Yesterday’s timetable briefly mentioned that “CN Turbos” were “coming in ’68 to speed you between Toronto and Montreal in record-breaking time.” The United Aircraft TurboTrains were based on a Chesapeake & Ohio design that in turn was based on the 1949 Talgo train.

Click image to download a 38.1-MB PDF of this 56-page timetable.

With the initial construction of the trains funded by a grant from the U.S. government, Canadian National placed an order for five trainsets in May 1966. Although it expected to put Turbo three trips a day into service in the summer of 1967, technical difficulties delayed operation. According to Wikipedia, service began December 12, 1969, but Turbos don’t appear on any of my timetables until April 1971, and then they disappear again until April 1974.

This timetable indicates that CN expected to run the Turbo non-stop between Montreal and Toronto in 3 hours 59 minutes, and with one stop in 4 hours and 4 minutes. This was nearly an hour quicker than the Rapido, which took 4 hours 59 minutes with two stops. However, the timetable notes that “Effective date of Turbo Service to be announced.”

This timetable shows the Super Continental having 14 cars to Vancouver, none of which are a Sceneramic dome car. The Panorama was cut to a Winnipeg-Vancouver train, with no train east of Winnipeg. It included only 8 cars to Vancouver, but one of them was a Sceneramic Lounge car. The Scotian is shown having a Skyview lounge car but the Ocean is not.