I am considering the purchase of the Kato El Capitan early Amtrak version as well as the Yellow Bonnet F units recently released. What was the prototypical lash-up for this train in this era, ABBA, ABA, something else? Any help is appreciated. Thanks!
From what I remember, they usually had at least four if not more F units on the train. They could be almost any combination of As and Bs as long as the lead unit was an A with the cab in front. I have seen photos of A-B-A-B-B-B.
Also, Amtrak never ran the El Cap cars by themselves. They were always combined with the single level cars (mostly sleepers) at the end (like the picture above). Kato has offered single level Amtrak cars in the past (fluted more recently and smooth side in the 90s - and they can always be found on ebay). Of course, Intermountain and Con-Cor have some of these single level cars too. Chris
There are two other trains to consider as well - the 'Texas Chief'/'Lone Star' train that ran during that era (also used hilevels + conventional cars) and the summer1972-only "Chief". All used various AB+AB+B... combinations. About the only thing I've observed about the ATSF F-unit/Amtrak era was a tendency for orienting all A-units pointed to the front, supposedly to make it easier to swap units if there was a breakdown. I rode the Chief and am particularly fond of it as it usually only had two hilevels and is a more 'layout sized' short train that the typical long Super Chief consist in the early Amtrak era. It really was the rainbow era, as well. We had two hilevels, a Burlington dome lounge, a UP diner, one ATSF and one redone Amtrak sleeper, a Santa Fe couch from KC, and and a through UP Pullman from the National Limited via KC from Washington, DC. If you care about actual date cutoffs, yellowbonnets were first released in June 1972, post-Amtrak. I personally saw my first GP39 with a yellowbonnet from the Chief while crossing Illinois and got a photo, was rather stunned to see it.
Thanks everyone. It appears that there are a lot of opportunities to create a prototypical train with just about anything you may have from that era!
Are you interested just in locomotives or in complete passenger consists? I noted a dozen or so Amtrak Texas Chief, Sunset Limited and InterAmericanconsists in Texas in 1972-1974 with all units and cars, but I don't remember if I noted which direction loco units were pointed. I'll have to look up my notebooks...
I am primarily interested in the locomotive lash-up since I am considering purchasing an ABBA set. It appears from the posts above that this, or just about anything else consisting of F units would be appropriate.
The Santa Fe dumped the worst of the F units on Amtrak. If I recall right I've seen films of up to 8 As & Bs pulling into Union Station in Chicago. Before Amtrak the Santa Fe started combining the El Capitan and the Super Chief in the off seasons. The combo train could be up to 20 cars. During summer and Holiday time the two trains would run separately and sometimes even in sections. If the FP45s weren't pulling lots of Fs were used. When they hit the mountains they often added some more.
