Birdseye View of Great Salt Lake Basin

Posted on by July 13, 2022
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Despite the name on the cover, the map on the back of this brochure only shows the Salt Lake Basin north of Ogden. Moreover, it extends well beyond the basin into the Snake River and Missouri River headwaters. Basically, it is a map showing Union Pacific’s branch line to Butte, but it also shows a rail line extending to Helena, which Union Pacific didn’t reach.

Click image to download a 31.5-MB PDF of this brochure.

Union Pacific once went as far as Garrison, Montana, about 50 miles north of Butte. The Butte-Garrison portion was called the Montana Union Railway and it was jointly owned by Northern Pacific and Union Pacific. In 1898, five years after this brochure was published, UP decided it didn’t need to reach Garrison, so it leased its half of the line to Northern Pacific for 999 years. Continue reading →

The Pacific Slope in 1893

Posted on by July 13, 2022
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This birdseye map show the “Pacific Slope,” which mostly means California with bits of Nevada off in the distance. Having been made in the early 1890s, almost all of the rail lines shown on the map are Southern Pacific, and the few exceptions are Santa Fe. Not one mile of Union Pacific track is shown, but railroads often advertised destinations they didn’t actually serve if getting to those destinations meant using their lines for part of the route.

Click image to download a 25.7-MB PDF of this brochure.

The Southern Pacific’s Coast Line was not yet complete, with a large gap between Santa Margarita and Santa Barbara that wouldn’t be closed until 1900. There’s no hint of the Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad, whose construction began in 1901. Passengers going to southern California had to take the Union Pacific to Ogden (not shown), the Central Pacific (by 1890 leased to the Southern Pacific) to Sacramento, and then the Southern Pacific down the Central Valley to Los Angeles and from there the California Southern (part of the Santa Fe) if they wanted to go to San Diego. Continue reading →

The Great Plains in 1890

Posted on by July 13, 2022
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Here’s another “birdseye view” from the “World Pictorial Line,” a.k.a. the Union Pacific. The map in the brochure shows UP routes from Omaha to Cheyenne, Kansas City to Denver, and many of the routes in-between. Unlike yesterday’s brochure, nearly all of these routes remain in Union Pacific hands today.

Click image to download a 21.3-MB PDF of this brochure.

It seems strange to me that these brochures would be headed “World Pictorial Line” without actually including any pictures other than the map and a faint view of a ghostly, generic mountain (which certainly did not exist on the Great Plains) on the cover. Considering that Northern Pacific at about the same time was publishing brochures that were full of black-and-white photographs and colorful illustrations, Union Pacific’s choice to use a 15,000-word essay instead seems questionable. Continue reading →

The Texas Panhandle in 1890

Posted on by July 13, 2022
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“By the recent acquisition of the Denver, Texas & Fort Worth Railway, the Union Pacific System controls an imperial domain extending from the mountain heights of Colorado to the Gulf [of] Mexico,” proclaims this brochure, which includes a colorful “birdseye” map of territory extending from Cheyenne to Fort Worth. Completed in 1888, the Denver, Texas & Fort Worth, which Wikipedia calls the Fort Worth and Denver Railway, was built by Grenville Dodge, who also led construction of much of the Union Pacific.

Click image to download a 22.0-MB PDF of this brochure.

Union Pacific gained control of it in January, 1890 but lost control when UP went bankrupt in the panic of 1893. The Fort Worth & Denver was reformed as the Colorado & Southern, which the Burlington Route bought in 1908. By that time, the Burlington was controlled by James J. Hill while Union Pacific was controlled by Edward Harriman, so the loss of the Fort Worth route to Hill must have been annoying to Harriman. Continue reading →

Welcome Aboard the Golden State in 1954

Posted on by June 9, 2022
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Having lost the speed race when UP and Santa Fe reduced the times of their premiere Chicago-Los Angeles trains to 39-3/4 hours, Southern Pacific/Rock Island’s Golden State was a distinctly third-rate train in the 1950s. So this six-panel welcome-aboard brochure from 1954 was a bit thinner than the eight-panel brochures handed out to passengers on the Santa Fe Chief and comparable trains in the 1960s.

Click image to download a 800-KB PDF of this brochure.

