The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (reporting mark ATSF), often
referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads
in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to
serve the cities of Atchison, Kansas, Topeka, Kansas, and Santa Fe,
New Mexico. The railroad reached the Kansasâ€"Colorado border in 1873
and Pueblo, Colorado, in 1876. To create a demand for its services,
the railroad set up real estate offices and sold farmland from the
land grants that it was awarded by Congress.Despite being chartered to
serve the city, the railroad chose to bypass Santa Fe, due to the
engineering challenges of the mountainous terrain. Eventually a branch
line from Lamy, New Mexico brought the Santa Fe railroad to its
namesake city.The Santa Fe was a pioneer in intermodal freight
transport, an enterprise that (at one time or another) included a
tugboat fleet and an airline, the short-lived Santa Fe Skyway. Its bus
line extended passenger transportation to areas not accessible by
rail, and ferryboats on the San Francisco Bay allowed travelers to
complete their westward journeys to the Pacific Ocean. The AT&SF was
the subject of a popular song, Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer's "On
the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe", written for the film, The
Harvey Girls (1946).The railroad officially ceased operations on
December 31, 1996, when it merged with the Burlington Northern
Railroad to form the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway. Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Biography, NetWorth, Height, Age, Weight, Family, Married, Son, Daughter