Empire Builder 90th birthday commemorative print is now available at the Amtrak store

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Mark Meyer

Train Attendant
Joined
Apr 24, 2019
Messages
59
This week marks the 90th anniversary of continuous service by the Empire Builder passenger train. The first Empire Builder was launched on the CB&Q from Chicago on June 10, 1929, but the generally-recognized anniversary of the train is June 11, the day it first departed from St. Paul and Seattle on its “home” road, the Great Northern. June 11 was the date of the numerous celebrations staged for its 75th anniversary in 2004.

An Empire Builder timeline is available at:
https://www.ebtrain.net/history/empire-builder-timeline/

Noted artist J. Craig Thorpe has created another of his masterpieces to celebrate this milestone in the history of the Empire Builder. The painting features a current version of the train near the site of Meriwether Lewis’s “Camp Disappointment” (where the Great Northern erected an obelisk monument to commemorate, which still stands today) on the Blackfeet Reservation between Cut Bank and Browning. The painting is currently on display at the Glacier County Historical Museum in Cut Bank, and will remain there through late summer when it will journey to Kalispell to be included in a railroad-themed art show at the Hockaday Museum of Art. If you’re in North Central Montana – perhaps going to or from nearby Glacier National Park – the Glacier County Historical Museum is worth a stop. It is open weekdays through the summer. Its curator is Dennis Seglem, who is the son of ex-GN and ex-GN telegrapher Norm Seglem, who still alive and well. Dennis is an expert on local railroad history, and the museum also includes the interlocking plant from the Cut Bank station, which remained in service until January 1983 as Montana’s last manual interlocking. The museum is located about a mile northeast of town at 107 Old Kevin Highway (to access from U.S. Highway 2, cross the BNSF main line at the crossing on the east end of town and head north; the museum complex will be to your north or left after the road takes a 90 degree swing to the east).

The goal of painting is to increase awareness of the importance of the legacy and value of Amtrak’s long distance trains, which is especially important now, as their continued survival is challenged not only by the current Amtrak management which has sent mixed signals about their willingness to support such service, and by a need for new equipment as the current Superliner cars are approaching 40 years in continuous use.

To their credit, Amtrak is selling a print at their company store:
https://store.amtrak.com/ProductDetail.aspx?did=20173&pid=271843&logoid=0

The print “selling out” at their company store would be a good message to Amtrak that the Empire Builder and long-distance trains in general are still valued by the American public.

The print will be available at the “Rail Fair” July 21 at the Great Northern Railway Historical Society Convention being held in Fargo, North Dakota at the Holiday Inn, 3803 13th Avenue South.

The print is available at these “Brick and Mortar” locations right now:

Minnesota: Minnesota Transportation Museum / Jackson Street Roundhouse, 193 Pennsylvania Avenue East, St. Paul 55130.
Montana: Havre Chamber of Commerce, 130 5th Avenue, Havre 59501
Montana: Shelby Chamber of Commerce, 100 Montana Avenue, Shelby 59474
Montana: Glacier County Historical Museum, 107 Old Kevin Highway, Cut Bank 59427
Montana: Cut Bank Pioneer Press, 19 South Central Ave., Cut Bank 59427
Montana: Glacier Park Conservancy, Belton/West Glacier Amtrak Station, West Glacier, 59936
Montana: Stumptown Historical Museum in the Whitefish Amtrak/BNSF station, 500 Depot Street, Suite 101, Whitefish 59937
Washington: Great Northern and Cascade Railway (ex-GN Skykomish depot), 101 5th Street North, Skykomish 98288
Washington: Burien/Seattle/Tacoma: Pacific Northwest Railroad Archive, 425 S.W. 153rd Street Burien 98166
Oregon: Association of Oregon Rail and Transit Advocates (AORTA), Portland Union Station Suite 253, 800 N.W. 6thAvenue, Portland 97209 (Open noon to 100 PM each Wednesday and by appointment.)


--Mark Meyer
 
Being that I’m on board the 90th Anniversary train, I’ll purchase most any souvenirs of the milestone when I get home.

Did you get one of these certificates? (Incidentally, this tweet almost makes it sound like the Empire Builder was an Amtrak train 90 years ago.)

IEoiOUk.png
 
It's not directly related to the print, but Amtrak made a Facebook post to commemorate the occasion but instead described the California Zephyr.
 

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Did you get one of these certificates? (Incidentally, this tweet almost makes it sound like the Empire Builder was an Amtrak train 90 years ago.)

IEoiOUk.png

No, because I boarded in Seattle. I don’t think I’d want one anyway because of who it was signed by.

I was wearing an Empire Builder shirt today and shortly after we departed Whitefish, the conductor was coming through the sleepers and made a comment about my T-shirt. He reached in his pocket and gave me a lapel pin. I’m now likely the oldest ever Jr. Conductor! LOL

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