The Chicago & Alton had passenger trains between Chicago & St. Louis, St. Louis & Kansas City; and Chicago & Kansas City. In 1884, it offered two trains a day on each route, and this timetable provided schedules in both directions.

Click image to download a 10.9-MB PDF of this timetable, which is from the David Rumsey map collection.

The timetable calls the St. Louis-Kansas City trains “day express” and “night express.” The Chicago-St. Louis trains are called “express” and “lightning express” (even though it is only five minutes faster than the express). But, since Kansas City was the Alton’s access to “all points west,” the timetable lists the two Chicago-Kansas City trains as the “Kansas City, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona & California Express” and “Kansas City, Denver, Pueblo, Leadville & California Fast Express” (even though the latter was slower than the former).

For someone in Chicago, the fastest way to Colorado or California would be to take one of several railroads direct to Council Bluffs and thence the Union Pacific west. The routing through Kansas City would have to take more time, but this timetable describes connections at Kansas City with the Santa Fe and Union Pacific and connections in St. Louis with the Frisco and Iron Mountain.

The brochure brags that Alton trains run “Palace reclining chair cars,” “Pullman Palace sleeping cars,” and “Palace dining cars” where first-class meals were served for 75¢. But the largest headlines are reserved for the claim that no changes of cars were required for Chicago-St. Louis, St. Louis-Kansas City, or Chicago-Kansas City trips.