Winter’s Summer Garden

Posted on by July 10, 2023
Reply

This booklet is posted on archive.org, but the illustrations in that digitized version are so faded they are hardly visible. I’ve done my best to bring them out to what I hope is close to their original appearance.

Click image to download a 8.8-MB PDF of this 20-page booklet.

“There is but one California,” says the booklet, “and when you consider excellence of service, elegance of equipment and comfort of travel, there is but one way to travel — via The San Francisco Overland Limited of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul-Union Pacific-Southern Pacific Line.” Continue reading →

Soo Line January 1954 Timetable

Posted on by June 27, 2023
Reply

“The Soo Line was never a major carrier of passenger traffic,” says Wikipedia, “since its route between Chicago and Minneapolis was much longer than the competing Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (Milwaukee Road), Chicago and North Western Railway, and Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad (Burlington Route) routes.” The last part of this statement is correct: the Soo Line route was 460 miles vs. 407 on the North Western, 421 on the Milwaukee, and 437 on the Burlington. But the Soo didn’t even try to compete: while the other railroads were running trains between Chicago and Minneapolis in 6-1/2 hours, the Soo Line in 1954 took 15 hours (14-1/2 eastbound).

Click image to download a 13.1-MB PDF of this timetable from the Ellery Goode collection.

The other part of Wikipedia’s declaration is more questionable, as Soo had a lot more routes than just Chicago-Minneapolis. Its premiere train was the Soo-Dominion (in other years known as the Mountaineer), which went from the Twin Cities to the Canadian border at Portal, North Dakota, then continued on the Canadian Pacific to Moose Jaw, where it joined the Dominion from Toronto and proceeded to Vancouver, BC. Continue reading →

Wabash April 1956 Timetable

Posted on by June 27, 2023
3

In 1956, the Wabash had three trains a day between St. Louis and Kansas City, one of which was Union Pacific’s connection to St. Louis. It also had three trains a day in the hotly competitive Chicago-St. Louis market and two trains a day between Detroit and St. Louis. One of the Chicago-St. Louis trains offered a through sleeping car to Dallas via the Frisco-MKT Texas Special.

Click image to download a 13.2-MB PDF of this timetable from the Ellery Goode collection.

On the St. Louis-Kansas City route, the domerliner City of St. Louis connected with the UP, but the City of Kansas City was also a domeliner that was timed to go from St. Louis to Kansas City in the morning and return an hour later in the afternoon, thus requiring only one set of equipment. In contrast, the overnight Midnight Limited required two sets of equipment since the trains left and arrived at the termini at roughly the same times. Continue reading →

C&NW January 1955 Timetable

Posted on by July 23, 2023
1

Here’s a timetable from just a few months before Union Pacific yanked its passenger trains away from the North Western and gave them to the Milwaukee Road instead. The schedule shows three trains a day between Chicago and Los Angeles, but one of them wasn’t real.

Click image to download a 28.2-MB PDF of this timetable from the Ellery Goode collection.

Just a year before, C&NW-UP’s line-up from Chicago to Los Angeles included the City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles Limited, and Gold Coast. On January 15, 1954, the heavyweight Los Angeles Limited was replaced with the new streamlined Challenger. The Gold Coast was still on the timetable, but it disappeared at the end of 1954 to be replaced by a train known on this timetable only as 13-27-9 westbound and 10-28-14 eastbound. Continue reading →

Dude Ranches Out West in 1928

Posted on by June 12, 2023
Reply

This booklet lists about 45 dude ranches and 13 lodges, most of which offered guide or pack services, that were located near Union Pacific tracks. Most were in Wyoming, a few in Colorad, Idaho, and Montana, one in Oregon, and two in California. Many of the lodges still exist, but most of the dude ranches did not survive the Depression, at least as dude ranches.

Click image to download a 24.7-MB PDF of this 52-page booklet.

Two that did were the Triangle X Ranch north of Jackson and the Elkhorn Ranch north of West Yellowstone. I’ve actually been to both ranches. Dude ranching is an interesting experience: you stay in rustic cabins that may look like they are about to fall apart and eat in a rustic dining hall that is filled with antiques. The food is great, if fattening, and the recreation activities are practically unlimited, so no one complains about the facilities. Continue reading →

NdeM August 1955 Timetable

Posted on by June 22, 2023
Reply

This is both a timetable and a travel booklet urging U.S. residents to visit Mexico by rail. “Why visit Egypt?” the booklet asks, when “there are pyramids in Mexico.” Similarly, “why visit Rheims and Cologne” when “there are cathedrals a-plenty in Mexico.” The booklet also includes a page of Spanish phrases people can learn while assuring potential tourists that “English, of course, is spoken in almost every large town in Mexico.”

