Nostalgia & History > Warbonnet Wednesday: Those Elegant Elderly Es

In my opinion, the Warbonnet paint design applied to Santa Fe diesels ranks as one of the best, most imaginative paint schemes of any railroad in the U.S.; and none of Santa Fe’s diesels showed off those colors better than the early passenger units from EMD.  With their huge forward-slanted snout, the E-3 and E-6s had plenty of nose and cab area to advertise Santa Fe’s trademark banner.  Of them all, my personal favorite was E-3A #11.  It was the oldest of the Eleven-class pre-WWII units, having been built in 1939. 
I came on the Santa Fe scene in Kansas in 1965, when these elderly Es (along with some E-8Ms) were assigned to Chicago-Texas trains #11, the Kansas Cityan, and its eastbound counterpart #12, the Chicagoan,  which passed through Topeka in good light in both directions.
Last week’s TO post and picture of Kansas City Union Station showing train #11 with E-3A #11 prompted me to dust off the yellow boxes to see where I’d recorded that fortuitous combination of train and engine numbers.  Sure enough, I had recorded that occasion two different times.  
1, 2 & 3:  Train #11 westbound at Topeka in October, 1966, at dusk.  Purists will notice the small “L” for “Lead” on the middle stripe of the nose, just above the anti-climber.  Thus, it is actually “11L.”
 

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Very classy!

Greg Stadter
Phoenix, AZ

Compare that to the eye garbage on Anthrax trains now.

Awesome!  Thank you.

It doesn't get much better than an E3A.
Thanks for the posting.
ALLEN

The twin sealed beams look kind of funny, but even for a diesel hater like me, they are attractive.

Frisco1522 Wrote:

> The twin sealed beams look kind of funny, but even
> for a diesel hater like me, they are attractive.

The 11L came from EMD with a single fixed headlight at the top of the nose. 

http://www.railwayclassics.com/images/ATSF01/ATSFE3AB.jpg

The lower headlight was a Santa Fe addition - moving the fixed headlight down and putting an oscillating light in the upper housing.  Unfortunately, Santa Fe wasn't very good at making modifications in aesthetically pleasing ways (hiding the MU plugs behind doors on the noses of its F-units was a notable exception).  The lower light was originally a big single bulb/reflector setup; the twin sealed beam came later:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=89875