The Scenic Columbia River in 1930

Posted on by December 23, 2022
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We’ve previously seen a 1932 booklet with the same covers as this one. However, the interiors are quite different. While some of the text is in both booklets, it has been extensively rewritten. While some photos are in both booklets, the ones in both have often been resized.

Click image to download a 14.1-MB PDF of this 16-page booklet, which is from the David Rumsey map collection.

The designer of today’s booklet placed all of the photos in one of four frames on each page: a circle, a rectangle with curved corners and a truncation out of one corner from the circular frame, and two other shapes that also have truncations to allow the circular frame. On some pages this set of four frames is flipped horizontally and some it is flipped vertically, but all of the photos fit into one of these frames. The designer of the 1932 booklet, by contrast, just put most of the photos in rectangular frames. While this is less creative, it does allow for some photos to be much larger than any of the four frames in today’s booklet. Continue reading →

Oregon Outdoors in 1927

Posted on by December 23, 2022
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This booklet should really be called “Western Oregon Outdoors,” as it focuses on those parts of Oregon that can be seen in a short drive from Southern Pacific tracks. It even opens by describing Oregon as “a land of forest covered mountain ranges,” which ignores the high desert and near-desert conditions found in much of eastern, and particularly southeastern, Oregon.

Click image to download a 26.0-MB PDF of this 16-page booklet, which is from the David Rumsey map collection.

While the deserts can be beautiful, the original settlers were attracted to the green valleys and later tours to the high mountains and ocean beaches, all of which are found in western Oregon. Given the relatively primitive highways of the 1920s, anything too far from the railroads were still pretty hard to reach. Continue reading →

Burlington to Yellowstone in 1901

Posted on by December 23, 2022
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In 1900, James J. Hill negotiated the purchase of nearly all of the stock of the Burlington Route, half of which was held by the Great Northern and half by the Northern Pacific. This created the co-marketing opportunities for the Burlington, as exemplified by this brochure, which looks similar in many ways to Northern Pacific brochures about Yellowstone.

Click image to download an 12.3-MB PDF of this timetable, which is from the David Rumsey map collection.

For people living in or east of Chicago or St. Louis, noted the brochure, the best ways to get to Yellowstone were over Burlington lines to Minneapolis or Billings, connecting at those cities with Northern Pacific trains. The Billings route was made possible by the completion of a Burlington line to Billings in 1894. A small Burlington system map in this brochure also shows a planned line to Cody, which was completed at the end of 1901, a few months after this brochure was published. Continue reading →

Super Domes in 1960

Posted on by December 23, 2022
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Milwaukee introduced its full-length domes to the Olympian Hiawatha with a 16-page booklet in 1953. By 1960, the year before it cancelled the train, it was still advertising them but with this six-panel brochure.

Click image to download a 1.7-MB PDF of this brochure.

The image on the cover is the same (minus color) as the painting used on Milwaukee’s 1956 calendar. This painting, like that for the 1957 calendar, was by Robert Krantz. Continue reading →

The Olympian in 1936

Posted on by December 23, 2022
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As noted yesterday, the Olympian was the Milwaukee Road’s entry into the battle of the limiteds for passenger travel to and from the Pacific Northwest, competing directly against the North Coast Limited for much of its journey and slightly less directly against the Empire Builder and even less directly the Portland Rose. Being late to the party and in the midst of a 1935 bankruptcy besides, the Milwaukee didn’t do as well as the other railroads in this corridor.

Click image to download a 5.5-MB PDF of this 16-page booklet.

The Olympian of 1936, the date of this booklet, had the amenities needed to compete: air conditioning, a diner providing “faultless service,” a shower-bath, and a barber and valet service. It didn’t have a ladies maid like the California limiteds, but neither did the North Coast Limited or Empire Builder of the day. Continue reading →

The St. Paul Road’s Late Arrival

Posted on by May 14, 2023
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In 1905, the St. Paul Road (which is what people called the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul in the early 20th century) reported earnings of nearly $50 million against operating costs of $32 million, which made it one of the more profitable railroads in the country. In that year, the company’s board of directors decided to build a 1,374-mile extension to Seattle, which was estimated to cost $60 million.


The Olympian was initially pulled by 4-6-2 Pacific locomotives. Click image to download a 253-KB PDF of this postcard.