One panel of this brochure describes the amenities found aboard and available to coach passengers, including reclining seats and lounge cars. The Santa Fe brochures devote three panels to this, including photos showing how to use headrests, leg rests, and other features. Two panels of this brochure briefly describe 34 points along the way from Chicago to Los Angeles; three panels of the Santa Fe brochures describe 39 points along the way. The Santa Fe brochures also include the train’s eastbound and westbound timetables, something that is absent from the Golden State brochure. Continue reading →

Lowered in Baskets to Chip a Ledge for the RR

Posted on by July 30, 2022
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This issue of West, the first I’ve seen dated later than 1942, celebrates the 75th anniversary of the completion of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific transcontinental railroad. The cover drawing shows Chinese workers being “lowered in baskets to chip a ledge for the roadbed in the granite cliffs.” In fact, this was a myth made up to impress early tourists and repeated by many historians since then based on little evidence. What we do know is that the vertical cliffs shown in the image were in fact only 45 to 70 degrees, which would have made it difficult to lower anyone in a basket.

Click image to download a 3.7-MB PDF of this brochure.

The cover drawing is signed W.R. Cameron, which means William Ross Cameron (1893-1971), a New York-born artist who moved to San Francisco when he was 12. There he studied art and worked as a staff artist for the Oakland Post, San Francisco Chronicle, and Call Bulletin newspapers as well as a freelance artist. Continue reading →

Elephant Tower and Tower of the Sun

Posted on by June 9, 2022
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The 1939 Golden Gate Expo was supposed to be a “Pageant of the Pacific,” celebrating the diverse cultures represented in the United States, Latin America, and Asia. This is shown in the two buildings on the cover of this menu. The tower in the background is an Italian renaissance style that might be found in U.S. places such as the University of California at Berkeley. The foreground building, which was designed by San Francisco artist Donald Macky, is an “an eclectic mixing of Oriental and Mesoamerican design.”

Click image to download a 637-KB PDF of this menu.

In contrast, this lunch menu, which was dated May 1939, made little attempt to encourage dining car patrons to try foods from different cultures. Entrées on the table d’hôte side include lamb chips, club steak, creamed chicken Delmonico, an omelet in brown sauce, and pork sausage with Spanish rice and apple fritters. The a la carte side adds the usual assortment of fish, poultry, and red meats. The only “Pacific-oriented” item on the menu was Hawaiian pineapple for dessert.

Crater Lake Menu for the Californian

Posted on by May 26, 2022
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The Californian was Southern Pacific’s Chicago-Los Angeles economy train, operating from 1936 to 1947 in competition with Union Pacific’s Challenger. This 1938 menu folder is fancier than the ones used on the pre-war Challenger, which were usually just cards. But the prices were economical: lamb chopsweare 30¢ or 55¢ for two, vs. 45¢ and 85¢ on a regular 1938 SP dinner menu. Grilled fish was 50¢ on this menu, 75¢ on the other one.

Click image to download a 600-KB PDF of this menu.

Expensive items such as sirloin steaks were absent from this menu. It also doesn’t have a table d’hôte section, though an insert offered a plate dinner with fish or turkey plus vegetables, bread, dessert, and beverage — no soup or salad — for just 35¢. A similar table d’hôte meal on the regular menu was at least 90¢, though that came with soup and salad. Continue reading →

Southern Pacific Daylight in Color

Posted on by May 26, 2022
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We’ve previously seen a name-train booklet for the first Daylight train. This one is much fancier, with full color illustrations of train interiors and exteriors. It wasn’t unusual for railroads to produce two booklets to introduce new trains, one for VIPs and one for ordinary people; compare, for example, this full-color booklet with this one-color booklet for the 1947 streamlined Empire Builder.

Click image to download a 4.7-MB PDF of this 16-page booklet.

Neither of the Daylight booklets are dated, but as the train was introduced in 1937 and the illustration’s in today’s booklet are all paintings, not photos, it is likely from 1937 while the other one, which has black-and-white interior photos, might be from that year or a year or so later. Railroads often relied on illustrations from the manufacturer to advertise a train before the train itself was delivered but often used photos after they were avaiable. Continue reading →

Midsummer Night’s Dream Dinner Menu

Posted on by May 26, 2022
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Austrian theater and film director Max Reinhardt staged A Midsummer Night’s Dream for five nights at the Hollywood Bowl in September, 1934, and then five nights at the San Francisco Opera House and two nights at UC Berkeley in October. The plays featured many famous stars including James Cagney, Dick Powell, Olivia de Havilland, Mickey Rooney, and Joe E. Brown.

Click image to download a 691-KB PDF of this menu.

These plays are described on this menu, which otherwise is much like yesterday’s. Unmentioned is the fact that Reinhardt first staged this play on Broadway in New York City in 1927. Curiously, Reinhardt didn’t speak English and had to have a translator for all of his directions. Continue reading →