Articles

Proposed Reference Sheet
Ted Doyle

A third transcontinental train entered service in May 23, 1909, in time for the Alaska-Pacific-Yukon Exhibition, running between Seattle and Kansas City via Shelby, Great Falls and Billings. The train to the Missouri Valley was initially called the Northwest Express westbound and The Southeast Express eastbound. The westbound's name was changed to The Great Northern Express in November, 1909.

Hill had acquired the line to the Gulf with the acquisition of the CB&Q in 1901. The subsidiary C&S and FW&D provided routes between Cheyenne WY and Denver south to Fort Worth, Dallas and the port cities of Houston, Galveston, Texas. A year later, construction began extending the Billings-Kirby branch southward through the Wind River Canyon to a connection with the C&S east of Casper WY. With a link from Cheyenne to Billings Montana, Hill had a tidewater to tidewater line from Puget Sound to the Gulf of Mexico and a diagonal transcontinental line through America. The Mossmain line was started in 1908 and competed in 1909, linking GN to the line to Texas. The line also connected the Northwest to Kansas City and St Louis. Passenger service over this line began in May, 1909 soon after completion.

45 E-14 heavy Pacifics, numbers 1008-1052, were received in November and were the heaviest ten-wheelers over owned by the Great Northern. They were used on the Oriental Limited, the Fast Mail, and the Great Northern Express.

Soon it became obvious that the Great Northern Express could not compete with the shorter route and faster schedule offered by the UP between Seattle and Kansas City. The Great Northern Express did serve intermediate points such as Spokane and Great Falls, with service to the Missouri Valley. The route was truncated over the years: initially it ran from Kansas City and St Louis to Seattle; by 1913, the timetables show 43 & 44 as a local run from Seattle; by 1914 it only ran as far a Spokane in the off season, delivering its sleepers to the locals 25 & 26. In the Summer for the Glacier park season, it ran again to Seattle. In the 1920s it ran to Whitefish, connecting with Numbers 1 or 4. Finally, from the late twenties on it ran only as far as Shelby, except during the summer season when it ran to Glacier Park station. In later years it provided a link for tourist traffic between the Missouri Valley to Glacier Park.