You are responsible to read the entire description.  Shipping is the responsibility of the carrier used.  I am not responsible for late deliveries, damaged in transit other than the insured value, or stolen items that were delivered.  Most items are insured.  USPS first class, media mail and Fedex Smartpost are not insured.

Brought to you by Antiques1000. Visit My Internet Store At Antiques1000 and my other ebay stores at Antiques1000go and Uniqueantiques1000, MyAntiques1000, 3richard486, richard486,Uniqueantiques999, rtrombley486,486richard, 486rtrombley.

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to navigationJump to search

This article is about the railway. For the Academy Award-winning song, see On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe.

"ATSF" redirects here. For the unrealized European aircraft, see Avion de Transport Supersonique Futur.

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Herald.png

BNSF Map.png

ATSF system (shown in blue) at the time 

of the BNSF merger

Locale

List[show]

Dates of operation 1859–1996; 23 years ago

Successor Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway (later BNSF Railway)

Headquarters Chicago, Illinois

The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (reporting mark ATSF), often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. Chartered in February 1859, the railroad reached the Kansas-Colorado border in 1873 and Pueblo, Colorado, in 1876. To create a demand for its services, the railroad set up real estate offices and sold farm land from the land grants that it was awarded by Congress. Despite the name, its main line never served Santa Fe, New Mexico, as the terrain was too difficult; the town ultimately was reached by a branch line from Lamy.

The Santa Fe was a pioneer in intermodal freight transport, an enterprise that (at one time or another) included a tugboat fleet and an airline (the short-lived Santa Fe Skyway). Its bus line extended passenger transportation to areas not accessible by rail, and ferryboats on the San Francisco Bay allowed travelers to complete their westward journeys to the Pacific Ocean. The AT&SF was the subject of a popular song, Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer's "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe", written for the film, The Harvey Girls (1946).

The railroad officially ceased operations on December 31, 1996, when it merged with the Burlington Northern Railroad to form the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway.

Contents

1 History

1.1 Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway

1.2 Atlantic and Pacific Railway

1.3 Expansion

1.4 Attempted Southern Pacific merger

1.5 Burlington Northern merger

2 Company officers

3 Passenger service

3.1 Named trains

3.2 Special trains

4 Signals

5 Paint schemes

5.1 Steam locomotives

5.2 Diesel locomotives

5.2.1 Passenger

5.2.2 Freight

6 Ferry service

7 Atlas Shrugged

8 See also

9 References

10 Further reading

11 External links

History[edit]

Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway[edit]

Cyrus K. Holliday, first president of AT&SF

AT&SF trademark in the late 19th century incorporated the Britishlion out of respect for the country's financial assistance in building the railroad to California

D&RGW through Royal Gorge in 1881

Gold bond of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad Company, issued 1. October 1889

A map of "The Santa Fé Route" and subsidiary lines, as published in an 1891 issue of the Grain Dealers and Shippers Gazetteer

The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway (AT&SF) was chartered on February 11, 1859, to join Atchison and Topeka, Kansas, with Santa Fe, New Mexico. In its early years, the railroad opened Kansas to settlement. Much of its revenue came from wheat grown there and from cattle driven north from Texas to Wichita and Dodge City by September 1872.[1]

Rather than turn its survey southward at Dodge City, AT&SF headed southwest over Raton Pass because of coal deposits near Trinidad, Colorado and Raton, New Mexico. The Denver & Rio Grande Railroad (D&RG) was also aiming at Raton Pass, but AT&SF crews arose early one morning in 1878 and were hard at work with picks and shovels when the D&RGW crews showed up for breakfast. At the same time the two railroads had a series of skirmishes over occupancy of the Royal Gorge west of Cañon City, Colorado; physical confrontations led to two years of armed conflict that became known as the Royal Gorge Railroad War. Federal intervention prompted an out-of-court settlement on February 2, 1880, in the form of the so-called "Treaty of Boston", wherein D&RG was allowed to complete its line and lease it for use by Santa Fe. D&RG paid an estimated $1.4 million to Santa Fe for its work within the Gorge and agreed not to extend its line to Santa Fe, while Santa Fe agreed to forego its planned routes to Denver and Leadville.[1]

