Santa Fe Engines Pulling CB&Q Passenger Cars ?

Unlikely.

Rusty

In the pre-Amtrak era, there were some jointly-operated trains that used home-road locomotives* and cars that looked like the cars of the connecting railroad (even though they were often actually owned by both railroads and identified as such by small initials near the ends of the cars)  The City of San Francisco, City of Los Angeles, City of Denver, California Zephyr, and Golden State, come to mind.  The Empire Builder and North Coast Limited were pulled by Burlington locomotives between Chicago and the Twin Cities, and their Portland sections used SP&S locomotives on the west end.

But Burlington and Santa Fe specifically did not have any joint trains, and did not run passenger trains on each other's trackage, except on the Joint Line between Denver and Colorado Springs.  The Texas Zephyr was an all-Burlington (usually FW&D) train consist with Burlington E5 and E8 units, operated on that territory with a Santa Fe crew.  The MP Colorado Eagle covered the same territory with MP cars and engines and a D&RGW crew.  Very late into the pre-Amtrak era, the remnants of the FW&D Texas Zephyr, and the Santa Fe La Junta to Denver train, were combined into one short train pulled by a Santa Fe E8Am or an A-B Santa Fe F3/F7 consist, and this did not last long.  The Royal Blue's B&O cars and locomotives ran through to Jersey City over Reading and CNJ using crews of the railroad owning the trackage.  

The only similar occasions I know of were on excursion trains before Amtrak, when the originating carrier provided cars and locomotives and handed the whole train (minus locomotives) over to another carrier for another segment of the trip.  I rode a fan trip around 1960 with an all-Santa Fe consist out of LAUPT, pulled by re-engined Alco-GE locomotives 51L-51A-51C (PA1-PB1-PA1), operating to Bakersfield via Barstow over the Santa Fe.  At Bakersfield, the train was turned and returned to Los Angeles over SP via Palmdale, pulled by an A-B-B-A consist of Southern Pacific F-units.

Occasionally detours were necessary because of wrecks or washouts.  Normal practice was that the home road crew and the entire train (including locomotives) went over the foreign road, being piloted by an Engineer and a Conductor from the foreign road, until it returned to home road trackage.

This is probably information overload.  The answer to your specific Santa Fe-Burlington question at the top of the thread is, "Never."

*  The City trains originally had jointly-owned locomotives, then, after 1948, used home-road locomotives, then, in the 1960's pooled some locomotives.  The Golden State pooled Rock Island and SP locomotives in the late 1960's, but used home road power before then.  Central of Georgia had two E8A's delivered in blue and grey, and later repainted in Illinois Central orange and brown for use on CG's portion of the City of Miami, pooled with IC consists.

So informative Tom, thanks for sharing 

Might a Santa Fe mail storage car have snuck into a Burlington mail train......ever? And vice versa?   Or did each road fiendishly guard all mail revenue for the home road?  

(have noted many foreign road mail storage cars appearing in Burlington mail trains)

A mail car isn't really a "passenger car" fitting the definition of the OP's post.  An RPO would generally stick with its home road, but mail storage cars had the potential to wander all over the country on the head end of a passenger train or dedicated "Fast Mail" train.

One of the Pentrex Santa Fe video's shows a New Haven mail storage car on the head end of a Santa Fe train.

Rusty

Thanks a bunch, Tom for a highly informative and interesting post.

mark s posted:

Might a Santa Fe mail storage car have snuck into a Burlington mail train......ever? And vice versa?   Or did each road fiendishly guard all mail revenue for the home road?  

(have noted many foreign road mail storage cars appearing in Burlington mail trains)

Yes, but Santa Fe and Burlington were not end-to-end connecting railroads, so most foreign line mail storage cars in Santa Fe trains (the Grand Canyon and the Fast Mail) were from eastern railroads and from Missouri Pacific/Texas & Pacific.

Tom,

A most informative answer.  Thank you.

