Hudson type locomotive 3450 was built for Santa Fe in 1927 as the first of ten similar 4-6-4 engines designed for high speed passenger service, at a cost of $73,735.60 each. Early in its career, it hauled sleek transcontinental passenger trains across the mid-western plains using coal for fuel. Rebuilt in 1937, it was converted to oil and fitted with more modern appliances to increase speed and performance. It was later assigned to California's San Joaquin Valley service between Bakersfield and Oakland, and its massive 20,000 gallon tender was a 1952 modification. By its retirement in 1953, it had accumulated mileage exceeding 100 times the distance around the earth. The engine weighed over 374 tons, measured 98 ft., 1 3/8 in. in length, operated at 228 psi steam pressure, had 78 in. drivers, and could reach a top speed of 110 mph. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway began as the Atchison and Topeka Railroad Company, chartered in Kansas in 1859, and was renamed in 1863 before acquiring its modern name in 1895. Founded by Cyrus K. Holliday to build a railroad along the Santa Fe Trail, it greatly influenced settlement of the southwestern United States. Its main line to the Colorado state line was completed in 1872, and the system expanded to about 9,000 miles in the 1880s and early 1890s before losing mileage in a reorganization after the financial crisis of 1893. Under president Edward Payson Ripley from 1895 until 1920, it grew to more than 11,000 miles of track, and by 1941 it had more than 13,000 miles. The company later became a subsidiary of Santa Fe Industries, Inc. in 1968; a planned 1983 merger with Southern Pacific was rejected by the ICC in 1987; Southern Pacific was sold off in 1988; the parent company became Santa Fe Pacific Corporation in 1989; and Burlington Northern, Inc., purchased it in 1995, after which the resulting company took the name Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation. Before that acquisition, the Santa Fe Railway covered 12 states, with most of its trackage in the midwestern and southwestern United States, and earned freight revenues chiefly from intermodal traffic, farm and food products, chemicals, motor vehicles and parts, and industrial raw materials. Its famed passenger train era had largely ended by 1970, and its passenger service was sold to Amtrak in 1971.

Photo: Craig Baker

Photo: Craig Baker

San Dimas, California · USA