The April 1955 timetable, which immediately preceded this one, featured the Pony Express on the page before the centerfold map as “No. 4 in a series devoted to historic landmarks.” As number 5 in the same series, today’s edition features the less famous but more economically successful Butterfield Stage Line, illustrated by John Keil.

Click image to download an 25.2-MB PDF of this 48-page timetable.

The Pony Express carried mail between St. Joseph Missouri and Sacramento, taking about 10 days for the trip and initially charging $5 for a letter when postage rates were 2¢ but required many weeks or months for the same trip. The Butterfield stage required 25 days to go between St. Louis and San Francisco, charging not more than $1 for a letter. The Butterfield operation had the advantage of a mail contract with the postal service and its stagecoaches could also carry passengers. Continue reading →

The page before the centerfold map provides a brief history of Tennessee, together with a collage of colored illustrations about the state that is unfortunately unsigned. Missouri Pacific served only one city in Tennessee, the “great gateway city of Memphis,” but that was enough for the state to be counted as one of the eleven states that form a part of MP’s “West-Southwest.”

Click image to download a 36.5-MB PDF of this 48-page timetable.

The page after the centerfold map advertises the planetarium dome cars that Missouri Pacific ran on the Colorado Eagle, Texas Eagle, and Missouri River Eagle. Although the Texas Eagle had sections going to Galveston and San Antonio, the equipment listing on panel 12 indicates that the dome car only went between Fort Worth and St. Louis. Continue reading →

The page before the centerfold map presents the state of Arkansas, noting that this would be “No. 1 in a series of color pages featuring the states served by Missouri Pacific Lines.” The article is accompanied by a photo of the Arkansas capitol building, the same photo that would be used in the April 1956 timetable as part of a series on state capitols in Missouri Pacific states. In retrospect, a different photo should have been used here, perhaps one of the Ozarks or Hot Springs.

Click image to download an 25.9-MB PDF of this 48-page timetable.

The page after the centerfold is an article about “Lincoln, the Capitol of Nebraska” accompanied by an aerial photo that could be any mid-sized city, USA. The text of the article itself was “prepared by the Lincoln Chamber of Commerce.” Continue reading →

Since I last posted Missouri Pacific timetables in February, I’ve acquired several more that I’ll be presenting here over the next week. I estimate that the railroad issued about 45 timetables with this four-color cover, though it is hard to be sure as in some years it issued four timetables and in others only two or three. The last seven timetables, when it issued only two a year, had fewer pages and fewer features than the 38 earlier ones that included many entertaining magazine-style features.

Click image to download an 28.5-MB PDF of this 48-page timetable.

In 1947, the magazine format was in full bloom. The page before the centerfold map was an article about Memphis accompanied by a color photo. The page after the map was an article about Kansas City with another color photo. The inside back cover was an article about Houston also with a color photo. Continue reading →