Santa Fe All The Way

Ship and travel Santa Fe - all the way. The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe is perhaps the most storied railroad of the west. Famous passenger trains, amazing ad campaigns, and even songs have made a long lasting legacy for this railroad, better known simply as the Santa Fe. Interestingly enough, Santa Fe, New Mexico, was never even on the mainline of the railroad but simply served by a branch line. Nonetheless, it was always the Santa Fe.

The Santa Fe had numerous lines criss-crossing south central Kansas creating a web of mainline, branchline, and secondary lines. We have been working on the Emporia, Arkansas City, and Douglass subs of the BNSF, successor to the Santa Fe. To most people they are just railroad tracks, but in my view it's a historic trip to set on and take a ride down the Santa Fe, even if it is work.

The Emporia sub is part of the famous Transcontinental mainline and saw the vast majority of Santa Fe trains. The fast freights took a route straight southwest out of Kansas City while the storied passenger trains took the washboard profile line to Topeka. Both joined each other in Emporia, Kansas, and continued southwest towards California and the coast. Today the freight traffic is down and there are no more passenger trains.

But step back in time, back to the 1950s, when yellow and blue covered wagons pulled millions of tons of freight and red and silver engines headed up the Super Chief, traveling at high speed with well-to-do people and celebrities in the passenger cars behind them. These were the things that songs and stories were written about and it's a far cry from a dirty spray truck!

Today the freight still moves at high speed across the Kansas prairie through here. Most of the power is orange and green, but every so often you will still see one that says Santa Fe, back on its home territory. Old depots with the Santa Fe logo inlaid in the brick still stand in many towns, watching the passage of time and trains. Think of the generations of railroaders that have passed before them, it's almost chilling.

The Santa Fe may no longer officially exist, but in the memories, in the buildings, and in the occasional locomotive it still exists. It exists in the lines that were built well over 100 years ago that are still a vital part of the nation's rail infrastructure. It exists in the old boxcar in Winfield, still bearing the famous slogan - Ship and Travel Santa Fe All the Way!