Here are four more of Dale Hastin’s Milwaukee Road blotters. The PDFs range from 300 to 500 KB in size. Inaugurated in 1898, the Pioneer Limited was Milwaukee’s first named train and long its premiere overnight train. This blotter advertises … Continue reading
These blotters from the Dale Hastin collection were all issued by the Milwaukee Road before the war. The PDFs are 300 to 500 kilobytes in size. The first one is the easiest to date as it advertises the 1933 Chicago … Continue reading
Chicago was the center of a spider web of railroads heading in all directions. These blotters from the Dale Hastin collection represent some of the smaller railroads in that web. Click any image to download a PDF of that blotter. … Continue reading
The Chicago & Eastern Illinois went due south from Chicago to Evansville, Indiana. It also built a branch line to St. Louis in 1954. Until that year, its Chicago-St. Louis passenger trains, which started operating in 1904, relied on trackage … Continue reading
Here are three more Missouri Pacific/Texas & Pacific blotters from Dale Hastin’s collection. The first has a 1947 calendar on it, which means it was probably printed in 1946. This blotter is somewhat premature. The first Eagle streamliner was inaugurated … Continue reading
Here are four more Missouri Pacific blotters from the Dale Hastin collection. They all have the “Service Institution” slogan and none mention the Eagle streamline, which was inaugurated in 1940, so I suspect they are from before 1940. Other than … Continue reading
These blotters from the Dale Hastin collection tell a story of the progressive installation of air conditioning in MP’s passenger fleet. This blotter is from early in the air conditioning era as it indicates that only diners and lounges were … Continue reading
Before World War II, the Missouri Pacific loved to use the thrilling and completely meaningless motto, “A Service Institution.” These blotters all appear to be from the pre-air conditioning era, which would put them in the 1920s or early 1930s. … Continue reading
Completed in 1897, Kansas City Southern‘s line from Kansas City to Port Arthur, Texas, may have carried a lot of freight, but it didn’t attract many passengers. However, in 1939 KCS merged with the Louisiana & Arkansas Railway, creating a … Continue reading
The Chicago & Alton (whose name was changed to simply the Alton Railroad in 1931) offered as many as seven trains a day each way between Chicago and St. Louis. The following blotter advertises its premiere train: the Alton Limited. … Continue reading
