The Great Northern Railway

The Great Northern Railway highlights the changes brought on by economic, political, social, and technological advances, including world wars and tighter government restrictions. Illustrated with more than two hundred maps, period photographs, and drawings, the volume also includes appendixes listing the original track-laying history, track removals, ruling grades on main freight routes, and main line ruling grades from Minneapolis to Seattle.

The Great Northern Railway Through Time takes us on a tour of the American Northwest―the last American frontier―from St. Paul, Minnesota, to Seattle, Washington. The Great Northern opened up the Dakotas, Montana, Idaho, the dramatic Cascade Mountains of Washington and the Continental Divide at Marias Pass. President James J. Hill intended the Great Northern to be a freight hauling road, but tourists riding on the GN's premier passenger train, The Empire Builder were delighted by the prairie, the farmland, the Big Sky Country, the mountains, and Glacier National Park. The G.N.'s reputation grew. Today, Amtrak's Empire Builder traverses the same territory. The Great Northern Railway Through Time presents photos taken over the course of seventy five years by photographers of the era. The author has provided ample photo captions pointing out features that have changed over the years and features that have ​stayed the same. The early photos are fresh―never before published. The more recent shots were made by twenty of America's finest rail enthusiast photographers.

The Great Northern Railway (GN) main line stretched 1,700 miles from St. Paul, Minnesota, to Seattle, Washington, and was the most northern transcontinental railroad in the United States. In addition, GN branch lines stretched north from the Twin Cities to Superior and the Minnesota Iron Ore Range, and from Grand Forks, North Dakota, to Winnipeg, Manitoba; through Montana to Great Falls, Helena and Butte, and from Seattle to Vancouver, British Columbia. Other popular Great Northern passenger trains were the Badger-Gopher (St. Paul-Superior-Duluth), Dakotan (St. Paul-Minot), Cascadian (Seattle-Spokane), Red River (St. Paul-Grand Forks), Internationals (Seattle-Vancouver) and Winnipeg Limited (St. Paul-Winnipeg). Historic images include 4-4-0 steam locomotive William Crooks, the first steam locomotive to operate in Minnesota. Like other railroads, Great Northern purchased diesel locomotives from Electro-Motive Division consisting of the FT, F3, F7 and E7. Later models were U25B, U28B, U33C, SDP40, SDP45 and the first SD45 named “Hustle Muscle.” Also pictured are boxcab Z-1, Y-1 and W-1 electric locomotives.

Glacier National Park and the Great Northern Railway became synonymous in the early 20th century. Original photographs, posters, menus, postcards, and other rare materials support this fascinating pictorial history of the creation and promotion of the park by Great Northern as railroad barons raced west and competed for precious territory to expand their empires.

The never-before-told story of one of the worst rail disasters in U.S. history in which two trains full of people, trapped high in the Cascade Mountains, are hit by a devastating avalanche In February 1910, a monstrous blizzard centered on Washington State hit the Northwest, breaking records. The world stopped—but nowhere was the danger more terrifying than near a tiny town called Wellington, perched high in the Cascade Mountains, where a desperate situation evolved minute by minute: two trainloads of cold, hungry passengers and their crews found themselves marooned without escape, their railcars gradually being buried in the rising drifts. For days, an army of the Great Northern Railroad's most dedicated men—led by the line's legendarily courageous superintendent, James O'Neill—worked round-the-clock to rescue the trains. But the storm was unrelenting, and to the passenger's great anxiety, the railcars—their only shelter—were parked precariously on the edge of a steep ravine. As the days passed, food and coal supplies dwindled. Panic and rage set in as snow accumulated deeper and deeper on the cliffs overhanging the trains. Finally, just when escape seemed possible, the unthinkable occurred: the earth shifted and a colossal avalanche tumbled from the high pinnacles, sweeping the trains and their sleeping passengers over the steep slope and down the mountainside. Centered on the astonishing spectacle of our nation's deadliest avalanche, Gary Krist's The White Cascade is the masterfully told story of a supremely dramatic and never-before-documented American tragedy. An adventure saga filled with colorful and engaging history, this is epic narrative storytelling at its finest.