“It’s surprising how much of California’s unusual attractions vacation travelers can see” in two weeks, urges this brochure to travel agents. This would allow two days each in Los Angeles, San Diego (with a side trip to Mexico), Yosemite, and San Francisco with time for some side trips to other California places such as Catalina Island, Santa Barbara, and Del Monte. Other side trips could include Yellowstone, Colorado, Bryce, Zion, the Grand Canyon, and “gigantic Boulder Dam,” but only “if you route your patrons via Union Pacific.”

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While the map on the cover of this brochure doesn’t include Portland, the text notes that tourists who wanted to visit the Rose City could “add the thrill of a return trip on Union Pacific’s new, high-speed train, The Streamliner–City of Portland.” The streamliner had entered service on June 6, 1935, less than a month before this brochure was published. The term “high-speed train” made sense as it was 20 hours faster than any other train between Chicago and the West Coast. Passengers to Los Angeles would have to wait until May 1936 and those to San Francisco until June before they could take a train that was that fast. Continue reading →

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.

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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 →

“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.

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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 →