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The Wonderland Route to the Pacific

Posted on September 30, 2023 by Train LoverSeptember 17, 2023

“This is a world of wonders!” opens this 1885 booklet. “Beyond the Great Lakes,” it continues, “lies a region which may justly be designated the Wonderland of the World.” In saying so, this booklet is referring not to Yellowstone but to the entire Northwest, from Duluth and the Twin Cities to Portland, Tacoma, and Alaska.

Click image to download a 25.7-MB PDF of this 68-page booklet.

Rather than a fictitious letter from an imaginary character, this book is simply a travelogue. Yes, there are a dozen pages on Yellowstone, but these are preceded by 19 pages on Minnesota, the Dakotas, and eastern Montana. Eighteen more pages cover western Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Tacoma and Mount Tacoma (which is what Northern Pacific insisted on calling Mount Rainier). The booklet ended with nearly 10 pages on Alaska. Continue reading →

Alice’s Adventures in the New Wonderland

Posted on September 29, 2023 by Train LoverOctober 8, 2023

Northern Pacific began serving Yellowstone in 1883 and this quirky brochure was one of its first advertisements for that service. This particular brochure was published in 1885, but an earlier edition came out in 1883.

Click image to download a 7.1-MB PDF of this brochure.

The brochure imagines that an adult Alice of Lewis Carroll fame crossed the Atlantic to visit Yellowstone and somehow managed to write a letter of well over 5,000 words to her cousin Edith. Alice Liddell, the namesake of the 1865 Alice in Wonderland book, had a sister named Edith; I’m not sure if she also had a cousin by that name, but it doesn’t matter because it isn’t canon anyway. Continue reading →

Great Northern 1965 Pocket Calendar

Posted on September 28, 2023 by Train LoverSeptember 17, 2023

I’ve only posted a few pocket calendars here in the past as they are generally more oriented to freight customers than to passengers. This one from the Great Northern mentions that the railroad is both “Great for Freight” and “Great for Travel.”

Click image to download a 190-KB PDF of this calendar.

The front of the calendar includes silhouettes of two freight trains (note that several of the cars on the two trains are identical) plus one of the Empire Builder, distinguished by its dome cars. The real Empire Builder included various head-end cars and required more than two locomotives to pull it over the mountains, but these have been eliminated in favor of showing off the domes.

New Edmonds Suburban Station

Posted on September 27, 2023 by Train LoverSeptember 19, 2023

In 1950, Edmonds was a small town of about 2,000 people working in sawmills and other factories. By 1960, however, its population had nearly quadrupled, and nearly tripled again in the 1960s, as Seattle workers sought single-family homes in low-density suburban towns. Edmonds is separated from Seattle by the town of Shoreline, whose population and land area are both bigger than Edmonds, but which is less well known because Edmonds had its own ferry across the Puget Sound as well as the train station that is the subject of this brochure.

Click image to download a 838-KB PDF of this brochure.

Apparently, the rapid growth of Edmonds, Shoreline, and north Seattle led Great Northern to stop the Empire Builder and its other premiere trains at Edmonds. The railroad’s 1956 timetable shows that the only train to stop at Edmonds was the Cascadian, which made 22 stops and as many as 24 more flag stops between Spokane and Seattle compared with the Empire Builder‘s three. According to Wikipedia, the Empire Builder first stopped at Edmonds on January 7, 1957. The June 1957 indicates that all GN trains — the Empire Builder, Western Star, and three Internationals along with the Cascadian — were stopping at Edmonds. At least initially, GN was able to do this without adding time to its train’s schedules. Continue reading →

Great Northern January 1957 Timetable

Posted on September 26, 2023 by Train LoverSeptember 19, 2023

As mentioned yesterday, Great Northern began using this timetable cover, featuring two F3 locomotives, in June 1951 to commemorate the inauguration of the Western Star. In 1954, it added a banner above each of the locomotives to announce that the Western Star had been rerouted to serve St. Cloud.

Click image to download a 29.3-KB PDF of this 36-page timetable.

