# A Question on Santa Fe's Observation Cars



## jr747 (Feb 7, 2008)

Yesterday, I was looking at Arizona Railway Museum in Chandler AZ website (http://www.azrymuseum.org/) and I came across one of the old Santa Fe observation cars in their roster. The car is called Denehotzo (http://www.azrymuseum.org/roster/Denehotso%201.jpg). It was origanally a rounded end observation car at the end of the train but they changed it to a blunt end in 1954. Why did Santa Fe do this to some of their observation cars? There is another observation car at this museum that was a rounded end and changed to a blunt end. Personally, I like the rounded end look better. I wanted to know if anyone knew why Santa Fe did this.

Thanks.

J.R.


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## Totalwrecker (Feb 26, 2009)

Built in 1947 by the Pullman Company for the Santa Fe Railroad. The car had one double bedroom; four drawing rooms and a round end observation lounge. The car was one of four built for the “Super Chief”, the extra fare streamline train serving Chicago, Los Angeles and points between. In 1956 the round end was modified to allow use of the car in mid train service. In 1994 a small buffet kitchen was added when the car went to private owners. The car was donated to the ARM by Fred & Dale Springer on March 31, 2001. 

The above comes from the first link you posted...midtrain service. 
There you go. 

John


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## San Juan (Jan 3, 2008)

Yep the reason Santa Fe cut the ends was for mid train use.

The Santa Fe did lots of car interchanges (mostly with sleeping cars) with meeting passenger trains. The cars were either added or removed (cut) at non terminus points. The cars that were added or removed were almost always at the rear of the train so they could be easily added or removed. But with a round end observation car that always had to be the last car made for extra switching complexity and more time lost. It just was not efficient to perform the car adds and cuts with a round end car on the end. And the Santa Fe was all about efficiency and fast schedules.


So to aide in faster interchanges, most of the round end cars were blunt ended. 


I know of one surviving Santa Fe round end observation that still has the round end. It's the _Navajo, _which is at the Colorado Rail Museum. There might be one other at a museum in Texas, but I'm not 100% sure of that.


Here's a picture of the _Navajo_:


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## jr747 (Feb 7, 2008)

Matt,

Thank you for that explaination, you answered my question. What was a non terminus point?


J.R.


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## San Juan (Jan 3, 2008)

Non terminus means a station that is not an end point. So for the Santa Fe the big two end points were Los Angeles and Chicago. Non terminus points would be anything in between. 


Of course my explanation is a little simplistic for the Santa Fe which had multiple passenger trains beginning and terminating at multiple points along the system.


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## Torby (Jan 2, 2008)

Interesting. Thanks.


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## aceinspp (Jan 2, 2008)

Thanks for the info. Actually I like the square ended car better than the round end. Later RJD


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## Totalwrecker (Feb 26, 2009)

I like the open platform better too. 
Seems like an upgrade more than a compromise.... 

John


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