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Amtrak’s U.S.A. Rail Pass was supposed to provide a small discount to people who wanted to travel from, say, Los Angeles to New York and back. In 1976, when this brochure was issued, a 14-day pass was $165; 21 days … Continue reading
Category Archives: Amtrak
Some people, including at least one of Amtrak’s original board members, believed that Amtrak’s proper role was to phase out passenger trains. That goal was aborted when by the 1970s energy crises, thus giving Amtrak an apparent reason for existence: … Continue reading
Dated September, 1975, this ticket envelope looks like a passenger car with stainless steel ribbed siding. Though introduced in 1934, such ribs remained a modern design in the public mind four decades later. Click image to download a 898-KB PDF … Continue reading
Beginning in 1975, Amtrak began using French Turboliners on the Chicago-Detroit Blue Water Limtied. The first new trains purchased by Amtrak, the French called them Rame à Turbine à Gaz (RTG), for “gas turbine train.” This brochure refers to the … Continue reading
In 1974, Spokane held an international exposition to celebrate the relocation of Burlington Northern and Union Pacific tracks from directly through to around the downtown area. Unfortunately, this also meant the destruction of two of the city’s three train stations, … Continue reading
First-class sleeping car passengers received this packet of materials, enclosed in a sealed plastic bag, from Amtrak in the 1970s. There’s no date on any of these materials, but the “First Class” logo matches the logo used on yesterday’s 1972 … Continue reading
Amtrak’s New York-to-Florida trains–the Silver Meteor and Silver Star–were some of its most popular overnight routes, and in 1972 1985 Amtrak encouraged people on these trains to go first class, meaning by sleeping car. As described in this brochure, first-class … Continue reading
Amtrak may have issued its own menus before this one, which is dated April, 1972. But it seems likely that it depended on the menu stock it inherited from the private railroads for many months. When it did make its … Continue reading
This menu is identical to the one with the Missouri River bridge on the cover. The other side of this menu, however, is blank; perhaps Amtrak ran out of Union Pacific’s preprinted menus. It will always be clear which sites … Continue reading
Union Pacific liked big, powerful locomotives, and in 1963 it asked Alco, General Electric, and General Motors to design Diesels that could produce at least 5,000 horsepower. Alco responded with the Alco Century 855, the most powerful Diesel built up … Continue reading