(PD) Photo: Unknown The San Diegan, led by a pair of back-to-back ALCO PA units, reaches the end of the line at San Diego's Union Station on October 26, 1963.
The named passenger trains of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (AT&SF) included some fifty (50) regularly scheduled excursions operated by the company at various times throughout its existence. Named trains were often identified on the Santa Fe via illuminated "drumhead" signs mounted to the end of observation cars. Occasionally, "special" trains (not included in the railroad's regular revenue service lineup) were chartered to make high-profile runs over the company's trackage, usually for publicity purposes.
The California Limited operated between the cities of Chicago, Illinois and Los Angeles, California from November 27, 1892 to June 15, 1954, giving it the distinction of having the longest tenure of any train making the Chicago-Los Angeles run within the Santa Fe system.
The San Francisco Chief operated between the cities of San Francisco, California and Chicago, Illinois from June 6, 1954 to April 30, 1971. It was the last new streamliner introduced by the Santa Fe, the first direct service offered between Chicago and the Bay Area, the only direct service offered between those two locations over the tracks of a single railroad, and at 2,555 miles (4,112 km) the longest single service offered by a railroad in the United States of America which did not utilize another railroad's tracks.