RAILWAY TIMETABLES

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The traditional tabular airline timetables owe a lot to the railway (or railroad) timetables - after all, the latter appeared well over half a century before the first airline timetables. Examples of public railway timetables from North America are shown below in order to honour the importance of railway timetables to timetable collecting. Some are systems (both passenger and freight), others are passenger systems or issued for just one route or a few routes. With the exception of a few timetables (from 1939 and 1970), they are all from the 1940s-'60s period - the golden age of the diesel-powered streamliner, which is featured on many timetable covers. Just like with airline timetables, this is my favourite period when it comes to cover designs. However, I am not a railway timetable collector. The few I have are for comparison only. For those of you with an interest beyond the cover designs, there are also interior views of many of the timetables. They show route maps, advertising of services offered or excerpts from schedules. Some show complete contents, but lack of space on the website prevents the addition of more interior views. The decline in railway passenger traffic in the U.S. in the 1950s and '60s caused the creation of Amtrak in 1971, which took over most of the existing passenger operations. A few lines are still active today under their original names, though as pure freght lines, like Kansas City Southern and Union Pacific. Other present freight lines are the result of mergers of some of the other companies below. Björn Larsson

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Alaska Railroad