The ''Cascadian'' was an American named train of the Great Northern Railway on its route between

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

and

Spokane, Washington Spokane ( ) is the largest city and county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It is in eastern Washington, along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south of the Cana ...

. The ''Cascadian'' was officially listed as a streamliner on August 15, 1954. The Great Northern Railway operated a daylight train between Seattle and Spokane that traversed the

Cascade Mountains The Cascade Range or Cascades is a major mountain range of western North America, extending from southern British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to Northern California. It includes both non-volcanic mountains, such as the North Cascades, a ...

through the

Cascade Tunnel The Cascade Tunnel refers to two railroad tunnels (original and its replacement) in the northwest United States, east of the Seattle metropolitan area in the Cascade Range of Washington, at Stevens Pass. It is approximately east of Everett, wit ...

. It then descended the eastern slopes through the Cashmere –

Wenatchee Wenatchee ( ) is the county seat and largest city of Chelan County, Washington, United States. The population within the city limits in 2010 was 31,925, and was estimated to have increased to 34,360 as of 2019. Located in the north-central part ...

apple growing region before crossing the Columbia River and climbing up to the high Columbia plateau and the wheat fields of the Inland Empire. The ''Cascadian'' was a slow all-stops local train that required nine hours in either direction for the between Seattle and Spokane. Most passengers between these points traveled in the ''

Empire Builder The ''Empire Builder'' is an Amtrak long-distance passenger train that operates daily 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 Northe ...

'' or '' Western Star'' overnight. Each of the two train sets consisted of a baggage-storage-mail car, a baggage 30’

Railway Post Office In Canada and the United States, a railway post office, commonly abbreviated as RPO, was a railroad car that was normally operated in passenger service as a means to sort mail en route, in order to speed delivery. The RPO was staffed by highly tr ...

car — both generally heavyweights but painted in the ''Empire Builder'' dark-green and orange color scheme. Next came prewar 58 seat Luxury Coaches in the 938–943 class with up to three being assigned to each consist on the busiest days. When the ''Cascadian'' was officially listed as a streamliner on August 15, 1954 it was when the railroad added the café-coach cars to the ''Cascadians''. These cars, originally heavy-weights, had recently been remodeled and streamlined by GN shops in Minneapolis and carried the markers for the ''Cascadians''. These cars featured 18 revenue coach seats and a café with seating for sixteen. The ''Cascadian'' was powered by either

EMD F-unit EMD F-units are a line of diesel-electric locomotives produced between November 1939 and November 1960 by General Motors Electro-Motive Division and General Motors-Diesel Division. Final assembly for all F-units was at the GM-EMD plant at La Gra ...

s or passenger equipped GP units between Seattle and Scenic, and between

and Spokane. Between Scenic and Wenatchee was the electrified district of the Great Northern Railway and electric locomotives were assigned as power in this area until the electrified zone was discontinued in 1956. At that time whatever power assigned in Spokane or Seattle ran through. The ''Cascadian'' made its last run on August 15, 1959.

References

{{GN named trains Passenger trains of the Great Northern Railway (U.S.) Named passenger trains of the United States Railway services introduced in 1954 Railway services discontinued in 1959