A friend of mine sister worked as a nurse on the El Capitan. She said that the passengers were treated like Kings and Queens. The employees were very second rate.
My big question is. do you have permission to publish copyright photos?
Even though you showed “LIFE” in the corners. That does not give you permission.
The Santa Fe was always my favorite road and though I wasn’t around to see first hand the named trains of the era such as the El Capitan, I was certainly awed by the keen eye of the photographer(s) in capturing life on this train. Thanks for sharing!
All the pics are wonderful, and I had myself guessing if LIFE had done a full feature on the El Cap, because the B&W print quality and (perhaps more important) visual style of presentation argues for one photographer. It was kind of you to include Mr. Stackpole’s obituary.
Before this, I never knew the El Cap was a traditional, single-level streamliner. I wonder if there’s anyone around here who can tell me:
What year did the El Cap start going to Hi-Rise cars? If “bilevel” is a better catchall term, please let me know that too.
What year were the Super Chief and the El Cap run as a single train?. This could be the off-season of some year even if they still ran as separate trains in high season for a few years more as IIRC.
And now the other shoe drops: Was there a year when the El Cap and Super Chief ran combined all the time — that is, no separate trains even in high season. And did that happen a lot of time before Amtrak’s initiation (1971)?
Perhaps someone can recommend a book or site (and an “art book” is fine if it’s well narrated) re the end of ATSF-operated passenger service and/or the merger with BN over twenty years later?
I agree, Al, the pictures are wonderful. They made me wish I could have ridden the train back then. My only trip on El Capitan (incidentally, “El” means “the,” so if you say, “the El Capitan,” you are saying, “the The Captain”) came in 1972, so it was the combined train that Amtrak was operating.
The train entered service in 1938, running twice a week on days that the Super Chief, which then began running twice instead of once a week, did not run. In 1941, it began running three times a week, again alternating with the premium tr
As I said earlier, great photo collection about one very famous train. I’m wondering if anyone has anything similar about such trains as The 20th Century Ltd., The Broadway Ltd., The East Coast Champion (ACL), The Crescent Ltd, (Southern)? By the way, thanks for the info about Google and Life. I used to really enjoy Life Magazine when I was a youngster.
In 1948 the El Capitan became a daily train with 14 car consists with leg rest seating for 490 or 492 depending on the consist. Each consist had a storage mail car, a baggage dormtory 2 Lunch Counter dining cars, and a club lounge car. This was the first Santa Fe train to be equipped with 44 seat leg rest coaches each consist had eight.
In July 1954 Budd delivered two High Level transition coaches to the Santa Fe. to test travellers opinions of the cars.
In 1956 the Santa Fe completely reequipped the El Capitans with 11 car trains with a seating
Well, spikejones, you made me work. Since I did not remember much detail about Train X, I had to dig the May 1956 issue of Trains out. It has a nice painting on the cover of the Aerotrain overtaking and passing a Santa Fe freight that is powered by #1780 (I think that is the number). This painting represents a part of the run of the Aerotrain to Los Angeles from Chicago in March of 1956 (I wished that I could have taken the trip, but I was a poor college student at the time).
This particular issue of Trains treats all of the equipment that was new at that time–Aerotrain, Train X, and the Pennsy’s tubular train. (It was the tubular train that was described in the same issue which described the Santa Fe’s high level cars, and not Aerotrain and Train X.)
Train X was much like the Talgo–except for the center car, each car had only one axle; the center car had an axle at each end. The locomotive was built by Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton, using a 1000 hp supercharged V12 diesel (that was of foreign origin, since BLH built only in-line engines), had a torque converter transmission, and diesel-generator set that produced 480 volt, three-phase power for train light, heat, and air conditioning. If the New Haven had bought one, it would have been able to run on the third rail into Grand Central. The NYC operated one or two in Ohio (in a fairly recent post, someone asked about the Xplorer of the NYC; this was the consist).
The Pennsy’s tubular train was built by Budd. The vestibule platforms were at standard height, but the seat floor was much lower that of the vestibule–so when you sat down, you would see the ankles of people who were on a high platform. Apparently, it was not a success. The Pennsy ran it in two round trips a day between New York and Washington.
The Aerotrain was built by General Motors, and each car was
Looks to be an early Army Redstone Rocket, the type used to put small satellites in Orbit. It was a two stage Rocket with a nose cone to protect the satellite. Probably not to difficult to erect in Grand Central Station. They did not weigh very much without fuel. Also used as an early ICBM.
Was the Redstone rocket set up in Grand Central Station?
About what date and for how long?
Was it a actual Rocket or a Prop?
The Redstone as was the Atlas rockets originally designed as I.C.B.M.s. To save cost was modified (at a high cost and failure) for use by the Space program (Not yet N.A.S.A.).
I am surprised that the rocket was set up in a Public place.
I had the opportunity, as a kid, to ride on one of the demonstration trips out of Washington DC on the high-level El Capitan equipment. Great short, diner trip. Out to Point of Rocks and return, as I recall.
