SUMMER, 1937, CHICAGO — Like a thoroughbred at the starting gate, a massive diesel grumbles and snorts on Track 4, Dearborn Station. Above the grillwork, the engine’s red and yellow nose gleams in the setting sun. A line of silver coaches stretches behind, vanishing beneath a canopy of smoke, shadows, and steel.

Ahead lie parallel rails crossing grasslands and painted deserts from Chicago to L.A. For this weekly trip, every seat is taken. Passengers include tight-lipped businessmen in fedoras, Hollywood-bound tourists hoping to see Garbo or Gable, and lucky kids in crewcuts or petticoats, having the ride of their lives.

These days, we love to grumble about travel. Long lines and layovers. Narrow seats and missed connections. But before airlines stripped the soul out of “getting there,” railroads nurtured that soul mile after mile. Trains ran everywhere, coast-to-coast. Many had colorful names. Empire Builder. California Zephyr. 20th Century Limited. But the best American travel had to offer was the Santa Fe Super Chief.

Each Tuesday evening at 8:00 p.m. sharp, with a shrill whistle that went straight to every passenger’s core, the Super Chief glided out of Chicago as if on ice. Dearborn south to Joliet, screaming on through, bells clanging, children cheering. Quick stops in Streator, Chillicothe, Galesburg. . . each town different, just different enough. Diners — Kathy’s or Joe’s. Hotel names stenciled on brick walls. Bide-a-wee. Wagon Wheel. Sleep-eze. Humpbacked Buicks rolling down gravel two-lanes, passing golden wheat-fields, kicking up dust. The Super Chief was on its way.

For a ten dollar “extra fare,” the Chief took passengers across the Great Plains, the Great Divide, the Great Depression itself. Averaging 60 m.p.h. and topping out at 100, the Chief pulled into L.A. each Thursday morning. The distance: 2,227 miles in 36 hours and 49 minutes, “Santa Fe All the Way.”

Even Americans jaded by train travel swooned over the Super Chief. Its precursor, simply “The Chief,” seemed so 19th century. The Chief’s coal-black locomotive belched steam. Its passenger cars seemed ancient, making the Chief some ghost train crossing the Plains. And it took the Chief 60 hours to reach L.A.

Then in 1935, the rival Union Pacific fired up the “City of Los Angeles.” Never mind that passengers had to change trains in Omaha. The UP’s train was state-of-the-art, diesel, with silver cars. Santa Fe had to play catch-up. And they did.

More than just another train, the Super Chief was elegance on rails. Passenger cars, bunks, and sleepers had wood paneling — ebony or teak. Air conditioning, not yet available in homes, came with the ride. So did a barber, maids for sleeper cars, and a manicurist. A full dining car, with cocktail lounge and bar, was said to rival five-star restaurants.

Gliding through Atchison and Topeka, then on to Santa Fe, you could dine in style. Caviar and champagne, sir? Would you prefer the sirloin or the filet mignon, ma’am? And check out the decor.

The Super Chief, true to its culturally appropriated name, sported Native-American motifs. Dinnerware, seat cushions, and other accoutrements used Navajo styling. Posters and stationery — even the tickets — highlighted Navajo and Hopi iconography.

By the 1950s, you could ride in a “pleasure dome,” a two-level car with a glass ceiling focused on the West’s big skies. And if the stars above weren’t enough, you could always look for stars on board.

An instant hit with the public, selling out every run, the Super Chief soon became “the train of the stars.” With Santa Fe keeping its own booking agent in Hollywood, you never knew what celebrity you might spot en route. Bogart and Bacall. Lucy and Desi. Cagney, Judy Garland, Bing Crosby. . .

Crossing Arizona — Winslow, Flagstaff, Williams — the Chief hit California just before dawn. Needles, then Barstow, San Bernardino. . .

Streaking past vast orange groves and into view of L.A.’s modest skyline, the Super Chief’s arrival at Union Station was a weekly celebration. Families flocked around the train. Reporters snapped photos of celebrities. And all of Southern California, which in the 1930s had fewer people than Chicago, seemed to welcome everyone with sun and blue skies.

But it couldn’t last, couldn’t last. The miracle is that it lasted as long as it did.

By the 1950s, prop-driven flights from Chicago to L.A. took just ten hours. By the 1960s, 707’s did the trip in five. Interstates soon made the drive bearable. Trains struggled to hold on. The Super Chief survived until 1971 when Amtrak took over the line. Service immediately suffered, leading Santa Fe to rescind permission to use the fabled “Super Chief” name.

Today, when not running late, Amtrak’s Southwest Chief will take you from Chicago to L.A. in 42 hours. The $150 fare is, depending on the season, either half or twice that of a non-stop flight. But never mind the fare. With America in such a damn hurry, “flyover country” is flown over — and over and over.

Yet America still remembers the Super Chief. The Internet abounds in its memorabilia, including timetables, menus, and precise details of every last engine and coach. Offline, the Chief’s “warbonnet logo” graces model railroads of all sizes. Posters, playing cards, and a Super Chief LEGO cash in on the nostalgia. Yet it all seems so long ago, so 20th century.

“Of all the modes of transport,” Alain de Botton wrote in The Art of Travel, “the train is perhaps the best aid to thought.” Riding the Super Chief, we thought better, and felt better about America.

The opening paragraphs, with slight tweaks, come from the wonderful novel TimeLiners, by Emily Blaisdell, and are used by permission of the author.

THE AMAZING SUPER CHIEF -- "SANTA FE ALL THE WAY"