Северный берег: История пассажирского поезда "North Coast Limited"

Former named passenger train

The North Coast Limited was a named passenger train operated by the Northern Pacific Railway between Chicago and Seattle via Bismarck, North Dakota. It started on April 29, 1900, and continued as a Burlington Northern Railroad train after the merger on March 2, 1970 with Great Northern Railway and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. The next year, it ceased operations after the trains which left their originating stations on April 30, 1971, the day before Amtrak began service (May 1, 1971), arrived at their destinations. After 1918 the Chicago to St. Paul leg of the route was on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy railroad along its Mississippi River line through Wisconsin. The train had a Portland section which split off the Seattle section at Pasco, Washington and ran over NP subsidiary Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway between Pasco and Portland. For much of its history the North Coast Limited was known for its dining car service.

Inaugurated on April 29, 1900, between St. Paul, Minnesota, and Puget Sound, the Northern Pacific's North Coast Limited was pulled by NP 300, one of the two 4 6 0 E 5 class locomotives built by the Schenectady Locomotive Works in 1893. The other locomotive was NP 301, later renumbered as 387. The train started as a summer only service but expanded to a year round daily train in 1902. The North Coast Limited then ran as Number 1 westbound and Number 2 eastbound. Until the rail line was completed to Vancouver, WA in 1908 and the swing Burlington Northern Railroad Bridge was constructed between Vancouver and Portland, the train was put on a specially constructed railroad ferry which crossed the Columbia River between Goble, Oregon and Kalama, Washington. The ferry, the Tacoma (originally christened Kalama), was built in Portland in 1883 out of 57,159 pieces which had been shipped from New York around Cape Horn on board the Tillie E. Starbuck (1883–1907), the first iron sailing vessel built in the United States.

In 1909 the train received new heavyweight cars built by Pullman Standard and added a Portland section which operated via the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway between Spokane, Washington and Portland, Oregon. The railroad began its through train service between Chicago and the Pacific Northwest on May 23, 1909, announcing it in newspaper ads. On December 17, 1911 service was extended to Chicago over the Chicago and North Western Railway. In 1918 the route east of St Paul became the Mississippi River line of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, which ran to Chicago's Union Station instead of Northwestern Station. In summer 1926 the schedule for 2331 miles between Chicago and Seattle was 70 hr 25 min westward and 69 hr 55 min eastward. In June 1929 the fastest trains on NP, GN and the Milwaukee started running on a 63 hour westward schedule and 61 1/4 hours eastward, still with no extra fare. During the 1920s, Northern Pacific's secondary train on the Chicago Seattle route was called the Pacific Express westbound and Atlantic Express eastbound. In 1929, NP added a third train, called the Alaskan. At the same time, it made the North Coast Limited an all Pullman train, including Pullman parlor cars for part of the route but no tourist sleepers or coaches. Due to the Depression, this didn't last long, and by 1931 the Pacific/Atlantic Express was off the timetable and tourist sleepers and coaches were back on the North Coast Limited. On May 14, 1930 the North Coast Limited got new heavyweight steel cars. The new trains had brass windows, barber and valet services, a barber shop, separate bath and shower facilities for men and women, a soda fountain and radios on board. By 1937 most cars were air conditioned; in 1942 the lounge observation cars with open platforms were replaced by buffet solarium sleepers.