Canadian National April 1966 Timetable

Posted on by January 18, 2025
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The cover of this timetable is meant to look like an action photo but it just looks like an accidental double exposure. After putting scenic pictures of trains on the previous four timetable covers, this one is a disappointment. The inside front cover has a collage of train interior photos, and the photo of passengers enjoying views from the Sceneramic Lounge car would have made a much better cover.

Click image to download a 46.0-MB PDF of this 68-page timetable.

Also for the last several editions, including this one, the inside back cover is a photo collage of Jasper Park and scenes on the steamship journey from Vancouver to Skagway. While the ads cover the same ground, some of the photos change from issue to issue keeping the ads fresh. Continue reading →

Canadian National October 1965 Timetable

Posted on by January 18, 2025
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The front cover photo of this timetable shows the Super Continental in the Rocky Mountains with a Sceneramic Lounge car in the middle of the train. CN used the Sceneramic Lounge to separate coaches from sleeping cars, so the first four passenger cars are coaches and a coach-lounge while the car right behind the dome looks like it has duplex roomettes. A car with 24 duplex roomettes went between Toronto and Vancouver.

Click image to download a 48.2-MB PDF of this 68-page timetable.

Unfortunately, with this timetable CN stopped listing every car on its equipment pages. While the previous timetable reported exactly how many cars of each configuration went between Montreal and Vancouver, Toronto and Vancouver, and other segments, this one only says that the Super Continental had coach seats, sections, roomettes, and bedrooms with meal and lounge facilities.

Canadian National April 1965 Timetable

Posted on by January 18, 2025
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This CN timetable is the earliest one we have seen that features the ex-Milwaukee Super Domes and Sky-Top observation cars. CN purchased these cars in 1964 but they aren’t pictured in yesterday’s April 1964 timetable. I don’t have a copy of the October 1964 timetable, but its cover shows a Super Dome (which CN called a “Sceneramic Lounge”) in the Rocky Mountains; the same photo is shown on the inside front cover of this one.

Click image to download a 47.7-MB PDF of this 68-page timetable.

Today’s timetable says both the Super Continental and the Panorama carried Sceneramic Lounge cars between Vancouver and Edmonton. It doesn’t mention the Sky-Top cars but they went on the Ocean Limited and Scotian. Continue reading →

Canadian National April 1964 Timetable

Posted on by January 18, 2025
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On May 24, 1964, Canadian National introduced a new train: the Panorama, which replaced the Continental as the railway’s secondary transcontinental. The train carried three transcontinental coaches, seven transcontinental sleepers (plus one between Saskatoon and Jasper), a diner, cafe, and two lounge cars (one for coach and one for first-class).

Click image to download a 46.4-MB PDF of this 68-page timetable.

Two full-page ads, one in English and one in French, claim that the Panorama is an “identical twin” to the Super Continental with the same “top speed” schedule only during different hours so people could take a choice. These claims are typically exaggerated. Continue reading →

Canadian National October 1962 Timetable

Posted on by January 18, 2025
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The cover of the April 1962 timetable featured a collage of color photos showing trains, hotels, ships, and scenery that Canadians might want to see by taking CN trains. The cover on today’s also shows a collage but they are black-and-white photos so heavily tinted with red, blue, green, and yellow that nearly half are completely unrecognizable and the rest are not particularly enticing.

Click image to download a 48.1-MB PDF of this 68-page timetable.

An ad on the page numbered 50 assures us that CN continued to offer all-inclusive fares (covering transportation, meals, and tips) in the fall and winter of 1962. The October 1963 timetable, which was presented here a few years ago, doesn’t mention such fares, so CN must have decided that the Red, White, and Blue fare system that it introduced earlier in 1962 was enough to entice passengers during the off-season.

1962 Jasper Lodge Menu

Posted on by January 18, 2025
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Here’s a menu we’ve seen before only with a twist — or, rather, a perforation. The photograph can be torn off along the dotted line and the back is printed with the standard postcard divided back. A close examination of the images reveals that there are perforations following the dotted line.

