The ''Chicagoan'' and ''Kansas Cityan'' were a pair of American named

passenger trains In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and transport people or freight. Trains are typically pulled or pushed by locomotives (often know ...

operated by the

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison, Kansas, Atchison and Top ...

. They ran from

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Wichita, Kansas Wichita ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat of Sedgwick County, Kansas, Sedgwick County. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of the city was 397,532. The Wichita metro area had ...

, with a later extension to

Oklahoma City Oklahoma City (), officially the City of Oklahoma City, and often shortened to OKC, is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The county seat of Oklahoma County, it ranks 20th among United States cities in population, a ...

History

On April 17, 1938, the Santa Fe introduced a pair of day trains using lightweight, streamlined cars from the

Budd Company The Budd Company was a 20th-century metal fabricator, a major supplier of body components to the automobile industry, and a manufacturer of stainless steel passenger rail cars, airframes, missile and space vehicles, and various defense products ...

, and numbered trains 11 and 12. These two, seven-car, lightweight, streamlined trains operated the route in 12 3/4 hours between endpoints. In December of 1939, the train's western terminal would be moved to Oklahoma City, extending running times by three hours. At the same time, ''The Tulsan'', streamlined diesel train 211 and 212, was introduced, carrying through chair cars taken off 11 to and from

Tulsa, Oklahoma Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with ...

, and adding through Tulsa-Chicago cars to train 12. This allowed the service to compete with the new Frisco ''Firefly''. The inaugural runs of the two lightweight streamliners were operated with Electro-Motive Corporation E1A units numbered 8 and 9. However, within a month, Santa Fe rebuilt the old Santa Fe Box Cab Diesel passenger units 1A and 1B as single-cab units for the new trains, and assigned them the road numbers 1 and 10. After being rebuilt in Santa Fe's

Topeka Topeka ( ; Kansa: ; iow, Dópikˀe, script=Latn or ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Kansas and the seat of Shawnee County. It is along the Kansas River in the central part of Shawnee County, in northeast Kansas, in the Central Un ...

shops with an elevated cab over a new snub nose and new AAR 1B drop-equalizer trucks, and painted in the Santa Fe "war bonnet" paint scheme, they replaced the newer E-units. The ''Chicagoan'' and ''Kansas Cityan'' received new full-length "

Big Dome The Big Domes were a fleet of streamlined dome cars built by the Budd Company for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway ("Santa Fe") in 1954. Budd built a total of 14 cars in two batches. The Santa Fe operated all 14 on various streamlined t ...

" lounges in 1954. after the war, trains 111 and 112 carried a portion of the train (including a new sleeping car) to Dallas via Ft. Worth and Cleburne. This extension disappeared in 1957, and reappeared in 1960. The trains were discontinued in their entirety in 1968.

Train consists

At the train's inception, each of the two trainsets consisted of the following units: * One EMC E1A

Diesel locomotive A diesel locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engine. Several types of diesel locomotives have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is conveyed to the driving whee ...

* One Baggage or

Railway Post Office In Canada and the United States, a railway post office, commonly abbreviated as RPO, was a railroad car that was normally operated in passenger service as a means to sort mail en route, in order to speed delivery. The RPO was staffed by highly tr ...

car * Three 52 seat coaches * One 26 seat coach or 30-seat club lounge car * One 48 seat

dining car A dining car (American English) or a restaurant car (British English), also a diner, is a railroad passenger car that serves meals in the manner of a full-service, sit-down restaurant. It is distinct from other railroad food service cars that ...

* One 32 seat parlor observation

Notes

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Chicagoan Passenger trains of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Named passenger trains of the United States Railway services introduced in 1938 Railway services discontinued in 1968