Heh heh the one thing you did not list was ticket prices … But when you are time traveling, I guess price is no object!
I think it was generally agreed that the Santa Fe had great food on its trains.
Me, I’d take the Santa Fe or Rock Island mainly because they would go past some Illinois railfanning spots during daylight hours that I’d like to see from the train.
Dave Nelson
Didn’t you leave out the Zephyr or is that later? You definitely left out a Burlington/D&RG/WP train of some type which would be my choice for scenery. Also for my connection from the east coast where I lived then.
In 1958 you could buy a circle-trip round trip ticket: Chicago-SF-LA-Chicago for the price of a round trip to and from LA or SF. That certainly would have been my option, and the trains would have been the CZ, San Joaquine Daylight, and Super Chief (or El Capitan if I couldn’t afford a sleeper).
Without looking for the answer, I think, offhand, that 500 miles is about the distance between Chicago and Omaha. That may have something to do with it.
OK, now I’m looking. In the UP section of a 1957 Official Guide:
Chicago to Omaha (via MILW): 488 miles
Omaha to Salt Lake City: 1026 miles
SLC to LA: 785 miles
1026 + 785 = 1811.
1811+ 488 = 2299.
I can’t do the division in my head, but this makes the speed of UP’s train look a lot more respectable (not as good as ATSF, though).
I would take the UP train as it would be cheaper. The ATSF Super Chief would be great, but would get in late and I would have to spring for a hotel room, while the UP train would be arriving in the morning.
Plus, if I were travelling on business, I could work all day in Chicago and leave and be available at 1030am to make sales calls!
I would have used the Santa Fe’s Chief westbound especially if I were traveling by coach since it was only one night out.
Coming from the Washington, DC area I could have taken the Columbian which left Washington at 4:15 PM EST, and arrived in Chicago at 7:30 AM CST, which was plenty of time to connect to the Chief even with changing stations.
The Columbian had a slumber coach which priovided a private room sleeping accomodation on a coach ticket plus a modest surcharge so you only had one overnight stage in a coach on a coast-to-coast trip.
From a standpoint of interesting scenery the westbound Chief passed through the Arizona Divide during the daylight hours, and it passed through Glorietta Pass, 10 miles east of Lamy, NM, during daylight hours in the early summer. I don’t know about the scenery on the Golden State or the City of Los Angeles.
I used this combination of trains on a business trip from Washington to Los Angeles as late as 1966, and while I took the Slumber Coach from Washington to Chicago, I took a sleeper from Chicago to Los Angeles.
If I remember correctly the fare was the same regardless of the route which was used.
You know, I think I really blew it in my original posting - for some reason I forgot about the Super Chief… (showing my youth here.)
So just for fun, here are all the Santa Fe offerings I see for Chgo-LA from a 1957 timetable. Those were the days.
The Chief
Lv. Chicago: 9:10 am, Sunday
Ar. Los Ang: 11:15 pm, Monday
The Grand Canyon
Lv. Chicago: 12:01 pm, Sunday
Ar. Los Ang: 12:10 pm, Tuesday
The El Capitan
Lv. Chicago: 5:45 pm, Sunday
Ar. Los Ang: 7:15 am, Tuesday
The Super Chief
Lv. Chicago: 7 pm, Sunday
Ar. Los Ang: 8:30 am, Tuesday