Click image to download a 848-KB PDF of this menu contributed by Brian Leiteritz.

We’ve seen this before on a 1964 dinner menu that used the same photograph and was printed for use as a postcard on the back. However, there was no dotted line nor were there any perforations, suggesting guests would need to find scissors to turn their menus into postcards. It seems strange that CN would go to the trouble of printing the postcard text on the back without adding the perforations.

CN’s First Bilingual Timetable

Posted on by January 18, 2025
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While yesterday’s 1961 timetable, which immediately preceded this one, was 52 pages long, today’s April 1962 edition is 68 pages. One of the reasons for the increased length is that this is Canadian National’s first bilingual timetable. While yesterday’s timetable didn’t even include a token use of French, in today’s every table heading, every ad but one, and every informational page is printed in two different languages.

Click image to download a 46.0-MB PDF of this 68-page timetable.

The tables themselves are only in one language because most city names were spelled the same by both English and French speakers (though today’s uses Montréal while the 1961 edition used Montreal). But a lot more space was used for other sections, particularly for the ads and general information. The only ad that isn’t bilingual is a full-page ad for Trans-Canada Air Lines, which would go bilingual in the next timetable. Continue reading →

Canadian National October 1961 Timetable

Posted on by January 18, 2025
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Canadian National’s timetables dramatically shrunk in 1961. While the October 1960 timetable was still 84 pages, today’s is just 52 pages. In-between, the April 1961 timetable was 68 pages.

Click image to download a 37.3-MB PDF of this 52-page timetable.

The October 1960 timetable had about 170 different tables of CN train schedules. April 1961 had about 75, plus about 45 mixed-train services that didn’t actually have schedules, just mileages between stations. Today’s edition has about 90 tables, but no mixed trains. Ninety is a few more than 75 but still a big decline from the roughly 300 tables found in early 1950s timetables.

The page facing the inside back cover of this timetable features an ad for Trans-Canada Air Lines, something not found in the April 1961 edition. While air travel would be a major factor in the decline of passenger rail travel, this ad doesn’t directly compete with CN trains because it focuses on flights to London from Montreal, Vancouver, and other major Canadian cities.

Both Trans-Canada Air Lines and Canadian National Railways were state-owned companies. In fact, TCA was founded by CN in 1937. “The CNR was the country’s largest corporation at the time,” says Wikipedia, “and proved an effective vehicle for the government to create a national airline.” Continue reading →

Canadian National October 1959 Timetable

Posted on by January 18, 2025
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The back cover of this timetable advertises all-inclusive rates during the off-season on CN’s transcontinental trains. These rates included transportation, meals, and gratuities. A comparison of rates with those from yesterday’s winter 1958 timetable show that some of them were very attractive, at least for people inclined to travel during the fall or winter.

Click image to download a 51.6-MB PDF of this 84-page timetable.

Some of the 1959 all-inclusive rates were hardly any different from 1958’s transportation-only rates. Coach passengers going from Montreal to Winnipeg would have paid $47.20 in 1958 and just $48.00 in 1959, meals included. Coach from Montreal to Vancouver was almost as good a deal: $86.61 in 1958 vs. $92.00 in 1959. Continue reading →

Canadian National December 1958 Timetable

Posted on by January 18, 2025
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The back cover ad on this timetable is identical to the one on the April 1957 edition, which showed interior photos of CN coach, sleeping, dining, and lounge cars. At least the October 1957 back cover ad rearranged the photos, though it used the same ones along with the same text.

Click image to download a 54.8-MB PDF of this 84-page timetable.

Although the state-owned Canadian National called itself the People’s Railway in the 1920s, and its fares were a little lower than Canadian Pacific’s, the lower quality of its services sent a clear message to the people who rode it: you don’t deserve comfortable seats, interesting lounge cars, or dome cars that your economic superiors enjoyed when they rode Canadian Pacific. Even after CN acquired Milwaukee Super Domes, they were only open to sleeping car passengers, unlike CP trains that had one dome for sleeping car passengers and one for coach passengers (which wasn’t enough but better than nothing).