While trains like the Scout and California Limited had disappeared from Santa Fe timetables in the late 1950s, the railway still had an amazing number of trains serving branch lines. A Texas city of about 55,000 people (in 1957) called San Angelo was a particular hub of activity.
Click image to download a 32.8-MB PDF of this 48-page timetable.
According to this timetable, daily trains went from San Angelo to Dallas and Fort Worth; Brownwood and Temple; and Kiowa, Kansas. Santa Fe also had branches from San Angelo south to a town called Sonora and southwest to Presidio, on the Mexican border, and provided passenger service in mixed trains to those cities at least as late as 1953. By 1957, however, it only operated freight service on those routes.
With this timetable the Chief’s eastbound schedule was padded by 60 minutes, resulting in a still respectable 40-1/2 hour timing. At some point between the late 1950s and early 1960s the Chief’s L.A. departure was once again shifted to mid-day, presumably because in 1958 the Super Chief and El Capitan were combined into one train that left in the evening. Management must have felt there was some value in having (premium) daytime service over the 2nd District, i.e. Pasadena and Pomona and to points further east.