Building across Kansas and eastern Colorado was simple, with few natural obstacles (certainly fewer than the railroad was to encounter further west), but the railroad found it almost economically impossible because of the sparse population. It set up real estate offices in the area and promoted settlement across Kansas on the land that was granted to it by Congress in 1863. It offered discounted fares to anyone who traveled west to inspect land; if the land was purchased, the railroad applied the passenger's fare toward the price of the land.[citation needed]

AT&SF reached Albuquerque in 1880; Santa Fe, the original destination of the railroad, found itself on a short branch from Lamy, New Mexico.[2] In March 1881 AT&SF connected with the Southern Pacific (SP) at Deming, New Mexico, forming the second transcontinental rail route. The railroad then built southwest from Benson, Arizona, to Nogales on the Mexican border where it connected with the Sonora Railway, which the AT&SF had built north from the Mexican port of Guaymas.[1]

AT&SF purchased the Southern California Railway on Jan. 17, 1906; with this purchase they also acquired the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley Railroad and the California Central Railway.

Atlantic and Pacific Railway[edit]

The Atlantic & Pacific Railroad (A&P) was chartered in 1866 to build west from Springfield, Missouri, along the 35th parallel of latitude (approximately through Amarillo, Texas, and Albuquerque, New Mexico) to a junction with SP at the Colorado River. The infant A&P had no rail connections. The line that was to become the St. Louis–San Francisco Railway(Frisco) would not reach Springfield for another four years, and SP did not build east from Mojave to the Colorado River until 1883. A&P started construction in 1868, built southwest into what would become Oklahoma, and promptly entered receivership.[1]

In 1879 A&P struck a deal with the Santa Fe and Frisco railroads to construct a rail line for each. The railroads would jointly build and own the A&P railroad west of Albuquerque. In 1883 A&P reached Needles, California, where it connected with an SP line. A&P also built a line between Tulsa, Oklahoma and St. Louis, Missouri for the Frisco, but the Tulsa-Albuquerque portion remained unbuilt.[1]

Expansion[edit]

A comparison map prepared by the Santa Fe Railroad in 1921, showing the "Old Santa Fé Trail" (top) and the AT&SF and its connections (bottom)

The Santa Fe began to expand: a line from Barstow, California, to San Diego in 1885 and to Los Angeles in 1887; control of the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway(Galveston-Fort Worth) in 1886 and a line between Wichita and Fort Worth in 1887; lines from Kansas City to Chicago, from Kiowa, Kansas to Amarillo, and from Pueblo to Denver (paralleling the D&RGW) in 1888; and purchase of the Frisco and the Colorado Midland Railway in 1890.[1] By January 1890, the entire system consisted of some 7,500 miles of track.[3]

The Panic of 1893 had the same effect on the AT&SF that it had on many other railroads; financial problems and subsequent reorganization. In 1895 AT&SF sold the Frisco and the Colorado Midland and wrote off the losses, but it still retained control of the A&P.[1]

The Santa Fe Railway still wanted to reach California on its own rails (it leased the SP line from Needles to Barstow), and the state of California eagerly courted the railroad to break SP's monopoly. In 1897 the railroad traded the Sonora Railway of Mexico to SP for their line between Needles and Barstow, giving AT&SF its own line from Chicago to the Pacific coast. It was unique in that regard until the Milwaukee Road completed its extension to Puget Sound in 1909.[1]

Subsequent expansion of the Santa Fe Railway encompassed lines from Amarillo to Pecos (1899); Ash Fork, Arizona to Phoenix (1901); Williams, Arizona to the Grand Canyon (1901); the Belen Cutoff from the Pecos line at Texico to Isleta Pueblo, New Mexico, south of Albuquerque, bypassing the grades of Raton Pass (1907); and the Coleman Cutoff, from Texico to Coleman, Texas, near Brownwood (1912).[1]

In 1907, AT&SF and SP jointly formed the Northwestern Pacific Railroad (NWP), which took over several short railroads and built new lines connecting them to form a route from San Francisco north to Eureka, California. In 1928, Santa Fe sold its half of NWP to SP. In addition, Santa Fe purchased the U.S. portion of the Kansas City, Mexico & Orient Railway (the Mexican portion of the line became the Chihuahua-Pacific Railway, now part of National Railways of Mexico).

