To commemorate the 175th anniversary of the birth of James J. Hill, who built and managed the Great Northern Railway, here is a video about Hill produced by the Minnesota Historical Society. The first person interviewed in the video is … Continue reading
“With the single exception of its eastern counterpart The 20th Century Limited,” wrote Lucius Beebe, the Overland Limited was for a period of time “the most radiant and celebrated train name in America.” Where the Century survived as a premiere … Continue reading
This colorful booklet describes the Golden State, the streamlined train that replaced the heavyweight Golden State Limited in January, 1948. The inside back cover of the brochure is marked “1-53,” suggesting it was printed in 1953, the last year the … Continue reading
The 1947 Empire Builder was Great Northern’s greatest train (at least, up until 1951, when the railroad replaced the train with an entirely new train). Many illustrations advertising the 1947 train showed five locomotives representing the five complete train sets … Continue reading
The vista-dome Denver Zephyr was the last complete streamliner built during the Silver Age of passenger trains. Put in service on October 26, 1956, to replace the aging 1936 Denver Zephyr and compete against an incrementally improved City of Denver, … Continue reading
In about 1980, Passenger Train Journal called the California Zephyr “the classic train of our time” even though the Chicago-Oakland train had stopped running a decade before. What made the CZ special was that, as one ad said, it was … Continue reading
For many years, the Southern Pacific considered the Sunset Limited its premiere transcontinental train, because it followed the only transcontinental route entirely owned by the Southern Pacific. Yet, as Wikipedia notes, it was also “the last among the big American … Continue reading
On July 10, 1949, the Southern Pacific inaugurated the Shasta Daylight, which covered the 714 miles between Portland and Oakland in 15-1/2 mostly daylight hours. The train featured extra-large “skyview” windows to allow passengers to get better looks at the … Continue reading
Coming in a distant third after the streamlined Empire Builder and Olympian Hiawatha, the Northern Pacific’s streamlined North Coast Limited appeared in stages in 1948 when heavyweight cars were replaced by new streamlined cars as they were delivered by Pullman. … Continue reading
On the heels of the streamlined Empire Builder, the Milwaukee Road introduced the Olympian Hiawatha to its Seattle-Chicago run on June 29, 1947. Yet only some of the cars were streamlined on that date, as the Milwaukee had not yet … Continue reading
