Nostalgia & History > Toto Tuesday: The Omnipresent Chico

On so many levels throughout its well known history the name Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway was, and still is synonymous with the term “Class”! One particular area I started learning about in 1974 was how Santa Fe has always paid such reverent respect to its Native American heritage. When I rose out of my limited branch line sense of what the Santa Fe was, and hired on with a main line track gang just outside of Kansas City I was pleasantly dizzy with shock at the brand new impression I was getting of my old friend/new employer: And there was this good lookin’ little sprite named Chico everywhere! I have to say the entity responsible (SFe Art Dept?) for Chico’s creation hit the mark perfectly. That little guy sure seemed to do his best to make a prospective customer feel comfortable to be doing business with the Santa Fe.

When I unearthed this slide from yet another pocket of heretofore unknown slides in the Gibson collection I couldn’t pass up posting it here. So it is with a certain pride that I’m having none other than our own “wag216” (aka WAG Jr) step in as a guest photographer for this week’s Toto Tuesday.

1. AT&SF 2857 with a string of cars circa 1966, kinda-sorta. There’s Chico’s friendly face welcoming any & all customers. Art thinks this unmarked slide was shot in Lawrence, KS. I think I can concur, although it would another 11 years before I would see the Santa Fe in Lawrence through a railfan view finder. And those memories are now 41 years old…
Original Kodachrome slide by William A. (Art) Gibson -WAG Jr-

Thanks for looking back!
Lance Garrels (santafe199)
Art Gibson (wag216) … Toto guest of honor



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 11/01/22 20:26 by santafe199.

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Great shot of a bygone and missed era.
JB

Posted from Android

rantoul Wrote: > ...  How would someone other than a Santa Fe patron ...

It seems to me the lettering would be a PR thing to make the customer feel more special...

Lance/199

This image brought back a memory I had not thought about for many years. The Santa Fe used to have a similar track on North Broadway just north of 21st Street with a similar sign.... Thanks for posting this, the track was removed probably 40+ years ago probably due to lack of usage.

Dan in Wichita