Map of the Month: 1940s Freedom Train through Coeur d'Alene

[wanswheel]

GN to Spokane, NP to Coeur d’Alene

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1338&dat=19480412&id=3fFXAAAAIBAJ&sjid=vvUDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4810,5140821&hl=en

http://www.mtmemory.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16013coll27/id/5285

[samfp1943]

Bruce Kelly

The September issue's Map of the Month presents a curious puzzle. Kudos in advance to whomever solves it. Or, more to the point, corrects it. 

The map shows the 1940s Freedom Train heading east from Spokane, WA, through Coeur d'Alene, ID, and onward to Missoula, MT, and beyond. It's a bit of a stretch to assume this train got routed via the 4% grades of NP's Lookout Pass. An even bigger stretch to assume this train somehow, magically, traversed the track-less climb over Fourth of July Pass immediately east of CdA, or got ferried across Lake Coeur d'Alene and up the Coeur d'Alene River from the rail docks in CdA to the connection with NP's narrow gauge Coeur d'Alene Railway & Navigation Company at Mission landing. Wait...the CR&N was gone by then anyway. Hmmm. Where, or where might that Freedom Train have actually gone?

Bonus points for the class if they can also explain the routing of both trains between Spokane and Wenatchee, on what's labeled as GN but clearly swoops too far south to be considered the GN by any stretch of the imagination.

 

   First of all, I do not want to argue wityh either Mac or Bruce Kelly. about the route of the 'original' Freedom Train..  My suspicion is that like many of us who come here to read and post, there is not a lot of information on the 1940's version of The Freedom Train anong us.

Found the following information:"...THE 1947 - 1949 FREEDOM TRAIN

THE TRAIN'S JOURNEY ACROSS AMERICA

The Freedom Train was all that Harry Truman and Tom Clark envisioned. Its great success was demonstrated in the media of the time, which featured both promotion and accounts of the train and its impact upon visitors.

Its 37,160 mile tour lasted from September 17, 1947 to January 22, 1949. It was the only trainset ever to operate in every state, and it did so using 52 different railroads. Over 3 million people (officially, 3,521,841) went aboard the Train during its display stops in 326 cities and towns across the land. At many sites, people waited in line more than six hours to go aboard. The highest single-day attendance was 14,615.

Text by Mr.Larry Wines..."

Linked @ http://www.freedomtrain.org/freedom-train-home.htm

The website linked has a number of links to The [original]Freedom Train   and the following link is to a 'wIki' site that may or may not be a complete route of its stops in all 48 States (?) @

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Train_%E2%80%93_1947%E2%80%9349_station_stops

[PNWRMNM]

Bruce,

Some map maker does not know eastern Washington geography and rail routes.

From Spokane to Missoula, as you know there were only two reasonable routes. The NP which swings north of Lake Pend Orille, think Sandpoint Idaho. The other is the Milwaukee, which served Spokane by trackage rights over the UP and then headed southeast to its main line. One could concoct a route by the UP from Spokane to about Wallace Idaho, then NP over Lookout Pass, but why anyone would do that for a passenger move is beyond my powers of imagination.

As to Wenatchee, where I grew up, it was always a GN and only GN, served point. The next through line south of the GN was the MILW. Maybe the Midwestern mapmakers don't know the difference between Wenatchee(Apple Capital of the World) and Othello(MILW crew change) and Beverly(MILW crossing of Columbia River), but the locals sure do. Next through route to the south is the NP via Pasco.

My first guess would be train went MILW all the way, and someone who knows not PNW rail geography did the map.

Mac McCulloch

[Bruce Kelly]

The September issue's Map of the Month presents a curious puzzle. Kudos in advance to whomever solves it. Or, more to the point, corrects it. 

The map shows the 1940s Freedom Train heading east from Spokane, WA, through Coeur d'Alene, ID, and onward to Missoula, MT, and beyond. It's a bit of a stretch to assume this train got routed via the 4% grades of NP's Lookout Pass. An even bigger stretch to assume this train somehow, magically, traversed the track-less climb over Fourth of July Pass immediately east of CdA, or got ferried across Lake Coeur d'Alene and up the Coeur d'Alene River from the rail docks in CdA to the connection with NP's narrow gauge Coeur d'Alene Railway & Navigation Company at Mission landing. Wait...the CR&N was gone by then anyway. Hmmm. Where, or where might that Freedom Train have actually gone?

Bonus points for the class if they can also explain the routing of both trains between Spokane and Wenatchee, on what's labeled as GN but clearly swoops too far south to be considered the GN by any stretch of the imagination.