The California Zephyr is a long distance train run by Amtrak between Chicago and Emeryville, near San Francisco. The entire trip covers 2438 miles and takes about 48 hours to complete. Destinations along the way include Burlington, Omaha, Lincoln, Denver, Winter Park, Grand Junction, Salt Lake City, Reno, Sacramento, and San Francisco. This train operates daily in both directions.
The train leaves Chicago on BNSF tracks and crosses Illinois at a pretty good speed. You stop in a few small towns along the way, but the scenery is mostly cornfields. After Galesburg, the train crosses the Mississippi River on a long bridge. Immediately after the bridge, the train makes a tight turn to the right and enters the station at Burlington. The rest of the day is spent crossing Iowa, which you entered while crossing the Mississippi River. The sun will set before reaching Omaha.
You will wake up the next morning east of Denver. Because of the way Denver Union Station is set up, the train has to enter and leave the station from the same end. The two railroad lines that Amtrak uses to enter and leave Denver both come into the station at the same end. The train will go around a wye and back into Denver station. This is a normal operation, so don't be alarmed. This is where the train takes on water and supplies and a fresh crew, so the train stops in Denver for the better part of an hour. Normally the train uses the original Denver Union Station, but right now Amtrak is using a nearby temporary station because Union Station is undergoing construction for Denver's transit system.
Amtrak leaves Denver on Union Pacific tracks, which it will follow all the way to Emeryville. This is where the ride really becomes cool. Immediately after leaving Denver, the train starts climbing the foothills to the Rocky Mountains. The mountains just rise up out of the plains like a wall standing thousands of feet tall. It's really incredible. The train twists and turns its way up to the mountains, all the while Denver gets smaller and smaller as the train climbs higher and higher above the mile high city. The train disappears into a tunnel, and Denver and the plains disappear out of sight. This area is known as the tunnel district, as there are 28 tunnels in about 50 miles. The longest tunnel is the Moffat Tunnel, which is 6.2 miles long. This is where the train crosses the Continental Divide, and at 9,270 feet above sea level, it is by far the highest of the four transcontinental routes. The Moffat Tunnel was built to reroute trains around Rollins Pass, which was an additional 30 miles and climbed to over 11,000 feet above sea level.
During the summer, a National Park Service representative gets on the train in Denver to narrate the trip in the lounge car. You will spend most of the day crossing Colorado, and the lounge car is the place to be for this. Even with the huge windows going all the way to the ceiling, it is hard to see some of the peaks because they are so high! You will pass through many scenic areas, such as Gore Canyon and Glenwood Canyon. In Glenwood Canyon, if both trains are running on time, you will pass the eastbound California Zephyr. The train parallels I-70 through Glenwood Canyon. Normally an interstate highway might be considered an eyesore, but here it is actually really cool to see how it was built through that canyon.
The National Park Service representative gets off the train at Grand Junction, but that does not mean the scenery is over. After Grand Junction, Colorado gives you one last hurrah as you pass through Ruby Canyon, which is named because of the way the rocks glow red in the sunlight. In Ruby Canyon, you will cross into Utah. The state line is actually painted on the wall of the canyon, so keep your eyes open for that! It is easy to miss, I have only seen it once.
In Utah the scenery gets a little dry, literally. The train turns away from the Colorado River, which it has been following almost since the Continental Divide, and crosses the desert to Salt Lake City. By this time it is evening, and you will sleep across Utah. But it's okay, there's not much to see there except an empty desert. Salt Lake Valley is about the only thing worth mentioning. You go through there in the middle of the night, so you don't really see anything, but it is a cool place to visit.
You'll wake up the next morning in Nevada. The train only makes three stops across the whole state of Nevada, if that gives you an idea of how empty it is. Shortly after waking up, however, the train finds its way into Reno, the biggest little city in the world. A few years ago, Reno dug a big trench and put the railroad tracks in it. This was because the town was built around the railroad tracks, and with today's massive trains, a single train can shut down the town for a while. The trench allowed the railroad to pass through the town without blocking any crossings, because now the roads simply go over the trench. Because of the trench, you can't really see Reno very well.
After Reno the train starts to climb again, this time into Donner Pass. Donner Pass is famous for two separate winter incidents, which I will talk about more in Thursday's post. Donner Pass is in the Sierra Nevada Range, and while in these mountains you will cross into California. After descending the other side of Donner Pass, the train will stop in Sacramento. Sacramento is where the Amtrak California service starts, and the Coast Starlight stops here as well. Only a few shot stops later, you find yourself at Richmond, and then Emeryville. At Richmond, you can detrain and get on BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) to get into San Francisco, or you can get off at Emeryville and take a bus run by Amtrak into San Francisco. The bus would probably be easier. Once in San Francisco, there is an endless list of things you can do there.
If you are thinking of going on a vacation, I would highly recommend this train. It is by far my favorite of the Amtrak routes, and can be a vacation by itself. But it brings you to San Francisco, which is probably my favorite of the cities I've been to. You could really make an unforgettable vacation by spending, say, a week in San Francisco and getting there and back by rail. Don't forget to check out the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento as well!
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