Ed

Never say never.  I sure saw a lot of Rock Island cars behind Daylight 4-8-4s in Arizona.  I have a videotape of a heavyweight SOUTHERN car on an SP passenger train, and mixed NYC and SP lightweights on the Lark.

bob2 posted:

Never say never.  I sure saw a lot of Rock Island cars behind Daylight 4-8-4s in Arizona.  I have a videotape of a heavyweight SOUTHERN car on an SP passenger train, and mixed NYC and SP lightweights on the Lark.

 

The Rock Island cars were most likely the result of the joint operation of the Golden State by the SP and Rock Island.

There are reasons for foreign road passenger cars to show up: The need for extra capacity during the travel season, charters, joint operation agreements.

Heck, even the California Zephyr could have an extra foreign road car or two occasionally during the peak season.

Rusty

Here's some of what I found by scrutinizing Fred Frailey's A Quarter Century of Santa Fe Consists, which is a compilation and analysis of official Santa Fe consists by route and train.  This is the official, daily list.  I can verify that there were other cars that came and went and were listed in bulletins revising the official consists, but there is too much for even Fred Frailey to include.  But these foreign line cars ran regularly, westbound, and always returned eastbound, though not always on the same train they came west on.

1946, No.7, Fast Mail

• NY-CHI-LA  NYC  Express, NYC cars
• NY-StL-LA   MP   Express from MoPac at Kansas City, sometimes PRR car, otherwise MP

1953-54, No.7

• Philla-LA    PRR  Express
• NY-LA        NYC  Express (3 cars)
• Jersey City-LA   Erie  Express
• NY-LA        MP  Storage mail via St. Louis from MoPac at Kansas City
• StL-LA        MP  Storage Mail                          "         "       "        "         "
• StL-LA         MP  Express                                  "         "       "        "         "

1963, No.7

• NY-KC      NYC     Express  (3 cars)
• NY-LA     NYC     Express  (4 cars)
• NY-Barstow  NYC  Express  (probably forwarded to Oakland on North No.7)
• NY-KC     NYC      Mail

There were numerous other consists, but this is typical of the transcontinental Santa Fe head-end business received from connecting railroads  There was a Boston-Los Angeles car from the New Haven, hauled to Chicago by NYC.  Otherwise, what you see here is typical.  PRR cars showed up frequently on No.7 (I saw them) but whether interchanged by PRR at Chicago or by MP at Kansas City is not clear.  Probably all NYC interchange was in NYC cars (except for the NH car), but much of the MP interchange at Kansas City was actually in PRR cars.  Most cars listed here were heavyweight baggage cars, but some were express box cars, and some were converted troop sleepers.

This shows the reason foreign line head-end cars showed up in Santa Fe's Fast Mail and Grand Canyon: transcontinental Railway Express Agency shipments, and storage mail (catalogs, magazines, parcel post, bulk mailings).  Thus, there was no Burlington equipment.  Burlington's friendly connection was D&RGW and WP, neither of which was known for speed, so the mail and express out of Chicago overwhelmingly traveled on Santa Fe, C&NW-UP, and RI-SP, with Santa fe getting most of the connecting cars from eastern roads.  Burlington had the Denver business.

So don't you think Ed was trying to rationalize a modeling endeavor?  Of course no Santa Fe steamer ever pulled an entire CB&Q passenger train, but one could bet that somewhere, some day, a CB&Q coach or Pullman wound up behind Santa Fe steam.  Who knows - maybe those giant ATSF steamers the Pennsy leased pulled revenue on the Burlington enroute?

There are no absolutes, when looking at history.  A lot was never recorded.

Tom hit the information bulls-eye right in the center.   Fortunately - for my purposes - my (PSC) NYC Baggage/RPO and (PSC) Burlington ex-troop kitchen/Baggage Mail Express cars work out nicely for my mail "extras", which not surprisingly, are pulled by Burlington Hudsons, or an occaisional oil-burning O5b 4-8-4. But alas, can't fold in some nice Santa Fe cars. Oh well, can't have everything !

Bob2 - my bet would be that the ATSF 2-10-4's leased in 1956 for PRR Columbus-Sandusky coal train service were either brought to Chicago dead-in tow and turned over to PRR there, or they steamed on the same route.  Maybe someone knows??  Almost sure to an absolute degree that they did not come via CB&Q.