Santa Fe’s spin on the “ship-and-travel” theme adds “all the way,” referring of course to the fact that Santa Fe was the only railroad connecting Chicago with California. The war bonneted locomotive on the left represented travel while the FT locomotive on the right (quite likely based on the photo below) represented shipping.
Click image to download a PDF of one sheet of this note pad.
First produced in 1939, the FT was General Motors first freight locomotive and was tested by the Santa Fe and other railroads. Recognizing the advantage of a locomotive that didn’t need to stop frequently to replenish scarce water in the southwest desert, the Santa Fe was one of the first to buy FTs.
The passenger cars in this photo are probably test cars measuring the power of the new locomotive in 1941. Click image for a slightly larger view.
The drawing and black-and-white photo don’t show, but the dark color is blue and the light color is yellow, which was long the color scheme for Santa Fe Diesels. The fact that Santa Fe started buying the newer F3 and F7 models of the locomotive for freight service in 1948 suggests that this note pad dates from somewhere between 1940 and 1948.