i do not know if this has been covered or not
i am wanting to make the Santa Fe El Capitan paasenger set for my ho layout i am wanting to find out if there is any information on the train that tells me what type of cars and how many cars were on this set i have only seen photos and can not tell from them
i found this on google… not entirely sure how accurate it is…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Capitan_(passenger_train)
There was a thread here on this topic in the last couple months, it had consists listed by year and a ton of links andother good information. I suspect a search will turn it up.
Information from Santa Fe Railway Historical and Modeling Society.
Go to www.atsfrr.com
then click on “Online resources”, which are organized by contributors.
Material contributed by William Messecar
Post-War Passenger Train Consists and HO Models, 1946-58 on the LA Division, updated 4/2004
There were two very distinct El Capitan’s. One was out fitted early on, like 1936? That was pulled by E1s and later E6s. And then there was the well known high level cars of the 1955 train. I can’t help much with the earlier train with out doing some research. However I do seem to remember that MR ran a “fold out” for it back in 1996 or so.
The 1955 high level El Capitan is one of the easiest trains to model because it only had five different unique cars. The baggage/dorm transistion car, the 68 seat step up coach, the normal 72 seat coach, the lounge car, and the diner. A normal train had a head-end baggage (take your pick), the transisition car, a 68 seat coach, then one to three 72 seat coach(s), the lounge, the diner, two or three 72 seat coaches and a 68 seat coach step down on the end. That is a full train would have 10-11 cars. They generally tried to keep the lounge and the dinner in the center of the train. It was normally (almost always) pulled by sets of ABBA passenger F9s that were ordered specifically for this purpose.
If you are modeling the 1955 version there is an article in THIS MONTHS (July 2006) Model Railroader magazine about it. Maybe I should have looked that over before I made this post!
The correct link to the Wikipedia train article (instead of the mountain in Yosemite) is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Capitan_(passenger_train) , and the information is accurate. The El Capitan was diesel powered from the very beginning in February 1938 but used steam helpers on Cajon Pass as late as 1952 and Raton Pass as late as 1953. The early train was very short: a single E1 diesel, a baggage/dorm/coach, a coach, a single lunch counter diner, another coach, and a coach observation. A year or so before we entered WWII, trains 21 & 22 doubled in size and required 2 LCD’s to feed the passengers, a full dorm/lounge to house the diner crews and keep the passengers refreshed with liquid cheer, extra coaches for a total of 6 to 8, and 2 E1/3/6 units to pull it. The train became daily in 1948 and got the Big Dome Lounge cars in 1954 but only used them for two years. In 1956, El Cap got Hi-Level cars as described in the recent issue of MR, and these cars lasted until replaced by Superliner cars a decade after Amtrak took over. Whenever new equipment was placed in El Cap or Super Chief service, the older lightweight cars were sent to the lesser trains. If you cannot find or afford enough of the right cars for the fleet leaders or don’t have the track space for them, model one of Santa Fe’s lesser trains.
Stephanie Stout
Houston, Texas
AT&SF in N scale
Check out this site.
http://www.kls2.com/~karl/rr/consists/atsf-elcapitan-1956.html
thanks for all of your help on the 1955 passenger set i think i will be able to get the right units for my layout