Named Trains: #21 – Scout

#21 – Scout

Railroad(s): Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe 

Operated: 1916 – 1948

Route(s): Chicago – Los Angeles

As the first quasi-transcontinental route on our list (in actuality, true transcontinental passenger rail trips ever ran from the Atlantic to the Pacific, most only spanning from Chicago to the West Coast), the Scout is also the first in the AT&SF's (more commonly known as the Santa Fe) exceptional legacy in naming their passenger trains. Bearing the designators of trains #1 and #10 in the Santa Fe until the streamliner era, it could be argued the Scout was the railroad's flagship train for the bulk of the first half of the 20th Century. It made the roughly 2200-mile trip in 58 hours, 35 minutes heading eastbound, although Amtrak's Southwest Chief is scheduled to complete the journey on a similar (but not identical route) in under 48 hours when it's on time – a rare instance of a contemporary intercity train besting its historical counterpart on schedule. Nonetheless, the Scout brand is noteworthy – evoking a Southwestern explorer identity (see beautiful artwork above) that was less effacing to Native American peoples through the Southwest, a problem the railroad created with some of its other named trains.

#22 – Gulf Coast Rebel
#23 – Acadian
#24 – Azalean
#25 – Mark Twain Zephyr
#26 – Little Bear
#27 – Land O'Corn
#28 – Minute Man
#29 – Fast Mail
#30 – Lake Shore Limited
#31 – Comet