The Burlington and Rock Island railroads each served both Minneapolis and St. Louis, but the shortest Burlington route between the two cities was 615 miles and the shortest Rock Island route was much longer. By using the Rock Island for … Continue reading
The Choctaw Route, or more formally the Choctaw, Oklahoma and Gulf Railroad, extended from West Memphis, Arkansas to Amarillo, Texas in 1902 when it was purchased by the Rock Island Railroad. Rock Island extended the line to Memphis, TN on … Continue reading
Before introducing the eight-car “Train of the Gods” in 1936, Burlington started Twin Zephyr service with two three-car trains that externally were nearly identical to the original Zephyr. Inside, the original Zephyr had a railway post office, baggage compartment, and … Continue reading
This unusually sized brochure unfolds to about 11″ by 17″ and has all the usual photos of the dome diner (including the private dining room, with roses wallpaper, beneath the dome), dome lounge, and dome coach. It isn’t dated, but … Continue reading
SP’s 1938 brochure for the budget-priced Californian was printed in black-and-white with red trim. For 1940, SP issued an all-new brochure printed in “natural color,” meaning Kodachrome photographs printed with the CYMK four-color process. Although this is a great improvement, … Continue reading
By 1963, when it issued this brochure, Northern Pacific had finally brought its flagship train up to the standard set by the Empire Builder by the addition of new diners and home-rebuilt Traveller’s Rest cars, both of which are pictured … Continue reading
This brochure’s cover describes the Canadian as “Canada’s only dome-equipped streamliner.” But Canadian Pacific owned 36 dome cars and needed only half of them for the Canadian. The other CP train with dome cars — the Dominion — mixed streamlined … Continue reading
In the early 1960s, Americans were running scared that other countries were getting ahead of them in various technologies. Russia beat the United States to outer space with Sputnik in 1957. Kennedy won the White House by claiming that there … Continue reading
In April, 1983, the Rio Grande Railroad stopped running its three-day-a-week Rio Grande Zephyr and allowed Amtrak to run its Chicago-Oakland train over Rio Grande rails between Denver and Ogden. With that change, Amtrak renamed its San Francisco Zephyr to … Continue reading
In 1980, with support from the state of Oregon, Amtrak added two trains per day between Eugene and Portland–a route already served by a third train, the Coast Starlight. I was on the inaugural run of the Willamette Valley trains … Continue reading
