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Post by Rob Albritton on Mar 19, 2020 21:54:19 GMT -5
Welcome! So, I guess no big surprise here: The Super Chief is my baby. It is not one of my favorites - it IS my favorite streamliner. period. Since we are all "Home Alone" for a while here, Hans and I thought you would enjoy following along as we do the research and development of these new projects. Now granted, I still have a day job that is still keeping me pretty busy telecommuting all day, but I hope to have updates as often as I can. I'm also living at a home school with three grade school aged kids - so the tension level is rising quickly. In fact, my wife informed me this morning that her home school would be closing next week due to the Coronavirus. I don't think she is kidding. She did not look like she was kidding. She looked quite disturbed, in a horror film sort of way. Complete with the messed up makeup. OK, so let me revise a bit. IF I am not chopped up by deranged family members wielding kitchen cutlery, THEN I hope to provide updates on the Super Chief. But back to the ATSF - that will be in my next post. Good Night, and Good Luck. -R And if you need a little laugh - click HERE |
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Post by Rob Albritton on Mar 20, 2020 19:09:42 GMT -5
A quick update for tonight:
Debating between the 1951 and summer 1953 consist for the Super Chief. There are very few differences, but I want to research them tomorrow.
My primary source for information is the Santa Fe Railway Historical and Modeling Society publications. They are thick, well documented materials that are 99.99% accurate. I will back them up with photos, films, and other primary sources.
My thinking is to use these posts as my location for recording research notes, so everyone can see exactly what goes into the process, and how decisions are made.
I hope you enjoy the ride!
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Post by Rob Albritton on Mar 30, 2020 12:21:57 GMT -5
The research continues. Books have been gathered!  |
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Post by Rob Albritton on May 30, 2020 12:40:32 GMT -5
Lets start talking about the sets. I decided to go with the 1953 Summer consist for the Super Chief. I have multiple reasons: I think it was at or near the high point for the Super Chief, and almost all stream liners in America. The Super Chief was re-equipped into its classic 1950's lightweights at the beginning of 1951. By 1953, the equipment had a bit of time to season, and all of the sets were reasonably well established. I also think it is a bit remarkable that the train had a very consistent look, especially considering that Pullman, ACF and Budd all contributed to the consist. So, lets talk about the 1953 Summer Super Chief. Typically the weekend run consisted of the following: The locomotive power units - we will dive into that a bit later, but typically F units in A-B-B-A configuration. Baggage & Express Car *RPO *10-6 Sleeper 10-6 Sleeper 4-4-2 Sleeper Pleasure Dome Diner Dormitory - Lounge 4-4-2 Sleeper 4-4-2 Sleeper 10-6 Sleeper Sleeper - Lounge - Observation * = These cars ran only between Kansas City and Los Angeles. So you can see that even with the Super Chief's fast 39:45 running time from Chicago to L.A., there was still time to cut in / out the RPO and one 10-6 sleeper in the middle of the night at Kansas City. You can find a time table here. |
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Post by Rob Albritton on Jun 1, 2020 10:36:24 GMT -5
Lets start with the number of tools (molds) this project will require:
Baggage
RPO
10-6
4-4-2
Dome
Diner
Dorm Lounge
Observation
We have not made any of these cars in the past - not even with tools that are "close enough" to make it work. Our previous lightweight cars were all "smooth" sided, whereas all of the ASTF cars are "Ribbed" or "Fluted" or "Corrugated" (take your pick - I'm sure someone knows the technical difference, but it's all Greek to me!)
So that means we need to tool 8 totally new cars. Tooling is expensive. This is going to be a massive project!
Fortunately, the Super Chief ran with very consistent rolling stock, and being the "train of the stars" it was well documented too! To digress, the ATSF would note when a Hollywood star boarded the train in Chicago (or connected via the NYC or PRR from New York) and made sure to alert a publicist, and even tip off a reporter or two, so photographers would be there for the train's arrival in Los Angeles. Station agents would escort the media to good locations where they knew Santa Fe logos would be seen in the background of the newspaper photos. They even used the tag line of "She came in on the Super!" in advertisements. Naturally, Hollywood loved the publicity, and the traveling public would choose the Super Chief knowing they might have the chance to rub elbows with a movie star on their way to L.A.
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Post by Rob Albritton on Jun 4, 2020 7:47:41 GMT -5
The Blue Sleeping Cars
Our Super Chief used primarily two types of Sleeping cars: 10-6 and 4-4-2. But there was one other that occasionally got thrown into the mix: the Pullman Standard Lot 6757, Plan 4145 10-3-2 cars, which used the name prefix Blue (Blue Ray, Blue Bell, etc.) Delivered between Novemeber 1947 and March 1948, they were part of the post WWI re-equip of the Super Chief. When the Super Chief went daily on February 29, 1948, the consist included three Blue sleepers on each train. Just two years later, the Santa Fe started receiving new Pine series 10-6 sleepers from Budd, and they quickly replaced the P-S Blue cars – reassigned to the Chicago – Galveston Texas Chief. By July 1950 the Blue cars were completely gone from the Super Chief. But this did not last.