By the time the railroad reached Seattle, on May 19, 1909, the project had cost $230 million, nearly four times the original projection. Like some other 20th century rail construction projects (such as the SP&S), the railroad got caught by an inflationary period in both construction and labor costs. On top of that, the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 greatly reduced the demand for transcontinental shipping. The St. Paul Road went bankrupt in 1925 and emerged as the Milwaukee Road in 1928. Continue reading →

The All-Steel Oriental Limited

Posted on by December 23, 2022
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In 1924, GN completely re-equipped the Oriental Limited with mostly all-steel cars. The new cars were such an improvement that for the next five years GN invariably called the train “the New Oriental Limited.” Among the amenities not found on the old Oriental Limited were a barber, ladies maid, and shower baths, all of which seemed to be required for a true limited train of that era.


Click image to download a 6.9-MB PDF of this 30-page booklet. Click here to download a 6.2-MB PDF showing the wraparound cover of the booklet.

According to the May 31, 1924 issue of Railway Age, each of the eight trainsets consisted of:

  • A baggage car with an dynamo to power the train’s electric lights;
  • A smoking car (really a short-distance coach) that included four sections that made into berths at night for the use of the dining car crew but used as coach seats during the day;
  • A first-class coach;
  • A Pullman tourist sleeper with twelve sections, large washrooms, a barber shop, and men’s shower;
  • A diner;
  • Three Pullman sleepers with 12 sections and a drawing room; and
  • A Pullman observation car with a buffet, smoking room, women’s lounge and shower, two compartments, a drawing room, and an observation parlor with extra tall windows and seats for 15 people plus room for eight on the rear platform.

Continue reading →

CP Wishes You a Happy & Prosperous New Year

Posted on by January 31, 2023
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I’m interrupting the tale of Chicago-Pacific Northwest railroads to wish you a Happy New Year and present this menu from a 1931-1932 Canadian Pacific world cruise. The menu was used on the practically brand-new Empress of Britain, which between 1931 and 1939 spent its summers between Montreal and Liverpool and its winters on world cruises.

Click image to view and download a PDF of this menu from the University of British Columbia Chung collection.

The music program is on the back cover instead of the more usual page 2. It lists just four pieces, including ones by Percy Fletcher, Paul Lincke, Giuseppe Verdi, and someone named Ring who I haven’t been able to identify. Continue reading →

Antecedents to the Empire Builder

Posted on by December 31, 2022
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The Great Northern punched its line through the Cascade Mountains to Seattle in January 1893, almost a decade after Northern Pacific and eight years after Union Pacific reached Portland. While NP didn’t name any of its trains or offer a limited train until 1900, Great Northern went through a series of names before finally settling on the evocative Oriental Limited in 1905.


Stopping for passengers in Cokato, Minnesota in about 1900, the Great Northern Flyer is led by a diminutive 4-4-0 American locomotive that produced only about 13,100 pounds of tractive effort. Bigger, 4-6-0, locomotives would be used in the mountains. Click image for a larger view.

GN’s first St. Paul-Seattle trains began operating on June 18, 1893. They were numbered 3 & 4 (1 & 2 only went as far as Grand Forks) and didn’t have a name. The 1893 timetables called them the “Washington Line,” but this referred more to the route as opposed to the “Montana Line” which served Great Falls, Helena, and Butte. East of Pacific Junction, Montana (right outside of Havre), both “lines” were the same train. Continue reading →

Union Pacific Reaches Portland

Posted on by December 23, 2022
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Union Pacific was the second railroad to reach the Pacific Northwest, and it did it in the same way as the Northern Pacific: by building to the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company line and running its trains to Portland over that road. Journalist Henry Villard had gained control of the OR&N in 1875 and parlayed that into control of the then-under-construction Northern Pacific. After completing the latter line in 1883, he lost control of both, and so the OR&N was available for the picking by the Union Pacific.


Oregon Railway & Navigation locomotive 84 hauls what was probably the eastbound Overland Flyer up the Columbia River near the Dalles, Oregon in or soon after 1890. This 4-4-0 had been built in 1890 with 64″ drivers and produced 16,782 pounds of tractive effort. That was fine in the nearly flat Columbia Gorge, but double headers would be needed to climb more than 3,000 feet to the summit between Pendleton and LaGrande, going up some of the steepest grades on the entire Union Pacific Railroad. Click image for a larger view.

In 1884, the OR&N built a line over Oregon’s Blue Mountains to Baker. Union Pacific, meanwhile, incorporated a subsidiary called the Oregon Short Line and began building towards Oregon from Granger, Wyoming. The two railroads met in Huntington, near the Idaho border and 541 miles from Granger. OR&N remained a nominally independent railroad until 1898, but was happy to carry Union Pacific passengers to Portland starting in 1885. Continue reading →