This train, the California Limited # 3/4, was at one time the luxury Pullman flagship of the Santa Fe RR on the Chicago to Los Angeles route until the advent of the Chief (#19/20). After WWII, with its luster faded, it was the mop-up carrier for mail and express cars that did not connect with the Fast Mail Express (#7/8). It also carried a variety of heavyweight passenger cars, to include coaches and sleepers, until its demise in 1967.

In this video, we see the post WWII all heavyweight westbound train led by a trio of Broadway Limited (BLI) PA units (A/B/B) as it emerges from the East Helix tunnel and enters Union Station on track # 9. The switching at the station (Note: the switch list is shown in the first part of the video) involves removing two cars from the front (ATSF RPO and a New York Central mail storage) and adding a Pullman sleeper (General Stoneman) at the rear of the train. The train then continues its travel to the west coast after transferring over to the westbound main (left hand running) after departing Union Station.

The N-Scale heavyweight passenger cars used to make up this train's consist are from a variety of manufacturers, to include Micro-Trains, Rivarossi, Model Power, Atlas, and Lima. A lot of these cars had to have some upgrades to run together (fairly well) to include, new MTL trucks and ESM 36" metal wheels. After which they were all weighed with some getting additional weights.  During the front end switching operation I did have some issues with the NYC Mail storage car that actually was caused by the points on an older Peco curved turnout that I have now marked with a red push pin for later work. 

Modeling the ATSF Paradigm Division in N-Scale 

‪https://www.youtube.com/user/tanzj