The Super Chief carried two cars between Kansas City and Los Angeles only – they were pick up / set out in the middle of the night as the Kansas City stop occurred in the very early hours of dark mornings. One was the Railway Post Office, the other was a sleeping car for Kansas City passengers. Because the Super Chief was an all sleeping car train, passage could not be booked between Chicago and Kansas City. The Kansas City sleeper was a 10-6 Palm series car, but for a brief period from May 1953 until January 18, 1954 two 10-3-2 Blue series cars were put in rotation along with two 10-6 Palm series cars to make up the four cars necessary for the KC to LA sleeper service. These cars ran sequentially, with the rotation being two nights of Blue 10-3-2 car departures, followed by two nights of Palm 10-6 car departures.
While the Blue series sleepers would be correct for our Super Chief, we have decided to pass on production of this particular car. They did not run every day, and their re-appearance in the 1950s on the Super Chief was very brief. Choices have to be made, and we don’t think this car is worth the investment – but we do try to complete our research thoroughly so that you know we have made every effort to produce an accurate, quality product.
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Post by Rob Albritton on Jun 10, 2020 21:11:46 GMT -5
Don't worry. I'm still working on the Super Chief. I just got a little distracted today.
Next up: The Baggage car.
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Post by Rob Albritton on Jul 16, 2020 11:20:14 GMT -5
Baggage cars are easy – and a little tough too.
The Santa Fe had a large number of lightweight baggage cars mainly from ACF and Budd. In fact 1942 to 1957 the ATSF took delivery of 7 separate classes of 73’ streamlined lightweight baggage cars – any of which could have been assigned to the Super Chief. They were all about 73’ long. They all had two doors per side in roughly the same location with two windows per door. The main difference was in the roof. The Super Chief had a smooth roof line, where as some of the other baggage cars had fluted roofs. That being said, I decided to go with ATSF 3453 – 3466: a group of 14 baggage and express cars made by ACF that measured 73’ 10” with a smooth roof. They arrived in 1950, and were frequently photographed in Super Chief consists (in fact, more than other baggage car classes) so they seemed the most appropriate cars to use for the Super Chief sets. In Super Chief service, these cars primarily served as mail storage cars. They also had a small star on the sides which indicated that they were equipped with a small toilet for an on board attendant.
These cars had an interesting feature: they had flat stainless steel panels attached to the body on either side of the doors. This was because baggage cart collisions could easily dent the fluted stainless steel sides, but the flat panels were easier to repair.
Three of these cars served with Amtrak, and seven of them were sold to the Ice Capades show in 1969 and 1970.
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Post by Rob Albritton on Jul 19, 2020 8:47:01 GMT -5
Mail transportation and the Railway Post Office, or RPO car was financially critical to the railroad’s success. As the Super Chief was the Santa Fe’s premier train, the first lightweight Baggage / RPO car delivered in 1938 to the AT&SF (#3400) was assigned to the Super Chief, but it never ran with the train. The U.S. Postal service only wanted mail on daily trains, and the Super Chief did not operate daily until 1948, so instead #3400 was assigned to the San Diegan. Several other 70’ Baggage / RPO cars came later. In 1940, the Santa Fe took delivery of its first two 63’ full RPO (without a baggage / express section) which were assigned to various trains, but material shortages during World War II resulted in no more new RPO cars until 1947.
The choice of Santa Fe RPO 82-88 for our 1953 Super Chief set was obvious. While most head end cars roamed around the system, these cars were different: they were assigned exclusively to the Super Chief from 1948 to 1954. The Santa Fe wanted to maintain an all streamlined stainless steel look for the Super Chief, and these cars fit perfectly with fluted sides and smooth roofs. Built by American Car & foundry in 1947, these cars were 62’ 10” long with full standard 60’ RPO sections inside.
Interestingly, these cars did not work the entire Chicago to Los Angeles route. The RPO (along with 10-6 sleeping car) were cut in behind the storage mail car at Kansas City when the train made its stop in the middle of the night.
As the U.S. Postal Service shifted away from railroads in 1968, the need for RPO cars evaporated. None of these iconic RPO cars survived. They were all scrapped in November, 1971.
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Post by Rob Albritton on Oct 3, 2020 17:55:54 GMT -5
A quick update:
The research is complete and the order has been placed at the factory. I’ll have more details, but I’m honestly just a little behind writing up the reports.
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Post by Rob Albritton on Mar 11, 2021 22:52:34 GMT -5
Lots has happened, and I will continue to post the history of each Super Chief car, but I do want to give everyone an inventory update:
We only have 30 sets remaining from the first release in inventory at Ztrack distribution. If you would like a Super Chief set, may I suggest ordering one soon? These have sold at a far faster pace than we anticipated, and these car names will not be repeated in the future.
Enjoy!
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