train that isn’t named on this timetable but was the City of St. Louis).

Click image to download a 26.9-MB PDF of this 44-page timetable.

The National Parks Special only operated on Saturdays from June 18 to August 27. Its Los Angeles connection, the City of St. Louis probably isn’t named on this timetable because, unlike other City trains, it didn’t use the C&NW for any part of its route. Continue reading →

C&NW January 1954 Timetable

Posted on by July 30, 2024
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I recently purchased several dozen timetables from various railroads despite the dealer warning that all were damaged in some way. In fact, most were in pretty condition, but this is an exception. It looks like it was completely soaked with water at one time or another. Still, it is perfectly readable.

Click image to download a 28.5-MB PDF of this 44-page timetable.

The back cover advertises the reintroduction of the Challenger between Chicago and Los Angeles. Originally introduced as an economy heavyweight train in 1936, the train had been discontinued in 1947 when the City of Los Angeles and other streamliners went daily. As other heavyweight trains such as the Los Angeles Limited were discontinued, UP and C&NW needed a companion to the City of Los Angeles, so the streamlined Challenger was inaugurated on January 10, 1954. Continue reading →

A Memory of the San Francisco World’s Fair

Posted on by May 14, 2024
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This brochure has eight panels printed on both sides, yet other than the cover shown below, only one panel discusses the 1939 San Francisco World’s Fair. Surprisingly, the brochure never calls the fair by its real name, the Golden Gate International Exposition. What the brochure really is, of course, is an advertisement for C&NW passenger trains.

Click image to download a 11.5-MB PDF of this brochure from the David Rumsey Collection.

Those trains included what the brochure calls “super trains,” namely the City of San Francisco and other city streamliners. Other trains to San Francisco are also mentioned including the Challenger, Overland Limited, Forty Niner, and Pacific Limited. The brochure also lists trains to Denver, Los Angeles, and the Northwest plus, of course, C&NW’s own 400. Continue reading →

The North Western Limited in 1929

Posted on by May 14, 2024
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The North Western Limited was for many years the Chicago & North Western’s premiere overnight train that ran entirely over its own rails. It was completely re-equipped in 1928 and the 16 crisp black-and-white photos in this 1929 booklet show that the new train was one of the finest in the country.

Click image to download a 5.9-MB PDF of this 28-page booklet.

The North Western Limited began operating sometime before 1900. According to Wikipedia it started in 1914, but that’s wrong because Official Railway Guides mention it long before that. As I’ve previously noted, in the Official Guides the train was simply called a “vestibuled limited” until October 1892, when the name North Western Limited first appeared. Continue reading →

Southern Pacific April 1953 Timetable

Posted on by May 14, 2024
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“It’s fun to ride Southern Pacific streamliners” blares out the ad on the front cover of this timetable. To prove it, the ad is accompanied by a photo of a young woman laughing with two older men in a lounge car. Is this supposed to imply that men could meet cute, younger women on the trains?

Click image to download a 31.7-MB PDF of this 52-page timetable.

Note, however, that the ad specifically said that streamliners were fun to ride. Apparently, riding the Gold Coast, Imperial, or Argonaut wasn’t much fun even though those trains also had lounge cars. And completely forget about having fun on the Klamath, Owl, or other heavyweight trains that didn’t even have lounge cars. The ad didn’t specify whether those trains were deficient in fun due to a lack of young women or a lack of older men.

Southern Pacific July 1951 Timetable

Posted on by May 14, 2024
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The front cover of this timetable (since the cover shown below is on the back) uses Southern Pacific’s familiar theme of “four wonderful ways” to “anywhere” even though the SP could offer four ways only to California. It illustrates each of the four ways with the premiere train on three of them: the Shasta Daylight, Golden State, and Sunset Limited. But for the fourth it uses the San Francisco Overland, only mentioning the “fast streamlined City of San Francisco” in fine print.

Click image to download a 31.7-MB PDF of this 52-page timetable.

The timetable shows the City of San Francisco taking 39-2/3 hours to get from Chicago to Oakland (with another 35 minutes for the ferry ride to San Francisco). Although the Overland was also streamlined by 1951, it required 48-1/4 hours to Oakland. The ad probably used the Overland name because the name of that “way” was the “Overland Route” just as the names of the premiere trains on the other routes were also the names of those routes. Continue reading →