Map Showing Chicago, Burlington & Quincy R.R., Great Northern Railway System, Northern Pacific Railway System, Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway, Colorado & Southern Railway Lines, Trinity & Brazos Valley Railway

Rails of the Western United States near the start of the Great Depression.

This interesting poster-style map of the U.S. rail network west of Chicago highlights the operations of six important companies during the Interwar Period: the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, Great Northern Railway, Northern Pacific Railway, Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway, Colorado & Southern Railway, and Trinity & Brazos Valley Railway. Lacking a conventional scale, the image distorts geographic space to emphasize the various lines and their respective stops.

The map was printed in St. Paul by the McGill Warner Company and is dated December 31, 1929. At the time, the Great Northern and Northern Pacific exercised significant corporate control over several of the railroads depicted here, forming an interconnected network that extended from the Great Lakes to the Pacific Northwest and south into Texas.