Click image to download a 7.1-MB PDF of this 16-page timetable contributed by Ellery Goode.

The timetables themselves start on page 9 with a schedule for the Aztec Eagle from St. Louis to Mexico City via Missouri Pacific and Laredo. For westerners, another schedule is from Los Angeles to Mexico City via Southern Pacific and El Paso. Six more pages of schedules include trains that went all over the country.

Texas & Pacific December 1955 Timetable

Posted on by July 30, 2023
Reply

Texas & Pacific was majority-owned by Missouri Pacific, but they were separately (if cooperatively) operated, so T&P’s 1955 timetable doesn’t look anything like MP’s.

Click image to download a 2.5-MB PDF of this timetable contributed by Ellery Goode.

In fact, this is really just a brochure with the equivalent of four pages of a normal timetable. The timetable shows two trains a day between El Paso and Marshall, Texas. At Marshall, the trains split with part going to New Orleans and part to Texarkana, where it was taken over by Missouri Pacific to St. Louis. One of these was the Texas Eagle, while the portion going to New Orleans was called the Louisiana Eagle. The other train was called the Westerner while the New Orleans section was called the Louisiana Daylight. Continue reading →

Missouri Pacific April 1955 Timetable

Posted on by June 21, 2023
1

This timetable makes significant use of color that is absent from most railroad timetables. The four-color cover is one we have seen before and was used on MP timetables from about 1946 through 1960, which is even longer than Frisco used its colorful cover.

Click image to download a 26.8-MB PDF of this timetable contributed by Ellery Goode.

The inside and outside back covers also have four-color illustrations, while the inside front cover uses red, yellow, and cyan as tints. But, unlike almost every other timetable I’ve seen, the colors don’t stop there. Continue reading →

Frisco January 1956 Timetable

Posted on by January 5, 2024
Reply

Frisco put a very pretty painting on the cover of its timetables, but they used this illustration for more than 12 years, from at least 1953 through 1965. One reason to change covers is to alert passengers that schedules have changed so they don’t miss trains or count on trains that no longer run.

Click image to download a 20.3-MB PDF of this timetable contributed by Ellery Goode.

Changes were significant. This timetable is 36 pages long and describes nine named trains and several unnamed ones. The 1965 timetable is only 20 pages and has just two named trains and one mixed train. The schedules for all three trains could have fit on just one page.

The pretty cover on the 1965 timetable was deceptive as Fresco’s passenger network was only a shadow of its former self. The 1965 routes formed an X: Kansas City southeast to Birmingham and St. Louis southwest to Tulsa with the routes crossing in Springfield, Missouri. Trains from 1956 to Wichita and Dallas were gone by 1965 as were north-south routes between Kansas City and Tulsa and between St. Louis and Memphis.

In 1956, Frisco trains went south 261 miles from Kansas City to Tulsa, taking eight hours. In 1965, passengers had to change at Springfield, making the route 387 miles long and requiring 11 hours. In 1956, passengers could take trains 305 miles south from St. Louis to Memphis in eight hours. In 1965, the route via Springfield was 522 miles and took more than 21 hours. I suspect not many took that route.

Kansas City Southern July 1956 Timetable

Posted on by June 20, 2023
Reply

Based on this timetable, a better name for Kansas City Southern might have been Shreveport Northern. Table 1 shows three trains a day between Shreveport and Kansas City. Table 2 shows two trains a day between Shreveport and New Orleans. Table 4 shows a train, the Flying Crow, between Shreveport and Port Arthur, Texas, while table 4 shows the Shreveporter from Shreveport to Hope, Arkansas.

Click image to download a 5.2-MB PDF of this timetable contributed by Ellery Goode.

As of 1938, Kansas City Southern consisted of a line from Kansas City through Shreveport to Port Arthur, Louisiana, on the Gulf Coast. In 1939, it merged with the Louisiana and Arkansas Railway, which had lines from Shreveport to New Orleans and Hope. This enabled the railroads to start a Kansas City-New Orleans passenger train called the Southern Belle. Continue reading →