This is an update of the 1884 timetable shown here a month ago. At that time, I noted that the timetable was “peculiar” because it focused on connections with other railroads rather than displaying the Southern Pacific’s own timetables. The times of SP’s once-a-day, unnamed New Orleans-San Francisco train were shown but in a condensed format (only 16 intermediate stops) as part of the connections with eastern railroads.

Click image to download an 18.3-MB PDF of this brochure, which is from the David Rumsey map collection.

Today’s timetable rectifies this by using two panels to show the detailed timetable from New Orleans to San Francisco (though not the reverse), including roughly 300 intermediate stops. The timetable identifies the train as the “Sunset” Pacific Express, quotation marks in the original. The Sunset Limited, which made far fewer stops, would begin running in 1894.

A second train from New Orleans to San Antonio is also shown in the connecting-train schedules. These include connections with the Chesapeake & Ohio and Erie (which were also in the 1884 timetable) as well as the New York Central and Pennsylvania (which were not). The timetable also has several panels of steamship connections, but like the 1884 one doesn’t have a schedule for Southern Pacific’s own steamships between New Orleans and New York City, even though they are marked on the map.