Santa Fe April 1938 Timetable

The cover of this timetable claims that Santa Fe had the nation’s largest fleet of streamlined trains in 1938. These included two Super Chiefs, two new El Capitans, six trains for the streamlined Chief, two trains for the Chicagoan/Kansas Citian, and the San Diegan.

Click image to download a 44.6-MB PDF of this 64-page timetable.

The El Capitans began operating as five-car trains on February 22, 1938. It and the still-unstreamlined Scout are advertised on page 14 of this timetable. Also on February 22, the Chief was partly streamlined, though it would not be fully streamlined for several more years.

The Chicago-Kansas City streamliners (which actually went on to Wichita) began operating on April 10, 1938, and are advertise on the back cover. The ad notes that each train included a baggage car, three coaches, a lounge, a diner, and a parlor-observation car.

The San Diegan began operating on March 27, 1938, but isn’t advertised in this timetable except for a brief mention in the page 14 ad. One train set was sufficient to make two round-trips per day over the 126-mile route, though this left as little as 30 minutes to turn the train between trips.


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