The Great Passenger Train Drag Race - Chapter 2

[dabug]

                             THE GREAT PASSENGER TRAIN DRAG RACE

                                                      CHAPTER 2

As we neared the end of the drive from Columbus, heading north on Michigan Ave. in downtown Chicago, we passed the Illinois Central’s coach yards proudly displaying row upon row of equipment in IC’s striking orange and chocolate-brown paint scheme.  Thus my first sorta up-close-and-personal exposure to the IC’s passenger operations.

Later that day we took a cab from the downtown hotel to Dearborn Station to board our train to Los Angeles.  Now, try to picture this: there at the bumper posts were four Santa Fe streamliners lined up for departure.  From left to right, they were: #15, the Texas Chief, due out at 1800; the all-Pullman Super Chief, running as 1^st 17 that evening and due out at 1830; the hi-level El Capitan (our train) running as 2^nd 17; and a second section of the El Capitan, running as 3^rd 17!  (Santa Fe, of course, did not have enough hi-level cars to equip second sections of the El Capitan, so 3^rd 17 consisted of conventional streamlined equipment.)  Our reserved seats were on the right side of our car; if you’re like me, the left side is preferable to good railfans.  (Yeah, in pre-Amtrak years, when railroads operated trains with reserved seat coaches, they would assign you a specific seat in a specific coach, thereby guaranteeing you a seat.  Furthermore, this was done without the aid of computers – imagine that! – and is something Amtrak has never tried to learn to do.)  As my cousin Jerry has never been a railfan, I spent most of the trip in the window seat.  (He quickly became more interested in the teenage girls he could spot on board anyway.)  Just about on time, 1^st 17, the Super Chief, started its journey to the Golden State.  A few minutes later, we started into motion, leaving 3^rd 17 behind.

I was awake as we arrived in Kansas City in the wee small hours; should have been around 0200.  (Always had trouble sleeping on a train – not because I couldn’t sleep, but because I was afraid I’d miss something interesting if I did.)  As we pulled into our platform, there on our left was another westbound SF consist.  Didn’t know which train it was until we passed up its Pleasure Dome car – OK, we had caught up to the Super Chief.  As we slowed to a stop, I could glimpse another stainless steel consist to its left between its car ends; I presume that was the Texas Chief, but can’t be sure.  A few minutes after we came to a halt, and immediately to our right, in rolled our El Capitan’s second section.  (This would prove to be the last time all three sections of #17 would be together the rest of the way across the country.)   3^rd 17 stopped with its club car or diner directly opposite our coach; at a table, right below my window, sat an attendant tallying his tabs for the evening.  When departure time came, I was surprised that we departed before the Super Chief.  Now we were 1^st 17, and we never saw the other section of the El Capitan again.

In the morning, with daylight streaming through the windows, but shortly before the sun was over the horizon, we rolled into a small town with essentially a 3-track station layout – Newton Kansas.  As we entered the middle track at the station, there on our left was another westbound train.  What train was it?  Had the Super Chief overtaken us sometime during the night?  No… this train had no dome car... must be the Texas Chief (it was.)  As the two trains sat there, in rolled the Super Chief on our right, having caught up to us this time.  Hmmm… who’s going to get the highball first here?  While idly musing on that thought, suddenly the Texas Chief eased into motion… and, within seconds, so did we (leaving the Super Chief behind again.)  Hello, what’s this?!  As both trains slowly gained momentum, running neck and neck for a short distance, I knew something had to give (or so I thought.)  In my then 17-year-old ignorance or naiveté, and excitement at the developing “drag race,” I either didn’t know or didn’t remember that Newton was a strategic junction on the Santa Fe, where the mainline to Oklahoma and Texas branched off.  Sure enough, the Texas Chief suddenly swept around a left-hand curve and down a tangent on a southwest heading.  At its head end I noted an A-B-B-A lash up of warbonnet F units, and the sun, now over the horizon, cast a blinding glare off the right side of #15’s stainless steel cars as they rounded that curve.  As if the Texas Chief was rendering a farewell salute to its bigger more famous cousin.

Wow, that was kinda cool!  But I could not have known at the time that I had just been served an appetizer in the form of a “drag race” that ended in a draw, and that the main course would have to wait until the trip back east later that month.

Later that morning as we toiled up Raton Pass in southeastern Colorado, we stopped at the east entrance to Raton Tunnel.  As you may know, the SF was double-track on either side of the tunnel, but single-track through its ¾-mile length.  After a few minutes the reason for our halt materialized as the eastbound Chief rolled by, downgrade out of the tunnel.

Somewhere east of Albuquerque that afternoon we overtook the westbound Grand Canyon, waiting in a siding for us to pass.  (#123 paused at many more towns en route across the country, and therefore had a much more lax schedule than did #17, as well as a 7 1/2-hour head start out of Chicago.)  Upon arrival in Albuquerque, Jerry and I did the obligatory leg-stretching walk about the platform.  Interestingly, while there in rolled the westbound Grand Canyon that we had overtaken earlier; we left it behind there (hmmm… where’s the Super Chief that was behind us?)

Early the next morning, as we cruised across the Mohave Desert in the pre-dawn darkness, off to the right in the distance I could see the headlights of cars and trucks on parallel Route 66.  Of more interest to me, however, was the sight of our own oscillating headlight on curves, sweeping back and forth in its lazy, elongated figure-8 pattern, surely one of the most arresting and soul-satisfying sights in all of transportation.  I wonder about the impression that sweeping headlight might have made upon any occupants of vehicles on the highway who happened to notice it.  Did any of them realize it heralded the passage of a member of Santa Fe’s fine fleet, then closing in on the magic land that was southern California in that more innocent time, not really all that long ago?

Dawn was breaking as we pulled into Barstow CA to prepare for our assault on the last barrier between us and the Los Angeles basin – Cajon Pass.  As we sat there, what should roll in from behind us and several tracks to our left but the Super Chief, having finally caught up with us after Newton KS.  Again, however, we departed ahead of it.

We arrived at LAUPT a couple minutes to the good.  My uncle upon meeting us informed me that the railroad had arranged that so the Super Chief could pull in on time (0800), and that the other section of the El Capitan was due in at 0900.

Well, that was an interesting trip.  But as the trip home would reveal later that month, I hadn’t seen nothin’ yet!

(To be concluded…)

Wow

Late

[rji2]

Mention of the Texas Chief brings to mind a careless mistake I made early in my railroad career, in late 1949.  I was working 2nd shift in Tower 38 in Galveston, and in lining up for the Chief's arrival, I pulled the wrong lever and lined it up for the roundhouse lead instead of the southward main toward Union Station.  The train, of course, was governed by some kind of signal indication, such as Restricting-Approach, and when the hoghead saw how the switch was lined, he stopped and starting blowing his whistle.  That was the first I realized I'd lined up the wrong route.  I had to hit the ground and signal him to back up behind the home signal so I could change the route.  They probably lost about 15 or 20 minutes, but fortunately it was at the end of the run, rather than the beginning.  I got an inquiry from the Santa Fe Chief Dispatcher (I worked for the T&NO) and I explained what I'd done.  A few days later I got a visit from the T&NO Trainmaster, and I showed him how I'd pulled the wrong lever for the route.  (The lever for the route I lined was next to the lever I should have pulled for the correct route.  He just told me to be more careful and that was the end of it.  I was sure I'd be fired for it, because I'd been cautioned not to delay any of the Santa Fe passenger trains when I went to work at Tower 38.

[dabug]

Thanks for the interesting story, rji2.  Sounds like you were lucked out that time.