When the El Capitan and other Santa Fe trains had a mixed consist of high level cars and standard coaches/sleepers, how was passage between the two types of cars achieved?
There were two types of Hi-Level coaches: 72-seat coaches with hi-level diaphragms at both ends and 68-seat step-down coaches with a hi-level diaphragm at one end and a standard level diaphragm at the other end. The dining cars and Top of the Cap Lounges were hi-level at both ends.
I have a copy of Frailey’s Twilight of the Great Trains, 1998, Kalmbach. Now I understand the meaning of “Hi-level coach (step down)” as listed on p. 61.
If you have that book handy and could look at the lower photo on p. 60, second car back from the last engine, you will see a modified standard coach with some sort of windbreaker at the rear that I think was meant to aerodynamically blend with a Hi-level coach car. This photo shows the El Cap in July, 1968, and between the strange car described herein and the start of the Hi-level coaches are the standard coaches, presumably first-class coaches of the Super Chief.
IN THEIR HEYDAY the El Cap. and Super ran separately. One was all sleepers, the other all coach. In 1964? the El Cap went hi-level.
The later COMBINED version, had a padlocked gate between sections . Each train section had separate crews, diners, and lounges. The Super had the original Pleasure (Vista) domes, and the El Cap had a 'transition car on it’s lead (dormatory) car for crew to occupy. The all-coach El Capitan was on the rear, and presumably for appearance. Both were Santa Fe’s extra fare trains and had 39:45 Chicago-Los Angeles schedules.
When I rode it, it was 21 cars long and pulled by 5 F-7’s. I also clocked 110MPH east of La Junta on my stopwatch counting mileposts.
Don,
I can confirm that the El Cap was equipped with high-level cars in 1963. I often rode the El Pasoan and at Albuquerque never saw the El Cap with anything but high-level cars. However, according to Fred W. Fairley’s Twilight of the Great Trains, 1998, p. 55, the El Cap was outfitted with high-level cars in 1955.
High-levels cars came for the San Francisco Chief probably in Spring or Summer, 1964. I rode that train in late 1963 and early 1964. Both times it was equipped with standard chair cars for coach passengers.
On the El Cap, I can confirm the speed across the Kansas plains was 100+ mph. I timed one stretch at 120 mph, but I do not claim my measurement to be accurate. On one trip heading e/b, we lost at least an hour out of La Junta due to a split rail, and that is the trip where I timed the 120 mph run. I thought the engineer was trying to make up for lost time.
In Kansas, I noted numerous grade crossings that were apparently not protected by flashing lights or crossing gates, and I openly wondered at the time how often a train and a car tangled on that stretch.
In January of 1958, the Super Chief was consolidated with the El Capitan. As a result of this merger, the “Vista” observation cars went to the San Fran Chief and the dorm/lounge cars entered temp storage. From 1958-1962, during the Holiday season, and the summer, the train was split into 2 sections (because of increased ridership). The first section was the Super Chief, and the second section was the El Capitan (two seperate trains). A typical consist of the consolidated train is as follows:
Baggage
Baggage
RPO
Baggage
Baggage/Dormitory
Hi Level Step Up Coach
Hi Level Coach
Hi Level Diner
Hi Level Lounge
Hi Level Coach
Hi Level Step Up Coach
10-6 Sleeper (Pine or Palm)
Sleeper (Regal Series)
Dome Bar Lounge (Pleasure Dome)
P/S Built 600 series 36 seat diner
Sleeper (Regal Series)
10-6 Sleeper (Pine or Palm)
10-6 Sleeper (Pine or Palm)
&nbs
In the Spring of '68, Hi Level cars were added to the Texas Chief. The above date cited for the addition of hi level cars to the San Fran Chief sounds about right.
All of my observations of the combined Super Chief/El Capitan and the Texas Chief show the hi-level cars to be up front. The transition car was indeed a baggage-dorm and also provided an additional entrance point for the adjacent step-down coach.
On the Texas Chief, there were no separate dining and lounge cars for the coach passengers, requiring a step-down coach as the last coach. The Texas Chief had a Big Dome full-length dome-lounge and a conventional dining car between the coaches and sleepers.
You are absolutely correct about in regards to the hi level cars being consisted ahead of the standard level cars.
On another note, the Santa Fe did not have enough hi level lounges or diners to equip the San Fran Chief or Texas Chief, so neither of those cars would have normally been seen on either train. As noted above, those trains both had full length Budd domes (Big Domes), and standard level diners.