This was followed in 1955 and 1956 with banners advertising “New Great Domes on the Empire Builder.” By the time of this 1957 timetable, the domes weren’t quite new, but the banners could brag that the Empire Builder had “more dome seats” than any other train as well as the more debatable claim that it had “more scenic miles.” Continue reading →

The Great Dome Empire Builder in 1956

Posted on September 25, 2023 by Train LoverSeptember 17, 2023

We’ve previously seen a 1958 brochure advertising Great Northern’s dome-laden Empire Builder. This undated brochure is similar but from a year or two earlier. The two share many of the same photos and graphics, but the covers are completely different, the later one being much more attractive.

Click image to download a 3.0-MB PDF of this brochure.

Great Northern also issued at least two brochures for the Western Star: a 1956 edition with a boring front cover and a 1964 edition with a much more attractive front cover. While the abstract cover on the 1956 Western Star brochure is not very eye catching, the cover on today’s Empire Builder brochure is downright creepy, with an ominous silhouette of a locomotive looking like it’s about to pounce on its victim in a darkened alley. Continue reading →

Great Northern October 1952 Timetable

Posted on September 24, 2023 by Train LoverSeptember 19, 2023

Great Northern gave up on using E7 locomotives for its transcontinental trains in 1950, replacing them with F3s and F7s while consigning the E7s to non-mountainous trains such as the International and Red River. In early 1950, GN timetable covers still showed an E7 next to an F3, but by the time the streamlined Western Star replaced the Oriental Limited, the covers showed two F3s as shown here.

Click image to download a 26.0-MB PDF of this 44-page timetable.

Great Northern was not the only railroad to be disappointed in E units for mountain service. The Santa Fe, which had purchased E units before the war for the Super Chief and El Capitan, only purchased F units after the war. Southern Pacific, which operated many trains on relatively flat ground as well as in the mountains, bought a handful of E7s and E9s, but also had hundreds of F units. Continue reading →

Great Northern 1951 Ticket Envelope

Posted on September 23, 2023 by Train LoverSeptember 17, 2023

Most ticket envelopes are pretty ho-hum, but this one stands out. For one thing, what looks like a mailing label on the front is actually a cellophane window with pictures of the Empire Builder and Western Star locomotives printed on the inside, a little Easter egg for passengers to find when they remove their tickets from the envelope.

Click image to download a 719-KB PDF of this ticket envelope.

The envelope also features pictures of mountains in Glacier Park and images of a skier, horseback rider, Blackfeet Indian, and fly fisherman — all things people would see if they visited GN’s hotels in and around the park. The other side has a map of the GN through which you can faintly see the pictures of the locomotives. Continue reading →

Great Northern January 1949 Timetable

Posted on September 22, 2023 by Train LoverDecember 24, 2023

When Great Northern introduced its streamlined Empire Builder in 1947, it used five pairs of E7 locomotives to haul the five twelve-car train. These were illustrated by five locomotive noses on the 1947 timetables. The old heavyweight Empire Builder consists became the revived Oriental Limited, and the steam locomotives used to pull this train were soon replaced by F3 Diesels.

Click image to download a 24.9-MB PDF of this 44-page timetable. Update: Cover fixed.

The cover of this 1949 timetable illustrates this contrast but does so in a slightly confusing way. The E7 locomotive, notable for having its goat logo over an orange background, is shown over the words “Oriental Limited” while the F3 locomotive, whose goat logo was on a green field, is over the words “the Streamlined Empire Builder.” As of 1949, the reverse was true: the Empire Builder was still pulled by E7s and the Oriental Limited was powered by F3s. Continue reading →

Stop off at Glacier National Park

Posted on September 21, 2023 by Train LoverSeptember 17, 2023

Passengers on Great Northern trains were allowed to stopover at Glacier National Park at no extra rail fare, at least when this booklet was issued. The booklet briefly describes one- to seven-day tours people could take in the park, but unfortunately does not list the prices of each tour.

Click image to download a 2.0-MB PDF of this 8-page booklet.

The booklet doesn’t have a date but offers a few clues about when it was issued. First, it lists GN agents including A.J. Dickerson as passenger traffic manager and E.H. Wilde as general passenger agent. These two held those positions from about 1928 to 1937, after which Wilde was replaced by someone else. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough GN timetables from the 1930s to compare the other agents’ names. Continue reading →