It seemed rather a slap in the face of its parent company for the Burlington to combine the North Coast Limited, Northern Pacific’s premiere train, with the Black Hawk, as it did in yesterday’s timetable. So it is no surprise that in today’s timetable (scans for which were provided by Bryan Howell), issued four months later, the North Coast Limited was once again operated as a separate train between St. Paul and Chicago and it is the Oriental Limited that was combined with the Black Hawk.

Click image to download a 24.7-MB PDF of this 36-page timetable.

In 1948, both the Black Hawk and Oriental Limited were heavyweight trains. Northern Pacific advertised the North Coast Limited as streamlined, but that was only partially true: it still carried heavyweight tourist sleepers as well as head-end cars. Perhaps Burlington thought it could get away with the indignity of combining the NCL with the Black Hawk because most of the journey would be in the dark. Whether Northern Pacific complained or for some other reason, that combination only lasted for the summer of 1948.

In the four years since yesterday’s timetable, Burlington reduced the number of pages in its system timetables by four, which meant giving up the full-page ads on the inside and outside back covers. The other two pages were saved by condensing some of the condensed timetables.

Click image to download a 22.4-MB PDF of this 36-page timetable.

For example, the 1942 timetable devoted a full page to a condensed timetable for the Adventureland, Burlington’s train to Billings with through cars that went from Chicago, Omaha, and Cody to Glacier Park on the Great Northern. A train by that name was still on the 1946 timetable but it no longer had through cars west of Billings. A condensed schedule for the train was on the same page as condensed schedules for other trains between St. Louis/Kansas City and Lincoln/Denver. Continue reading →

This timetable restores the two pages of rail fares that were omitted from yesterday’s. Since the page count is still 40, this meant reducing the number of pages dedicated to ads to just two. The rail fares are about 10 percent higher than they were in 1940, which contributes to my suspicion that they were deleted from the previous timetable because Burlington was uncertain about a proposed rate increase.

Click image to download a 24.9-MB PDF of this 40-page timetable.

Of the two pages of ads, the inside back cover once again promises that Burlington will be able to meet wartime demand “without any impairment of the high quality service to which its patrons are accustomed.” One of those services is advertised on the back cover, namely taking people on vacations in the West. Continue reading →

Burlington included five full-page ads and one page with two half-page ads in this timetable. This is similar to 1939 and 1940 timetables. Among the full-page ads in this one are ones for the Exposition Flyer and a back-cover ad encouraging people to “visit 3 wonder spots on 1 Burlington ticket,” meaning Colorado, Glacier, and Yellowstone parks. A half-page ad invites people to write for a copy of Burlington’s 1941 booklet of escorted tours.

Click image to download a 27.0-MB PDF of this 44-page timetable.

The ad on the other half of that page promotes the Buffalo Bill, a short-lived train between Denver and Cody. The timetable on page 15 explains that this train operated three days a week by from June 25 through August 30. This train began operating in 1937 (when it went from June 23 through September 3) and continued through 1941. It did not run in 1942 for obvious reasons and was not revived after the war. Continue reading →