jst3751 Wrote:

>
> ATSF? Didn't ATSF continue to operate their own
> passenger trains for several years, "selling" them
> to Amtrak at a later date?

No. But Santa Fe came REALLY CLOSE to staying out of Amtrak. A passage from Fred Frailey's outstanding book Twilight of the Great Trains pg. 72 : " The railroad came within a hair of dismissing Amtrak -- of deciding ( like Southern, Rio Grande, and Rock Island ) not to join the fledgling passenger train company in 1971. Santa Fe's corporate soul was inexorably linked to its passenger traditions, and to break that link was as difficult as for a mother to disown her child. " Reed didn't want anyone running passenger trains across Santa Fe but Santa Fe," says Bill Burk, head of public relations then. " ( Reed was John S. Reed, President of Santa Fe at the time.)
" Could he have run only the trains Amtrak chose to run -- the Super Chief - El Capitan, Texas Chief, and San Diegans -- Reed says he could have convinced his board of directors to stay out of Amtrak. "
Author Frailey goes on to state that, after the Post Office Department cut off its First Class Mail trains in 1967, any profits from Santa Fe passenger trains disappeared, and eventually the continued and increasing losses would have cancelled out ANY & ALL profits at Santa Fe Railway.