San Francisco Chief

The San Francisco Chief was a named passenger train operated by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway as Nos. 1 & 2 from June 6, 1954 to May 1, 1971. It covered the Santa Fe line from near San Francisco, California to Barstow, California, then east to Chicago, Illinois via the Belen cutoff. Previously, this route had been served by one section of the Grand Canyon Limited. For most of its life it also exchanged through cars for/from Houston, Dallas, and New Orleans with the California Special at Clovis, New Mexico. At 2554.7 rail miles this was the longest passenger train itinerary in the history of the United States until 1993 when Amtrak extended the Sunset Limited east to Miami and Orlando. It remains the longest passenger rail itinerary ever operated entirely on the trackage of a single U.S. railroad. The San Francisco Chief was one of the very last new streamliners introduced to the traveling public in the post World War II era. The train's equipment was augmented with Budd Hi-level cars in 1964.

Despite its name, the San Francisco Chief never actually terminated in San Francisco. Instead, it ran to Santa Fe's Oakland Station (actually located in Emeryville), and after 1958, Richmond. In the years when it ran to the Oakland depot passengers could continue to San Francisco on a Santa Fe bus, or, if willing to handle their luggage, on a Key System train on the lower deck of the Bay Bridge. After the service had been cut back to Richmond the San Francisco connection was only by Santa Fe bus.

A 1954 consist:^{[citation needed]}