This timetable has two different schedules for the Afternoon Zephyr and North Coast Limited between Chicago and the Twin Cities. From June 1 through September 26, the two trains operated as in previous timetables. But before June 1 and after September 26, the times of the westbound Afternoon Zephyr are adjusted so that it can be combined with the westbound Empire Builder while the times of the eastbound North Coast Limited are adjusted so that it can be combined with the eastbound Empire Builder.

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This effectively reduced the Burlington’s Chicago-Twin Cities service to four trains a day. The Empire Builder didn’t change its schedule, but it did lose its observation car in the non-summer months. The Afternoon Zephyr needed its observation car, which was also its first-class parlor car. The North Coast Limited needed its observation car, which was also its beverage lounge. The Empire Builder‘s beverage lounge was underneath its full-length dome while its observation car offered just eight seats and no beverage service so it could lose that car with little loss of passenger comfort. Continue reading →

We’ve already seen Burlington’s November 1959 timetable, which followed yesterday’s, last November. That one didn’t make any major changes from the May 1959 edition.

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This one, however, does include some changes. The California Zephyr and Denver Zephyr, which each previously had their own page, are fitted together on one page in this timetable. The condensed Chicago-Denver and Chicago-Twin Cities schedules, which each had their own page, are also crammed into one page in this timetable. Continue reading →

With this edition, Burlington system timetables shrank from 36 to 32 pages. This was made possible by reducing the number of pages of condensed timetables from nine to seven, reducing the number of pages showing connections from two to one, and eliminating the back cover advertisement (again).

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One change from the previous timetable was that trains 45 and 52, overnight locals between Chicago and Minneapolis, were cut back to Chicago-Savanna, just 145 miles instead of 427. Operating late at night westbound and early in the morning eastbound, this train made about a dozen stops that were skipped by every other train in the corridor. It must have been mainly mail and express because it only carried a coach for passengers. I’m not sure if anyone missed it not going to the Twin Cities any longer, but it reduced the number of Burlington’s daily Chicago-Minneapolis trains to five. Continue reading →

By the mid-1950s, Burlington was regularly issuing new timetables in May (which generally went into effect in the last days of April) and November (which generally went into effect in the last days of October), so it is odd to have a timetable dated February (which, in fact, went into effect on February 1). The main difference from the November 1957 timetable is that Burlington merged the Chicago-Lincoln Nebraska Zephyr and the Chicago-Denver Coloradan into one train.

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In 1957, the Nebraska Zephyr left Chicago at 9:30 am and the Coloradan at 11:20 am. As a merged train, they compromised and left at 10:30 am. The eastbound Coloradan had arrived in Chicago at 7:55 pm and the Nebraska Zephyr 8:45 pm while the merged train arrived at 8:20. Continue reading →

I don’t see any attrition of scheduled trains on this timetable, so now is as good a time as any to bring up a subject I’ve mentioned before: Burlington’s sometimes weird way of numbering its trains. Most railroads used successive integers, such as 1 and 2 or 3 and 4, to number most of their trains, usually with odd numbered trains going west and even numbers going east. Burlington followed the even-odd convention but often did not use successive numbers for paired trains.

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The Denver Zephyr, Burlington’s premiere train, was not numbered 1 & 2 but 1 & 10. The Ak-Sar-Ben Zephyr was not numbered 3 & 4 but 3 & 30. The Coloradan was not numbered 19 & 20 but 19 & 6. Chicago-to-Galesburg train 15 was paired with train 2. The St. Louis-Twin Cities Zephyr-Rocket was not numbered 8 & 9 but 8 & 15, which was doubly confusing because there was already a train 15 from Chicago to Galesburg. Continue reading →