Archival Anecdotes: Notice of Discontinuance

At the Eddy County Museum, much of the collections housed in the Branford Depot have to do with railroads. After all, New Rockford grew to serve the passengers who traveled the Empire Builder.

The original Empire Builder passenger train was introduced in 1929 under Great Northern Railway and later its successor, the Burlington Northern Railroad. At the time, the 2,211 mile trip between Chicago and Seattle took nearly 60 hours.

The travel time was reduced following World War II when Great Northern placed new diesel-powered trains in service. Soon the travel time on the Empire Builder was reduced to 45 hours.

By 1955, the Empire Builder offered three dome coaches and one full-length Great Dome car for passengers to appreciate views of the Cascade Mountains and Glacier National Park.

In 1970, the Great Northern merged with three other railroads to form the Burlington Northern Railroad, which assumed operation of the Empire Builder— but not for long.

Much had changed in the world of railroads. Trains weren’t the most reliable mode of transportation. Freight traffic, automobiles and airplanes made a serious dent in the railroad industry. A series of bankruptcies and consolidations left the rail system in the hands of a few large operations across the country.

On March 24, 1971, Burlington Northern issued this “Notice of Proposed Discontinuance of Service” which affected more than 50 locations.

Almost all long-distance passenger traffic was shifted to Amtrak that same year, forever changing the fate of small towns like New Rockford.