Well, yeah, and that's why I became a fan at an early age. If you really wanted to see them go over the top, have your father be a shipper of 4-6 cars per week, every week, every year..and then show up riding the Super Chief. I was blown away as a little kid how important MY OWN FATHER was to the Santa Fe, and how special that was. I know today that this was a culture, not an event. I've never seen a company before or since handle its customers that way, it was pretty awesome. I sure never forgot. If you were the good shippers little kid on the train, let me tell you, they knew. As far as I cared, there was simply the Santa Fe, and then everybody else... But also don't forget that ATSF had probably the second-highest track miles of left-hand running behind C&NW: "Once upon a time, D-251 left-handed stretched from Pineveta, Arizona to Belen, New Mexico, over 399 miles" See D-251
How much of that was on parallel tracks just a few feet apart? I was under impression that the tracks on this section wandered away from each other alot to take advantage of better grades for the trains heading up hill.
The page link covers it pretty well. I don't know the mileage - but on the last part that was finally converted over (Winslow-Belen) it was very flat - 90mph track speed - and the tracks were side by side most of the way. I've got cabride videos and it's just crushingly boring, mile after mile with the occasional signal bridge, LH all the way with sidings, crossovers for MOW and emergencies only. Timetable rules are 15mph running on 'wrong main' with dispatcher authorization only, as there are were no signals running RH. I'm interested in it because one of the 'features' on my layout is forcing right-hand to left-hand running in the Winslow yard in the operating plan/timetable. http://www.rrsignals.net/Atsf/Albuquerque/2ndDistrict/2602/2602.jpg Merrick's book on Arizona explains it best on how the second track developed and why this evolved the way it did. It's one of the few inexplicable things on ATSF that the only explanation seemed to be 'because we always did it that way'....
