This is the condensed version of the 28-page timetable shown yesterday. Tables for all ten of GN’s trains, from the Empire Builder and Western Star to the Portland pool train and the Havre-Great Falls branch line train, fit on the … Continue reading
After using the color photo of the Empire Builder in Glacier Park on the cover of just two timetables–summer and winter, 1966–the railway decided to rebrand itself using Big Sky Blue in place of the orange-and-green train in that photo. … Continue reading
In 1966, GN replaced its long-running blue timetable cover with this beautiful photograph of the Empire Builder along the south boundary of Glacier National Park. Note that the locomotives are painted in the pre-1962 colors rather than the later simplified … Continue reading
In just two years, Great Northern shed all but three of the 25 local and branch line trains found in its 1960 timetable. The only such trains remaining in 1962 were from Barnesville to Crookston, MN, Breckenridge, MN to Minot, … Continue reading
Great Northern’s summer, 1960 timetable had a similar cover to the 1957 timetable, but that similarity disguises dramatic changes in the schedules for some of the railway’s major trains. Most important, starting in the summer of 1960, trains 3 & … Continue reading
Starting in 1957, GN replaced the orange-and-green timetable covers it used in the early 1950s with this blue-and-red cover featuring Great Domes on the Incomparable Empire Builder. Inside, there are some font changes and slight changes in schedules, but the … Continue reading
America’s railroads carried more passengers in 1944 than any other year in history: four-and-a-half times as many passenger miles as in 1937, eight times as many as 1932, and more than twice as many as in 1920, the previous peak. … Continue reading
This simple card lists 1938 fares from Portland to Chicago on the Empire Builder. The one-way coach fare was $39.50–more than $500 today. A lower berth in tourist class was $56.96, or about $750 today, while a lower berth in … Continue reading
When the Empire Builder replaced the Oriental Limited as Great Northern’s premiere train in 1929, the latter name replaced the Glacier Park Limited for the secondary train. But with the Depression, business dropped off so much that GN was forced … Continue reading
One of the last timetables before Great Northern inaugurated the Empire Builder, this is one of the curious timetables (of which we’ll see more) in which the cover page, shown below, is actually the last page, while the first page … Continue reading
