EMD F7

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Santa Fe Super Chief

My first HO locomotive, given to me by my father at Christmas was a EMD F7 painted in Santa Fe’s iconic red, yellow, and silver “Warbonnet” paint scheme. This paint scheme, with its Native American atheistic, has “Southwest” written all over it.

The Super Chief was a passenger route that travelled 2,227 miles in 39 hours and 30 minutes between Chicago, Illinois and Los Angeles, California. Its first run was on May 18, 1937 and it’s last was May 19, 1974.

This was the first all diesel powered streamlined passenger service with an EMC E1 on point. The route was such a success that F7s were ordered (EMD’s most successful passenger locomotive).

This is such an iconic diesel and paint scheme that it was replicated in many scale models (like my HO locomotive) and in my favorite childhood railroad book The Illustrated Encyclopedia of North American Locomotives by Brian Hollingsworth. The first picture on the first page is a wonderful photograph of the Super Chief headed by the Warbonnet F7 A Unit and it’s silver consist curving behind:

The Super Chief was the paragon of overnight train travel in the United States. The pinnacle of the romance on the rails, the Super Chief consist featured a passenger lounge, roomette, double bedrooms, a dining car, drawing rooms, a barbershop, a cocktail lounge, and a rounded observation car.

My HO F7 at full scale at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento. This one really took me back.
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Mapping New Mexico

For my early October fall break I decided to spend the week in New Mexico.

The last time I set foot in the state, or lay down in it, was a visit to Four Corners on a road trip with my family. So my last and only visit was fleeting.

As is my usual routine I sketch a map of the state with my intended travel destinations with round vignettes of sight I hoped to see and sketch (featured sketch).

These include the Taos Pueblo, the Cumbres &Toltec Scenic Railroad, the Railyard District in Santa Fe, Canyon Road arts district also in Santa Fe, San Francisco de Asis Church in Taos, my digs in Santa Fe, Tent Rocks National Monument, Scandinavia Peak Tramway, and the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta.

Side view of the famous Santa Fe F7 Super Chief in its Warbonnet (red, yellow, and silver) livery.
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CP Depot and an HO F7 Writ Large

I got to the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento a little early so I walked over to sketch the replica of the Central Pacific passenger depot. (The former stations had burned down.)

This station is at ground zero from where Central Pacific started the Transcontinental Railroad. Mile Marker 0 was a hundred feet behind me as I sketched.

I walked around the depot and looked at two amazing Santa Fe steam locomotives that where sitting on sidings in static display. Both of them had come from New Mexico and both where not in great shape, needing some cosmetic restoration.

Santa Fe No. 2925 is a 4-8-4 passenger locomotive. This is one of the heaviest 4-8-4 Northerns ever built. Today only five of the 30 produced survive.
SP No. 2467 is a 4-6-2 Pacific type build in 1921. She pulled passenger trains and was retired in 1956. The locomotive was restored to working order in the 1990s and is still operational.

Once in the museum, one locomotive on my sketch list was an EMD diesel-electric F7 painted in the iconic Santa Fe Warbonnet livery.

When I was a child my dad used to take me to the tracks to see passing passenger trains. And one Christmas he got me my first HO train and it was a smaller version of the classic Santa Fe passenger locomotive.

This paint scheme is so famous that if you Google EMD F7, a picture of the Warbonnet F7 comes up.

The iconic Santa Fe units where on point of the 2,227 mile route from Chicago to Los Angeles called the Super Chief. This was one of the first all streamlined diesel cross country route.