Chester is a town in and the county seat of Liberty County, Montana, United States. The population was 847 at the time of both the 2010 and 2020 U.S. Census.
The Great Northern Railway was an American Class I railroad. Running from Saint Paul, Minnesota, to Seattle, Washington, it was the creation of 19th-century railroad entrepreneur James J. Hill and was developed from the Saint Paul & Pacific Railroad. The Great Northern's route was the northernmost transcontinental railroad route in the U.S.
The Maple Leaf is an international passenger train service operated by Amtrak and Via Rail between New York Penn Station in New York City and Union Station in Toronto via Amtrak's Empire Corridor, and the south western part of Via Rail's Quebec City–Windsor Corridor. Daily service is offered in both directions; the 544-mile (875 km) trip takes approximately 12 hours, including two hours for U.S. or Canadian customs and immigration inspection at either Niagara Falls, New York, or Niagara Falls, Ontario. Although the train uses Amtrak rolling stock exclusively, the train is operated by Via Rail crews while in Canada and by Amtrak crews in the United States. Service began in 1981.
The Empire Builder is a daily long-distance passenger train operated by Amtrak between Chicago and either Seattle or Portland via two sections west of Spokane. Introduced in 1929, it was the flagship passenger train of the Great Northern Railway and was retained by Amtrak when it took over intercity rail service in 1971.
The Southwest Chief is a long-distance passenger train operated by Amtrak on a 2,265-mile (3,645 km) route between Chicago and Los Angeles through the Midwest and Southwest via Kansas City, Albuquerque, and Flagstaff mostly on the BNSF's Southern Transcon, but branches off between Albuquerque and Kansas City via the Topeka, La Junta, Raton, and Glorieta Subdivision. Amtrak bills the route as one of its most scenic, with views of the Painted Desert and the Red Cliffs of Sedona, as well as the plains of Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado.
The Superliner is a type of bilevel intercity railroad passenger car used by Amtrak, the national rail passenger carrier in the United States. Amtrak commissioned the cars to replace older single-level cars on its long-distance trains in the Western United States. The design was based on the Budd Hi-Level cars used by the Santa Fe Railway on its El Capitan trains. Pullman-Standard built 284 cars, known as Superliner I, from 1975 to 1981; Bombardier Transportation built 195, known as Superliner II, from 1991 to 1996. The Superliner I cars were the last passenger cars built by Pullman.
The Cardinal is a long-distance passenger train operated by Amtrak between New York Penn Station and Chicago Union Station via Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Charlottesville, Charleston, Huntington, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis. Along with the Capitol Limited and Lake Shore Limited, it is one of three trains linking the Northeast and Chicago. The 1,146-mile (1,844 km) trip between New York and Chicago is scheduled for 281⁄4 hours.
The International was a named passenger train originally operated by the Great Northern Railway between King Street Station, Seattle, Washington, and Pacific Central Station, Vancouver, British Columbia between 1950 and 1971.
The North Coast Limited was a named passenger train operated by the Northern Pacific Railway between Chicago and Seattle via Bismarck, North Dakota. It started on April 29, 1900, and continued as a Burlington Northern Railroad train after the merger on March 2, 1970 with Great Northern Railway and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. The next year, it ceased operations after the trains which left their originating stations on April 30, 1971, the day before Amtrak began service, arrived at their destinations.
The North Coast Hiawatha was a long-distance passenger train operated by Amtrak between Chicago, Illinois, and Seattle, Washington.
Midway is a former Amtrak intercity train station in the Midway neighborhood of Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. It was last served by Amtrak's daily Empire Builder, with service from Chicago, Illinois to Seattle, Washington or Portland, Oregon. When the station opened March 1, 1978, it was also served briefly by the long-distance North Coast Hiawatha, and the Hiawatha and Arrowhead, the latter combined as the North Star later that year.
The Olympian and its successor the Olympian Hiawatha were passenger trains operated by the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad between Chicago and the Pacific Northwest. The Olympian operated from 1911 to 1947 and was, along with its running mate the Columbian, the first all-steel train to operate in the Pacific Northwest. The streamlined Olympian Hiawatha operated from 1947 to 1961 and was one of several Milwaukee Road trains to carry the name "Hiawatha". The Olympian Hiawatha was designed by industrial designer Brooks Stevens and included the distinctive glassed-in "Skytop" observation-sleeping cars. It later featured full-length "Super Dome" cars.
The Empire State Express was one of the named passenger trains and onetime flagship of the New York Central & Hudson River Railroad. On September 14, 1891, it covered the 436 miles (702 kilometers) between New York City and Buffalo in 7 hours and 6 minutes, averaging 61.4 miles-per-hour (98.8 km/h), with a top speed of 82 mph (132 km/h).
The Rocky Mountain Rocket was a streamlined passenger train of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad. Rock Island's train numbers 7 and 8 ran between Chicago's LaSalle Street Station and Denver's Union Station and Colorado Springs, Colorado. The Rocky Mountain Rocket ran from 1939 to 1966; the train was discontinued prior to the creation of Amtrak in 1971.
Whitefish station is a stop on Amtrak's Empire Builder in Whitefish, Montana. In addition to the Empire Builder, a once-daily Greyhound Lines bus service also links the station to Kalispell and Missoula. A car rental agency operates a window within the station. The station and parking lot are owned by the Stumptown Historical Society. BNSF Railway leases office space on the upper floors of the station and owns the platform and track.
The Spokane Intermodal Center is an intermodal transport facility located in Spokane, Washington, United States. It serves as a service stop for the Amtrak Empire Builder, as well as the FlixBus, Greyhound, Trailways, and Jefferson Lines station for Spokane. The Empire Builder provides service daily between Chicago, Illinois and Spokane before continuing on to Seattle, Washington or Portland, Oregon.
The Northern Transcon, a route operated by the BNSF Railway, traverses the most northerly route of any railroad in the western United States. This route was originally part of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, Northern Pacific Railway, Great Northern Railway and Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway systems, merged into the Burlington Northern Railroad system in 1970.
The Gopher and Badger were trains operated by the Great Northern Railway and then Burlington Northern Railroad until the start of Amtrak between Saint Paul, Minnesota and the Twin Ports of Superior, Wisconsin and Duluth, Minnesota via Cambridge and Sandstone.
The Twin Cities Hiawatha, often just Hiawatha, was a named passenger train operated by the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, and traveled from Chicago to the Twin Cities. The original train takes its name from the epic poem The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. There are a number of Hiawatha-themed names within the city of Minneapolis, the terminus of the original train. The first Hiawatha ran in 1935; in 1939 the Milwaukee Road introduced a second daily trip between Chicago and Minneapolis. The two trains were known as the Morning Hiawatha and Afternoon Hiawatha, or sometimes the AM Twin Cities Hiawatha and PM Twin Cities Hiawatha. The Milwaukee Road discontinued the Afternoon Hiawatha in 1970 while the Morning Hiawatha continued running until the formation of Amtrak in 1971.
The Great Northern Buelow Wreck occurred on March 7, 1966, when two Great Northern Railway trains, an eastbound Empire Builder passenger train and a westbound Western Star mail and passenger train, collided near Chester, Montana. Two were killed, 77 were injured, and 29 were hospitalized.
