So, here's accurate information about the Santa Fe and Hollywood:
Santa Fe's Los Angeles Public Relations and Passenger Traffic Departments enjoyed a very close relationship with producers and studios. The railroad loved to have its fine passenger trains used in second-unit scenes, as well as in scripted scenes where the actors were portrayed as being aboard a train. Santa Fe's L.A. Passenger Traffic Department had personal relationships with many celebrities, providing a private number to make travel reservations, and also gave them special boarding privileges and private hospitality in the stations at Pasadena and Los Angeles. Aboard the train, they were also treated specially, with their personal preferences known and accommodated. Of all the railroads, Santa Fe had the greatest amount of celebrity clientele, and the Company courted performers and actors with discretion and class. As a bonus, Santa Fe had a station in Pasadena, which was convenient to the more upscale parts of Los Angeles, where most of the famous passengers lived. The railroad would see to it that there was never a gaggle of reporters or press photographers at the station -- just one reporter and one photographer, and most celebrities were agreeable to being photographed boarding, or alighting from, a shiny stainless steel Santa Fe passenger car.
Of the three Los Angeles railroads (Santa Fe, Southern Pacific, Union Pacific) Santa Fe was by far the most successful in working with movie studios, as well as actors and entertainers. Union Pacific was featured in a couple of episodes of I Love Lucy, in which the Ricardos and the Mertzes were traveling to Hollywood by train, and there were not-too-subtle mentions of the City of Los Angeles, UP's premier train.
SP also got into the act (groaner pun) but mainly in second-unit filming of trains passing or arriving at stations. While quite successful in second-unit film footage, they did not provide luxury train service at the same level that the City of Los Angeles or the Super Chief did, and that resulted in them falling far behind the competition for scripted use of SP trains.
And no . . . Santa Fe did not get royalties (!) for use of its image. Santa Fe ran a very high class passenger business and did not make crude demands of the motion picture industry. If the script mentioned that a character had left for Chicago aboard the Super Chief, well, that was fine, but was never a requirement. Special train consists were provided for filming scenes when necessary, at cost, just enough to offset the railroad employee wages.
Santa Fe courted passengers and use of its image by the motion picture industry, always with professionality, pride, and dignity.
