Santa Fe Railway Safety Department

This one was a lot of fun to research and review. An old Santa Fe safety film in glorious Technicolor from the days of yore. Its formal name was the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway (ATSF) which stretched from Chicago to Los Angeles, The Bay Area (Richmond, California), and down from Kansas City into Texas.

Somehow all the prints I discovered online have the opening credits/title page lopped off. Thus, we’ll use the above safety images instead. The gent in the natty suit and bow tie, (wide lapels must be “IN” this year), has his pointer on San Bernardino’s injury count. He really needs to take a look at Albuquerque.

Just a smattering of steam locomotives are shown segueing into Santa Fe’s colorful, first-generation diesel fleet. And there’s no topping that classic red, silver and gold “Warbonnet” scheme on the passenger engines.

Let’s check it out. Santa Fe, All The Waaaaay!!

Motorcar operator “Skippy” is trundling down the San Joaquin Valley, blissfully unaware of the approaching San Francisco Chief. Should we warn him? “Look around, Skip, look around!” bellows the narrator. This great bit of melodrama will be fleshed out in the upcoming story. Read on.

Our movie opens with ATSF President Fred Gurley dedicating a new “Union Depot” at Atchison, Kansas coinciding with that city’s Centennial celebration. Looks like Fred had them run a pair of E8m’s up from Topeka for a splash of color.

Also making the scene, was Santa Fe’s pride and joy, the “Cyrus K. Holliday” ATSF #1, a little 2-8-0 steamer pulling two colorful wooden coaches. Santa Fe #1 is still with us at the Kansas Museum of History in Topeka.

Two quick views before I get into some serious diesel gazing. 1. First is a shot of a gas-electric combine at the OLD Atchison depot. 2. Second — remember I said it was a Union Depot? Well, 3 other railroads used it including Rock Island, Missouri Pacific and the Burlington. For the city’s centennial, the CB&Q sent down their little tea kettle, #35, a 4-4-0. Burlington #35 is also still with us at the Patee House Museum in Saint Joseph, Missouri.

At what I think is Topeka, (note passenger train passing in the background), filmmakers rolled a set of blue/yellow freight units (ATSF #239 EMD F7 built 1950) alongside a freshly-shopped ATSF #5034 2-10-4 Texas type built by Baldwin in 1944.

Next comes a beautiful Alco PA-1 in Warbonnet dress (number unknown) alongside freight ATSF #193, an EMD FT-A built in 1945.

Out on the mainline, the days of train orders being “hooped up” are being replaced by a dispatcher CTC board (Centralized Traffic Control) which, with the twist of a lever, throws a switch and sets an advance signal to yellow over yellow (proceed at medium speed and prepare to enter diverging route).

Just like that, the DS has lined ATSF #211 (EMD F7A built 1949) into the siding with a red over green (diverging clear).

As a section gang stands in the clear, a passenger train with an eclectic trio of motive power blurs past. The first two locomotives are ATSF #15A & B, EMD E6s built 1941 followed by an EMD E8Am (number unreadable 80-something).

Judging from the full-length “Big Dome”, this is either the San Francisco Chief or The Chief.

Safety Lesson: Back in the yard, two carmen have found a girlie magazine on the ground and proceed to get so “distracted”, they put that box car on the ground, WHAM! The Yard Foreman is not pleased.

And now, a cautionary tale of two Putt-Putts.

Bill in Texas (left) and Skippy in California (right) are both preparing to take a motor car ride. Both look at their line up and watches, but only Texas Bill (standing there next to the “colored waiting room” sign), looks at his employee timetable, so he knows when a train is due.

Sure enough, Bill is on the ball and knows JUST where to set off his speeder for the express train.

Ol’ Skip, on the other hand, seems distracted. Perhaps it’s part of that mellow California attitude or it could be the awesome weed he got hold of last night. At any rate, he’s not paying attention and is missing all the signs that a train is fast approaching on his six (signals and block occupancy indicators reading STOP, etc.).

Wouldn’t ya know, here comes #1, doing about 90mph, (led by EMD F7 #333 built 1951). The hogger desperately blows the air horn and waves frantically, but Skip is too toasted to notice.

At the absolute last second, Skip finally “looks around”, sees F7 #343 (yes, it changed numbers somehow), and leaps away and into the dirt.

These clips were really cool to go back and watch in slow motion. You can see the F7 and the putt-putt are motionless and it’s Skip’s jumping that provides all the action.

The Santa Fe Goes To Sea

How about that switcher with the “wagon wheel” radio mast? Yep, ATSF #504 is a Fairbanks-Morse H12-44, built in 1950, and seen here switching a barge. Santa Fe had quite the extensive tugboat/barge operation in the San Francisco Bay Area and the above link is interesting reading.

Second shot is of a barge pulling away from (I think) the Oakland side. Third shot is a Warbonnet-clad tugboat with Coit Tower in the background. Fourth shot is pushing alongside a barge near the Bay Bridge.

Now to finish things up, here are 4 views that didn’t fit anywhere else:

• 1 – GE Erie A unit #90 built 1947. Santa Fe had just one A-B-A set of these and I believe they spent most of their time in the shops with mechanical problems.
• 2 – Santa Fe mechanical temperature control (MTC) car having a new motor/refrigerator installed. These cars were/are used to ship food products that need a constant temperature.
• 3 – Looks like they had their own fire department! I think this might be at San Bernadino shops.
• 4 – Early effort at piggyback long before the days of double stack containers.

I reviewed this copy, if you’d like to watch it:

That is, if it’s still on YouTube…

If you have ANY information about this movie you’d like to share, please contact me at: Lindsay.Korst@gmail.com, or leave a comment.  Thanks and enjoy the blog!

THE END