My Santa Fe El Capitan train

As a young boy in the 1960's I had the opportunity to ride some of the classic Santa Fe passenger trains several times between Needles, California and Los Angeles Union Station.  This included the Super Chief in the summer when it had several coaches added, the El Capitan in the summer, and the combined Super Chief / El Capitan in the early spring.

For quite some time I had been interested in acquiring an N scale model of one of these trains with the most focus having been on the Super Chief which was the first one I rode in the summer of 1965.  I also started acquiring Kato F7 locomotives in the war bonnet paint scheme whenever I found one at a good price.  After some research I determined that it was going to be difficult to put together a Super Chief close to what was running in the summer of 1965 because of a lack of the proper coaches so the idea went dormant for awhile.

After a visit to the old station in Needles this past spring, my interest was rekindled and decided to purchase a Kato El Capitan set as it had what I believe to be the correct cars for the train I rode in 1966. 

While this train is not part of my layout's northern Nevada theme, it really looks good on the layout.  Here is a photo of one of the test runs I did after acquiring the set last summer.  At that time I only had an ABA set of F7 locomotives.

At the annual International Rail Fair train show in Sacramento this past November I found the 2nd B unit to complete my ABBA set.  Then this past weekend I was able to run my new train on the layout set up by Peninsula Ntrak at the Great Train Show in Pleasanton, California.

Two of my favorite features of this trains are the baggage / dormitory car with the flared end.

And the lighted drum head on the rear of the last car.  I am still on the hunt for the add on set at a reasonable price that includes a mail storage car and an additional coach.