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Jasper Park Lodge in 1925

Posted on August 18, 2023 by Train LoverAugust 9, 2023

This booklet followed the same design as yesterday’s 1922 booklet: a front cover that covered only half of the width of the booklet and whose illustration wrapped around to a full-width back cover. Together, as shown in the image below, the covers form a beautiful picture of the lodge, the lake, the mountains, and recreational activities including golf, boating, horseback riding and motor touring. The lake is printed in a shiny silver ink or foil that unfortunately reproduces as gray in the scanned images.

Click image to download an 14.2-MB PDF of this 24-page booklet. Click here to download a full-sized PDF of the cover as shown above.

As I noted yesterday, a 1924 Jasper Park booklet also used this design. The interior pages of the 1922 booklet are printed only in black ink, while the 1924 booklet has green highlights and today’s has orange highlights. Other than the color of the highlights and a few photographs and some minor text changes, the 1924 and 1925 booklets are practically the same. Continue reading →

Jasper Park Lodge in 1922

Posted on August 17, 2023 by Train LoverAugust 3, 2023

This booklet is unusual in that the front cover is only half the width of the interior pages while the cover illustration wraps around to a full-width back cover. We’ve previously seen a 1924 Jasper Park booklet that was also designed this way. Starting in 1926, however, CN adopted a more sensible design in which a nicely illustrated front cover covers the entire booklet.

Click image to download an 11.3-MB PDF of this 24-page booklet. Click here to download a full-sized PDF of the cover as shown above.

Although separated by just two years, today’s booklet and the one from 1924 differ in many ways. Both cover similar topics, of course, but not necessarily in the same order and generally with different text. Both present similar photos in collages, but the 1922 booklet has five to seven photos per collage while the 1924 booklet has just four to five. Both have centerfold maps, but the 1922 booklet has a key showing the location of 74 different lakes, peaks, and other features in the park. Continue reading →

Western Pacific April 1955 Timetable

Posted on August 16, 2023 by Train LoverJuly 29, 2023

The map inside of this timetable folder has a thick red line showing the route of the California Zephyr from Oakland to Chicago. The same style of line shows Western Pacific branches to Bieber, Loyalton, Moy, and San Jose, California; Reno; and several small towns in Utah even though those branches did not have any passenger service. Plus the same red line is used to show the routes of the New York Central and Pennsylvania railroads between Chicago and New York City.

Click image to download a 4.3-MB PDF of this timetable from the Ellery Goode collection.

The lines to New York City are shown because one sleeping car went through from Oakland to New York every day, alternating on the Central and Pennsy routes. The timetable doesn’t say so, but when on the PRR the car went on the General eastbound and on the slightly slower Pennsylvania Limited westbound. On the New York Central it went on the Commodore Vanderbilt in both directions. Continue reading →

Ranch Life in 1925

Posted on August 15, 2023 by Train LoverJuly 29, 2023

We’ve previously seen a 1932 booklet describing 23 dude ranches and lodges in “Buffalo Bill country,” meaning in and around Cody, Wyoming. This one is from 1925 and includes 15 dude ranches and lodges, 10 of which are also in the 1931 edition. Most of the ranches are either on the North or South forks of the Shoshone River but a few are in the northern part of the Shoshone National Forest near (or over) the Montana border.

Click image to download a 9.6-MB PDF of this 40-page booklet.

The five ranches that are in today’s booklet but not the 1932 edition were probably put out of business by the Depression. Several ranches that managed to survive until 1932 didn’t make it much longer. At least four of the ranches or lodges described in this booklet still survive today: Pahaska Tepee, which was built by Buffalo Bill Cody in 1905; Absaroka Lodge, which was listed as LV Mountain Ranch in the 1931 booklet but is known as Absaroka Mountain Lodge today; Blackwater Creek Ranch, which was listed as Blackwater Lodge in the 1925 booklet; and Crossed Sabres Ranch, which was known as Holm Lodge in the booklet. All of these are on the North Fork of the Shoshoni, often called Wapiti Valley, which is the main entry into Yellowstone from Cody. Continue reading →

Southern Pacific April 1954 Timetable

Posted on August 14, 2023 by Train LoverJuly 29, 2023

Today’s 48-page timetable (which puts the cover shown below on the back) has a front-page ad proclaiming “faster streamliner schedules Chicago-California.” The Golden State, it says, was an hour and 50 minutes faster eastbound and an hour faster westbound. The San Francisco Overland was an hour faster in both directions.

Click image to download a 33.6-MB PDF of this timetable from the Ellery Goode collection.