Because long stretches of its main line traverse areas without water, Santa Fe was one of the first buyers of diesel locomotives for freight service. The railroad was known for its passenger trains, notably the Chicago-Los Angeles El Capitan and Super Chief (currently operated as Amtrak's Southwest Chief), and for the on-line eating housesand dining cars that were operated by Fred Harvey.[1] Several of these Harvey Houses survive - most notably the El Tovar, which is positioned right alongside the Grand Canyon.

On March 29, 1955, the railway was one of many companies that sponsored attractions in Disneyland with its 5-year sponsorship of all Disneyland trains and stations.[4]

Post-World War II construction projects included an entrance to Dallas from the north, and relocation of the main line across northern Arizona, between Seligman and Williams.[1] In 1960, AT&SF bought the Toledo, Peoria & Western Railroad (TP&W), then sold a half interest to the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR). TP&W cut straight east across Illinois from near Fort Madison, Iowa (Lomax, IL), to a connection with PRR at Effner, Indiana (Illinois-Indiana border), forming a bypass around Chicago for traffic moving between the two lines. The TP&W route did not mesh with the traffic pattern PRR successor Conrail developed after 1976, so AT&SF bought back the other half, merged with TP&W in 1983, then sold it back into independence in 1989.[1]

Attempted Southern Pacific merger[edit]

Main article: Southern Pacific Santa Fe Railroad

AT&SF and SP Railroad trains meet at Walong siding on the Tehachapi Loop in the late 1980s

AT&SF began to propose a merger in the early 1980s. The Southern Pacific Santa Fe Railroad (SPSF) was a proposed merger between the parent companies of the Southern Pacific and AT&SF announced on December 23, 1983. As part of the joining of the two firms, all rail and non-rail assets owned by Santa Fe Industries and the Southern Pacific Transportation Company were placed under the control of a holding company, the Santa Fe–Southern Pacific Corporation. The merger was subsequently denied by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) on the basis that it would create too many duplicate routes.[5][6]

The companies were so confident that the merger would be approved they began repainting locomotives and non-revenue rolling stock in a new unified paint scheme. After the ICC's denial, railfans joked that SPSF really stood for "Shouldn't Paint So Fast." While Southern Pacific was sold off, all of the California real estate holdings were consolidated in a new company, Catellus Development Corporation, making it the state's largest private landowner. Some time later, Catellus would purchase the Union Pacific Railroad's interest in the Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal (LAUPT).[1] After SP's sale, SPSF was renamed to Santa Fe Pacific Corporation, the holding company of AT&SF.

Burlington Northern merger[edit]

Main article: BNSF Railway

On September 22, 1995, AT&SF merged with Burlington Northern Railroad to form the Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway (BNSF). Some of the challenges resulting from the joining of the two companies included the establishment of a common dispatching system, the unionization of AT&SF's non-union dispatchers, and incorporating AT&SF's train identification codes throughout. The two lines maintained separate operations until December 31, 1996 when it officially became BNSF.

1870 1945

Gross operating revenue $182,580 $528,080,530

Total track length 62 miles (100 km) 13,115 miles (21,107 km)

Freight carried 98,920 tons 59,565,100 tons

Passengers carried 33,630 11,264,000

Locomotives owned 6 1,759

Unpowered rolling stock owned 141 81,974 freight cars

1,436 passenger cars

Source: Santa Fe Railroad (1945), Along Your Way, Rand McNally, Chicago, Illinois.

Revenue Freight Ton-Miles (Millions)

ATSF/GC&SF/P&SF Oklahoma City-Ada-Atoka FtWorth & Rio Grande KCM&O/KCM&O of Texas Clinton & Oklahoma Western New Mexico Central

1925 13862 14 42 330 2 1

1933 8712 12 18 (incl P&SF) (incl P&SF) (incl ATSF)

1944 37603 45 (incl GC&SF)

1960 36635 20

1970 48328 (merged)

Revenue Passenger-Miles (Millions)

ATSF/GC&SF/P&SF Oklahoma City-Ada-Atoka FtWorth & Rio Grande KCM&O/KCM&O of Texas Clinton & Oklahoma Western New Mexico Central

1925 1410 5 6 8 0.1 0.1

1933 555 0.1 0.8 (incl P&SF) (incl P&SF) (incl ATSF)

1944 6250 0.2 (incl GC&SF)

1960 1689 0

1970 727 (merged)