Bear with me please. I have a question that rail fans might be able to answer. I hope this is the right forum if not my apologys.
In 1958 I took a train from St. Louis Mo. to Chicago, there I boarded another train to Portland Oragon an then to Tacoma Washington. I remember I rode in a doomed car from Chicago to Portland. I believe the train went through a wash rack in Fargo. I remember the columbia river valley and following the river. Now fifty years later I have an interest in modeling the Great Northern railroad, Now I am wondering would that train have to have been the GN or could I have rode on another railroad? I do not remember the green and gold cars. Silver comes to mind but I’m not sure. [%-)]
You could have been on The Empire Builder of the Great Northern or The North Coast Limited of the Northen Pacific. The two trains ran on the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy as far as St. Paul, Minnesota. Silver cars in the consist would have been CB&Q cars. I don’t think the GN had started their Blue, White, and Black scheme yet so would have been the original Empire Builder colors and the NP would still have been the two tone green.
There were times that the CB&Q ran one of their trains with the Empire Builder and the North Coast Limited all coupled together. Don’t know whether that was the case in 1958 as I don’t have copies of the Official Guide from that year. In June of 1959 the two trains ran separately from Chicago to St. Paul.
I am not a GN, NP or SP&S (Spokane, Portland & Seattle Ry) authority, but if he came through Portland, Oregon, and came down the North Bank of the Columbia River, I suspect that it was either the Northern Pacific or the SP&S. Again, I’m no authority on these three roads, but I don’t recall if the GN came to Portland or not, though I do know that the NP and the SP&S did, as well as the Union Pacific on the South bank of the Columbia River. I’m GLAD that you survived your trip in a “DOOMED” car [swg]. Never had the chance, but I hear that the view from the dome cars was spectacular.
So, it could have been another line. I don’t remember changing any place except Chicago and Portland. At the time it didn’t dawn on me to take pictures are keep anything. As a very young serviceman I was not thinking about looking back fifty years and trying to remember.
Thanks, maybe someone else will add their thoughts.
If you travelled along the North Bank of the Columbia River it was the SP&S that carried cars from the GN Empire Builder from Spokane or the NP North Coast Limited from Pasco. Both operated via Chicago and Fargo. You mentioned that you rode a dome so that also points to the premier train of the GN or NP. Any other information you may recall would be very helpful. I rode both trains so could possibly help if their is any other information you can recall.
Do You remember were you on the North or South Bank of the Columbia? I doubt that if You went through Fargo, it was on the City of Portland (UP) but if it was on the South bank it could have been the UP, The City of Portland ran from Chicago to…wait for it…You Guessed it Portland, Oregon. Union Pacific didn’t go to Chicago, but they did team with the Milwaukee Road until 1955, then with the CNW after that to serve Chicago.
Yes it was a spectacular trip. I boarded the dome car in Chicago and never left it until I got to Portland except to eat, which I did in the first class diner. I always had the impression later that I wasn’t suppose to be there except that I was in uniform and no one ever said a word about it. Things have really changed. I left from Union Station in St. Louis, It is now a Hotel and shoping center. I havn’t been in it in years and the stores may have gone out of business.
I seem to remember being on the north shore of the Columbia although that maybe a false memory. Second thought! My ticket took me to Portland even though I was going to SeaTac airport. I may have taken a bus from Portland, not sure.
It is the silver that indicates you probably were on the North Coast Limited. Silver cars rarely appeared on the Empire Builder at the time, because the GN was more careful of preserving a color-matched consist than the NP, where stainless steel fluted Budd equipment operated in some sort of pool service with NP equipment. So I suspect it was the North Coast Limited. But except for one or two cars, the train would have been two-tone green. Cream or white trip, if I remember correctly, no gold.
Other characteristics of the NP train: The “NOMAD” circular symbol, circle with the wiggle divider in it, a Chinese symbol appropriated by the NP as its trademark as a gateway to Pacific commerce. The interior of each had this symbol over the door to the vestibule (platform) and the train door at the opposite end. The great big Idaho potato as a specialty in the dining car.
