Milwaukee Road 1910 Timetable

A friend of Streamliner Memories provided scans of this timetable, which is in poor shape but still very readable. It is missing a page which was a fold-out map that was torn out. Otherwise, all of the timetables should be there.

Click image to download a 49.2-MB PDF of this 48-page timetable.

The 1910 was a heady time for the Milwaukee, which had just finished building its Pacific extension from Mobridge, South Dakota to Seattle in 1909, making it the only railroad whose line went all the way from Chicago to the Northwest. The first Milwaukee passenger trains to Seattle started service in July, 1910, and a timetable for the as-yet-unnamed train is shown on panels 73 through 76 (physical pages 36 and 37). In what was probably the next timetable after this one–May, 1911–the railroad inaugurated both the Olympian and Columbian on this route.

Unfortunately, all would not be well for the Milwaukee. First, the Pacific extension cost more than six times as much as the railroad’s original projections. Second, the extension by-passed many of the largest cities on its way, including Spokane and Billings. Third, the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 would drastically reduce the demand for transcontinental freight shipments. These things pushed the railroad in the bankruptcy in 1925.

Stanley Johnson, the author of a wonderful book about taking a trip on the Olympian, has put together a detailed timeline of Milwaukee history and made it available to Streamliner Memory readers. If you like Northwest rail history, you will find it interesting.


Leave a Reply