As I read the timetable, the Golden State took 41-1/4 hours to get from Chicago to Los Angeles. That was only 1-1/2 hours slower than the Super Chief or City of Los Angeles. Despite the speed-up, the eastbound time was still nearly 42-1/2 hours, or 2-3/4 hours slower than the competition. Continue reading →

Rock Island November 1956 Timetable

Posted on August 13, 2023 by Train LoverJuly 29, 2023

In another decade or so, the Rock Island would become known as “one railroad too many” as it was competing against the Burlington, Milwaukee, and North Western. But in the 1950s it was still making profits and was pleased to advertise everything from the Golden State to the Jet Rocket in this timetable.

Click image to download a 23.9-MB PDF of this timetable from the Ellery Goode collection.

In between were the the Corn Belt Rocket, the Kansas City Rocket, Rocky Mountain Rocket, Twin Star Rocket, and Zephyr Rocket. The extra fare Golden State was paired with the secondary Imperial.

The timetable contains a few disturbing signs of decline. The westbound Cherokee, which was once a Memphis connection to California, required a 3-1/4-hour layover in Tucumcari waiting for the Imperial. The secondary train on the Memphis route, the Choctaw Rocket, was a rail Diesel car that traveled an uncomfortable 762 miles before petering out in Amarillo.

In Rock Island’s defense, problems on the Golden State route may have been more the fault of Southern Pacific than Rock Island. SP’s decision to cancel the Golden State Rocket (which was probably provoked by proposed federal speed limits) left the trains on that route uncompetitive with Santa Fe and Union Pacific limiteds.

In addition to Chicago commuter trains, Rock Island still had plenty of unnamed trains connecting such cities as Eldon and Kansas City, Omaha and Goodland, Kansas City and Belleville, and Chicago and Des Moines. All these trains meant that this 36-page timetable had lots of schedules and very little fluff.

The Kingdom of the Sun in 1953

Posted on August 12, 2023 by Train LoverAugust 1, 2023

The Santa Fe called the Phoenix area the Valley of the Sun in this 1950 booklet. Rock Island responded with this Kingdom of the Sun booklet in 1953, though Rock Island’s term extended to the entire Southwest region from El Paso to southern California.

Click image to download an 10.4-MB PDF of this 24-page booklet.

In the 1950s, trains on the Golden State route were not up to the standards of the City of Los Angeles or the Super Chief. The one advantage the Golden State route had was that it served Phoenix, while Santa Fe passengers had to change trains to get to Phoenix and Union Pacific didn’t come close. So it is a little bit of a surprise that this booklet doesn’t focus on Phoenix, but perhaps Rock Island had another brochure for that. Continue reading →

Rock Island Colorado Vacations in 1940

Posted on August 11, 2023 by Train LoverJuly 29, 2023

We’ve previously seen a 1937 Rock Island booklet that was printed in rather gloomy blue and black ink. This one from 1940 is brightened up with some red highlights. While the cover shown below (which is the back cover) tints the sky, one of the horses, saddles, and distant roofs in red, red is used on other pages in the booklet only in a few circles, geographic shapes, and on one page lines on a map.

Click image to download an 15.0-MB PDF of this 16-page booklet.

Both booklets ask “the all-important question,” which was “where shall we go this summer?” The answer, which of course was supposed to be Colorado, was told in text and photos that for the most part were practically identical in the two booklets. Continue reading →

Rock Island Tours to Colorado in 1927

Posted on August 10, 2023 by Train LoverJuly 29, 2023

We’ve previously seen a 44-page 1929 Rock Island booklet advertising “personally conducted and independent all-expense tours to Colorado.” This one from two years before has fewer pages because it only describes the personally conducted tours, not the independent ones.

Click image to download an 11.7-MB PDF of this 36-page booklet.

In 1927, Rock Island offered ten-day tours that left Midwest cities every Saturday from June 25 through September 3. The tours spent one night in Colorado Springs, one in Denver, three at Estes Park (on the east side of Rocky Mountain National Park), two at Grand Lake Lodge (on the west side of Rocky Mountain Park), one in Idaho Springs, then one more in Denver before heading back east. This works out to a day-and-a-half in Colorado Springs and six days in Rocky Mountain Park, which seems imbalanced to me. Continue reading →

The Golden State Limited in 1915

Posted on August 9, 2023 by Train LoverJuly 29, 2023

Because of the San Francisco and San Diego exhibitions celebrating the opening of the Panama Canal, “California the wonderland, with two Expositions, will be irresistible” in 1915, says this booklet. For easterners who could not resist, the Golden State Limited was the “foremost transcontinental train to California.”

Click image to download a 27.7-MB PDF of this 28-page booklet.

The booklet is certainly impressive. Oranges on the heavily embossed front cover are not orange but burnished in a special gold ink or paint. The words on the cover and in much of the interior are beautifully calligraphed by an unnamed artist. On the inside front cover, for example, such hand lettering notes that the route of the train has “automatic block signals” and the train uses the “finest modern all-steel equipment,” giving it “absolute safety.” Continue reading →