The Great Northern produced this brochure in 1949 to publicize its launch of the all-new "Mid-Century" Empire Builder. The Builder had been equipped with all-new streamlined cars just three years earlier, and the new train had proved to be more popular than anticipated — especially for the sleeping car accommodations. Rather than buying more sleeping cars, the GN took the bold initiative to revamp the Builder with new cars, and utilize the additional cars to re-equip their secondary transcontinental train, the Oriental Limited, which would be rechristened as the Western Star. This gave the GN a big competitive edge offering twice-daily streamliner service from Chicago to Seattle/Portland.
The Ranch coffee shop-lounge car gets top billing here, highlighting its distinctive "dude ranch" decor with the distinctive G bar N brand, which the railroad had registered with the Montana Cattleman's Association.
The distinctive Mountain-series first class lounge brought up the rear of the train and featured tall observation windows to better see the passing peaks of the Rockies and Cascade mountains.
The brochure's design is a fine example of Mid-Century graphic design with its clean, bold colors and streamlined layout which reflected the optimism of post-war America.
