Glacier National Park By Rail & Jammer

Glacier National Park is located in the U.S. state of Montana, on the United States-Canada border with the Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia. I took an Amtrak tour there in 1985. The tour was only about 5 days long, but it covered a lot of ground inside the park and involved stays at three historic hotels.

I bought a lot of postcards when I was at Glacier Park, but I prefer the older ones that I bought after I returned home. Most of the postcards in this post are from the late 1950s to early 1960s. The first two postcards were published by Great Northern Railway Company. Great Northern provided rail service to Glacier Park before Amtrak took over passenger service. The postcard above shows Great Northern's Empire Builder skirting the southern boundary of Glacier National Park. The postcard below shows great Northern's Western Star arriving at Glacier Park Station, eastern gateway to Glacier National Park.

My Amtrak train west from St. Paul, Minnesota also arrived at Glacier Park Station. It was a short walk from the station to Glacier Park Lodge, shown on the next postcard, where I stayed the first night.

The next postcard shows several red "jammer" buses in front of Glacier Park Lodge. These small red buses were used for transportation within the park. They were originally manufactured by the White Motor Company from 1936-1939 and operated in seven National Parks. The buses have roll-back canvas convertible tops. Yellowstone Park buses were painted yellow, while Glacier Park buses were all painted the bright red of mountain ash berries. Glacier National Park still operates 33 of their original buses today on the Going-to-the-Sun Road. The outside of the buses still looks the same, but the insides had to be rebuilt.

The second hotel where I stayed was the Many Glacier Hotel shown in the next postcard with some more jammers.

The next postcard shows a bus with the convertible top rolled back.

The next two postcards show the jammers traveling through the park on Going-to-the-Sun Highway. The vertical postcard shows St. Mary Lake. Below that is a view of East Side Tunnel.

 

My last postcard shows Lake McDonald Hotel on the west side of the park. Here I stayed in one of the cabins near the main lodge.

I took many photos on my Glacier Park tour. Since this post is focused on transportation, I will just show a few of my photos related to transportation. The train shown in the photos is the one in which I rode on my westbound trip. The red jammer is one of the originals on display in the park. The Belton Amtrak Station was at the west side of the park and was where I boarded the train for my trip home.

Learn some more about the jammers in this video.

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