The following comments are according to several passages in Fred W. Frailey’s Twilight of the Great Trains, 1998, Kalmbach, as noted:
Ernest Marsh, president of the Santa Fe 1957-1966, order 24 hi-level cars in 1962 expressly for the the San Francisco Chief. These were put into service in 1964 (p 55). A photo of the hi-level cars on the San Francisco Chief in 1964 is on p 58.
The Texas Chief then got the castoffs from the San Francisco Chief (p 70).
When the Chief was dropped, its hi-level cars went to the Texas Chief, at least for the winter months, when ridership was low. In Summer, those hi-level cars were reassigned to the San Francisco Chief and the El Cap (p 70).
I rode several of the Santa Fe trains in the 1960s many times. I’m glad I did. I would otherwise have missed a great experience.
Were there any designs/plans for Hi-level sleepers? How were they to be laid out?
Were the Superliner sleepers part of the original plan, or were they added on later? I saw someplace on the Web that the Paul Riestrup Amtrak had this thing that sleepers were too elitist for a train service with a public charter but they changed there thinking about new sleeping cars at some time. Anyone have any leads on this?
Your reference is the first reference I know of as to the idea of Riestrup thinking sleepers were “elitist”. Their costs of operation and low passenger density DID bother him, though. He favored more “Slumbercoach/sleepercoaches”, but Amtrak did not go that way. The Superliners were a boondoggle, since they cannot run into New York! (Penn or GCT)
P. Benham,
Santa Fe’s high-level cars, and later Amtrak’s Superliners, were anything but a boondoggle. True, they could not go into Manhattan, but they could go to most all other stations in the country.
I thoroughly enjoyed my trips on the El Cap. The high-level cars enabled far better sightseeing than from the standard coach and Pullman cars, although travelling on the Santa Fe was always a pleasure. Those high-level cars enabled the Santa Fe to lure passengers from other roads, so many in fact, that while other roads were anxious to dump their name trains on Amtrak, the Santa Fe at first vacillated.
In December, 1963, the northbound El Pasoan derailed somewhere near Rincon, NM. A substitute train set was used for many weeks until repairs could be effected to the damaged cars. The substitute coach car looked like something that came out of the late 19th Century, complete with pot belly stove. Yet it was spotless, and the chairs were very comfortable. Riding in that car was a novelty, but the Santa Fe always treated its passengers royally.
Santa Fe’s positive attitude toward passengers showed up in a variety of ways. Note that the Fast Mail, although carrying a coach or two for any passengers who might show up, was not listed in the public timetable. In later years, Numbers 3 and 4, the mail-and-coach remnant of the California Limited, were posted in the public timetable but a statement in the equipment listings indicated that they were not recommended for passenger travel.
There were proposals for high-level sleeping cars. One idea of which I am aware would have had full-width rooms on the upper level, reached by stairs from a low-level corridor.
Oh yeah. There was talk of a hi level Super Chief with hi level sleepers, but obviously that never materialized.
Ah, high level sleepers did materialize, but they were built for Amtrak. Now, I still consider the Superliners to be a boondoggle, since they cannot be used where Amtrak needs them most! The trains they run on are not economically viable and never will be. Amtrak is useful only in densely populated corridors, anywhere else and, well I can’t go there.
I believe the original question was in reference to Budd built hi level cars for the Santa Fe, not the Amtrak Superliner sleepers built by Bombardier and Pullman.
I have to take the more David Gunn like view. The value of transportation is in the network and not any particular leg of it. In my life I have been fortunate to ride on virtually all the transcontinental routes in North America both pre and post Amtrak. I’ve also made innumerable trips on the NEC and the Florida trains and a trip on Auto Train. The reasons that many routes are not more viable are many, but when you consider all, there is only one reason to the customer who is the reason the system exists. Amtrak cannot provide a viable transportation choice to most travellers. Even on trains such as the Crescent which I use at least twice a year on business over much of its route there is only a single train each day (in each direction) over much of the route and there is a general lack of reliability and timekeeping for a number of reasons (freight delays, equipment problems, weather, etc). Funny, that back in the old days the railroads could keep the varnish running…
LC
True, but I can’t help thinking of all those years of all those Boy Scouts who took the El Cap to Philmont camp. They automatically thought that hi-level coaches were “the norm.” Given the look of most new commuter equipment west of the Alleghenies, they were ahead of their time! [:-^]
The first two high-level coaches were ATSF 526-527, which were built as prototypes around 1955 and were assigned to the El Capitan to gauge customer reactions. They can be distinguished by sides canted slightly inward at the window line. Customer reaction was obviously favorable and orders were placed to re-equip the El Capitan shortly afterward.
The El Capitan was running about 16 standard-level cars at the time and the high-levels were seen as a way of reducing train length without reducing capacity or amenities.