or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States.[1] The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison and Topeka, Kansas, and Santa Fe, New Mexico. The railroad reached the Kansas–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.[1]
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.[2]
The Santa Fe was a pioneer in intermodal freight transport; at various times, it operated an airline, the short-lived Santa Fe Skyway, and the fleet of Santa Fe Railroad Tugboats.[3] 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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atchison,_Topeka_and_Santa_Fe_Railway
BNSF's history dates back to 1849, when the Aurora Branch Railroad in Illinois and the Pacific Railroad of Missouri were formed. The Aurora Branch eventually grew into the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, (CB&Q), a major component of successor Burlington Northern. A portion of the Pacific Railroad became the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway (Frisco).[citation needed]
The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (ATSF) was chartered in 1859. It built one of the first transcontinental railroads in North America, linking Chicago and Southern California; major branches led to Texas, Denver, and San Francisco. The Interstate Commerce Commission denied a proposed merger with the Southern Pacific Transportation Company in the 1980s.[citation needed]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BNSF_Railway
THE LATTER half of the 19th century witnessed the disappearance of the frontier from Kansas and the phenomenal growth and spread of settlement. The population, which in 1860 had been only 107,206, mushroomed to 364,399 in 1870, to 996,096 in 1880, and by 1900 had reached 1,470,495. [1] Accompanying this expansion, and in no small way the cause of it, were the railroads. Not only did they become the major means of transportation, but they were also the colonizing agents, selling the extensive land grants received from the government and ultimately directing the course of the evolving settlement pattern.
Attending the early advance of railroads and settlement in Kansas was an increasing demand for fuel. Most energy sources were initially quite scarce in the state. Except along stream courses there was a paucity of fuel wood, and while coal had been discovered in the 1850s and 1860's, because of high transportation costs its exploitation was limited to the immediate area where it was found. As a result, many settlers had little recourse but to consume "cow chips or twisted grass for fuel."[2] The market for coal was certainly present and the level of technology was equal to the task of mining it, but until the advent of railroads and the consequent reduction of transportation costs, its distribution was economically infeasible.
Railroads were thus responsible, directly or indirectly, for the development of most local fuel sources, which wherever possible were coal. They required reasonably good quality fuel and coal was far more efficient than wood. Moreover, coal was found locally while wood in the quantities needed would necessarily be imported from farther east. All else being equal, it was also cheaper to develop local coal supplies than to import it. Finally, the rapidly growing populace would need coal for manufacturing and domestic heating. Thus, coal traffic would furnish the rail- roads with badly needed revenues.
One of the first coal fields in Kansas to receive a developmental push by a railroad was that of Osage county, and the agent of that push was the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad. Construction on the line originated in Topeka in late 1868 and by September, 1869, was completed southward through Carbondale to Burlingame. The decision to build initially southwest into Osage county, rather than to Atchison, was prompted by the coal deposits located in the former. [3] Moreover, the line as it was originally proposed would have bypassed Osage county completely. This proposal projected the Santa Fe from Topeka across southern Wabaunsee county to Council Grove and westward toward the future Great Bend, The discovery of coal in Osage county, however, caused the course of the railroad to be diverted along a more southerly route through the Osage field, thence to Emporia and Great Bend. [4]
https://www.kshs.org/p/the-impact-of-the-railroads-on-coal-mining-in-osage-county/13216
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