The Chicagoan at Wichita in 1967
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First service | April 10, 1938 |
Last service | April 18, 1968 |
Former operator(s) | Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway |
The Chicagoan and Kansas Cityan were a pair of American named passenger trains operated by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. They ran from Chicago, Illinois to Wichita, Kansas, with a later extension to Oklahoma City.
On April 17, 1938, the Santa Fe introduced a pair of day trains using lightweight, streamlined cars from the Budd Company. These two, seven-car, lightweight, streamlined trains operated the 663-mile (1,067 km) route in 12 3/4 hours between end points. Shortly after entering service the train's western terminal would be moved to Oklahoma City, extending running times by three hours.
The inaugural runs of the two lightweight streamliners were operated with Electro-Motive Corporation E1A units numbered 8 and 9, but 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, assigning them the road numbers 1 and 10. After being rebuilt in Santa Fe's Topeka 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. No. 10 was replaced in 1941 and rebuilt as booster No. 1A, joined to No.1. That set was replaced in 1948.
The Chicagoan and Kansas Cityan received new full-length "Big Dome" lounges in 1954. In 1957 the Kansas Cityan run was shortened to Kansas City - Oklahoma City. In 1960 the runs were extended to Dallas. The trains were discontinued in 1968.
At the train's inception, each of the two trainsets consisted of the following units: