Santa Fe Mail Trains History: Mail trains on the Santa Fe are interesting historical and modeling topics. The Santa Fe had an ideal mail route with a mainline stretching to the California coast and connections to eastern roads in Chicago. I will be focusing on trains running from the 1950s into 1968. While the Santa Fe had mail contracts before this, the equipment used from the 1950s to 1968 generally stayed the same during this period. The Santa Fe's main mail train was the Fast Mail Express, trains 7&8. This train ran from Chicago to Los Angeles with service to Oakland via Barstow. The Fast Mail was made up of all baggage/mail/express cars including lightweight and heavyweight baggage cars, railway post offices, express boxcars, express reefers, flexi-vans, and container on flatcars (COFC). The distinguishing feature of this train was the coach on the rear. This coach was required by law so paying passengers could ride the first class train. The train usually consisted ...
A blog dedicated to preserving history through informative posts about the history and modeling of western railroads. My primairy interests are the Great Northern Railway and the Santa Fe, but I am always finding little tidbits of information about other railroads that I will write about.