The SP&S carried through cars from the Empire Builder and North Coast Limited to Portland, allowing the GN and NP to say their premiere transcontinental trains served both Seattle and Portland. This placemat incongruously depict’s the railway’s main cities: Spokane … Continue reading
Here’s a placemat from the Challenger, the Union Pacific’s answer to Santa Fe’s El Capitan. But where the El Capitan was an extra-fare train that happened to have exclusively coach seating, the Challenger was designed as an economy train, with … Continue reading
Like the Great Northern’s placemat, this Santa Fe placemat shows a map of the railroad, in this case surrounded by hints of sights seen along the way. But this placemat is much simpler, being printed only in one color. What … Continue reading
While the dining cars of premiere trains such as the Empire Builder and–in its early years, at least–the Western Star used heavy linen tablecloths, secondary trains such as the Red River and Internationals used paper placemats instead. Paper placemats were … Continue reading
One of my earlier posts criticized the 1948 North Coast Limited for having a drab and inadequate lounge car. That finally changed in June, 1955 when the NP converted its coach-buffet-lounge cars into the Traveller’s Rest cars, an homage to … Continue reading
