Category Archives: Uncategorized

Southern Pacific’s Overland Route promotions, 1950s

Posted on December 9, 2015 by Gary Garth McCann

Like the Golden State, the City of San Francisco never had its own full-color brochure after the train became daily in the late forties because the train sets varied. Southern Pacific included the Overland Route as one of its four … Continue reading →

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Union Pacific station, Cheyenne, Wyoming: “Lady, if all your things were on that train, you should’ve been on it, too.”

Posted on June 9, 2015 by Gary Garth McCann

You don’t have to do much reading between the lines to see what was going on. In the late ’40s my Aunt Lacy and “a gal” she met were having highballs in the club car with some soldiers on the … Continue reading →

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Frisco Meteor arriving St. Louis

Posted on June 12, 2014 by Gary Garth McCann

As the caption to this photo from Steve Glischinski’s Burlington Northern and Its Heritage says, the Meteor is reduced to mostly headend traffic by the time this summer 1965 photo was taken by Jim Boyd. Inaugurated in the late forties, … Continue reading →

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Rock Island, Southern Pacific Golden State sleepers on Pennsylvania Admiral at Horseshoe Curve

Posted on May 23, 2014 by Gary Garth McCann

Click to enlarge the photo and click again to enlarge the enlargement. The Admiral is two hours late, according to the caption of this photo from Don Ball, Jr.’s Pennsylvania Railroad 1940s-1950s. The sleepers from the Golden State are coming through from … Continue reading →

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Santa Fe’s Chicagoan, Dallas, 1966

Posted on May 23, 2014 by Gary Garth McCann

By 1954, The Chicagoan/Kansas Cityan carried a full-length dome lounge car (“Big Dome Lounge” Santa Fe called them) from Oklahoma City to Chicago and picked up its parlor observation car from Tulsa at Kansas City. With both of these cars … Continue reading →

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Rio Grande Royal Gorge in the Royal Gorge, Colorado

Posted on May 3, 2014 by Gary Garth McCann

  This photo of the streamlined (more or less) Royal Gorge is from the Rio Grande promotional booklet, the cover of which is shown below.   The black-and-white photo below is reproduced from the booklet “Railroads at Work,” published for children by the Association … Continue reading →

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Rock Island and Southern Pacific Golden State Limited: in the lounge car

Posted on May 3, 2014 by Gary Garth McCann

  This wonderful Southern Pacific photo, reproduced here from Beebe and Clegg The Trains We Rode, predates the streamlined life of the Golden State. The authors’ caption reads, in part, “A highball with a fellow traveler in the lounge as the New … Continue reading →

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Rock Island and Southern Pacific Californian: at the bar

Posted on May 3, 2014 by Gary Garth McCann

The Californian didn’t live to become a streamliner, although some streamlined chair cars were added to its consist in the ’30s. Soon after WWII, two Chicago-West Coast trains were “dropped,” one of them the Californian. What actually happened were name changes. The … Continue reading →

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North Coast Limited: springtime in the Rockies?

Posted on April 18, 2014 by Gary Garth McCann

Second to the California Zephyr, the NCL was probably the most photographed train in the late 50s and 60s. In this Bill Duvall photo, from the 1985 NRHS Potomac Chapter calendar, the train is in Jefferson Canyon, Montana. It looks … Continue reading →

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Rock Island 1961 timetable

Posted on April 18, 2014 by Gary Garth McCann

Click to enlarge, and click on the enlargement to enlarge further. I only reproduced the condensed schedules here. All schedules fpr all railroads are available in the Official Guide of the Railways, limited hardcopy and electronic reprints available from the Cape Ann … Continue reading →

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