It would depend on whether you remember riding in silver cars, or just seeing silver cars?? The first 400 mi. or so of your trip from Chicago would have been on the Burlington, so you would have seen trains like the Zephyr etc. The Burlington used stainless steel unpainted Budd cars. The only silver car you would normally see in a GN or NP train would be on the NP North Coast Limited (or Mainstreeter?). NP owned some slumbercoaches which for whatever reason were stainless steel rather than two-tone green like their other cars. Of course the engines would have been stainless steel E-units until the NP or GN took over in St.Paul.
Big Sky Blue wasn’t introduced until 1967, so you would have been in orange and green GN cars, or dark/light green NP cars in 1958.
One thing that might help is if you remember the domes, how big were they?? GN used some full-length “superdome” type cars, NP never had those, they preferred the “blister top” vistadomes only.
From the answers to my question, I’m thinking that I was not on the GN. I am pretty sure it was a short dome car because I seem to remember looking out across the front end of our car.
The question was not important but I think it was a fun puzzle, just wish I could remember more.
Of course I meant MONAD. not NOMAD, sorry for my dislexia!
Not only did the NP not paint their slumbercoaches two-tone green, and left them stainless steel silver, but they were in pool service with the CB&Q’s slumbercoaches, to maximize the usefulness. You could find yourself in an NP slumbercoach Chicago-Denver-Colorado Springs, on the Denver Zephyr, the CB&Q’s premier train. It happened regularly! The Q chose to run the Slumbercoach to Colorado Springs and not one of the regular sleepers. And of course CB&Q slumbercoaches regularly showed up in Seattle on the North Coast Limited. But the other CB&Q (and SP&S) equipment normally assigned to the North Coast Limited was two-tone green.
Well the GN had both short and full-length domes. If you said you thought you were in a full-length one, it would have had to have been on the GN. So it could still be both…plus the roofs of both cars would have been dark green, although the NP one would have been more a forest green and the GN more of a brownish “Pullman” green.
If you remembered eating a “big baked potato” in the dining car, that would narrow it down to the NP. [:)] Or if you remembered any towns you went thru, since the NP and GN had different routes, particularly in Montana where the NP was quite a bit south of the GN’s Glacier Park line.
Next time you’re in the LHS see if they have the recent “North Coast Limited” book which has a fair amount of interior shots and see if any of the pics bring back any memories.
I’d like to jump in here on this GN discussion and not necessarily change the subject, but ask if anyone here has any good pictures/consist listings of the complete Empire Builder, Green/Orange paint scheme.
After 50 years things get pretty hazy. I bought the train ticket from St. Louis to the Seattle airport. My St. louis train went to Chicago were I transfered to the west bound train. Would not the GN have routed me direct to seattle instead of Portland? I remember going through the train wash in what I believe was Fargo and I think there was a crew change there. Would there have been a crew or engine change in St. Paul also?
I’m reading the GREAT NORTHERN, EMPIRER BUILDER BY Bill Yenne I may get some more information from that. Any who thanks.
Well the Empire Builder was operated by three railroads - Great Northern (St. Paul to Seattle) and it’s subsidiary companies (co-owned with Northern Pacific) Chicago Burlington and Quincy (Chicago-St.Paul) and Spokane Portland and Seattle (OK this gets a little more complicated, but some of the cars of the Empire Builder split off and were taken by the SP&S to Portland Oregon). All three railroad owned cars for the train, which is why the cars had “EMPIRE BUILDER” in the letterboard with the railroad owner name or initials much smaller at one end - it made it look more unified.
So yes, you would have been pulled by Burlington engines from Chicago to St.Paul; at St.Paul Union Depot the engines would be switched out for GN engines and crews if you were on the Empire Builder. Then your car could have been one of the ones later taken to Portland by the SP&S section of the Builder.
However, a similar process was used by the NP (which as I mentioned owned the other 50% of the CB&Q and SP&S), so it’s still possible you were on the North Coast Limited or Mainstreeter!! Plus I believe both trains (EB and NCL) served Fargo.