Portal:Trains/Selected article/Week 37, 2010

The California Zephyr is a 2438 mi long passenger train route operated by Amtrak in the midwestern and western United States. It runs from Chicago, Illinois, in the east to Emeryville, California, in the west, passing through the states of Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and California. This route is one of the longest and most scenic routes run by Amtrak, with views of both the upper Colorado River valley in the Rocky Mountains, and the Sierra Nevada mountains. Prior to the formation of Amtrak in 1971, the California Zephyr (the CZ, or "Silver Lady") was a passenger train operated jointly by the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad (CB&Q), Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad (D&RGW) and Western Pacific Railroad (WP). The CB&Q, D&RGW and WP christened "The most talked about train in America" on March 19, 1949, with the first departure to happen the following day. It was purposely scheduled so that the train passed through the most spectacular scenery in the daylight. The original CZ ceased operations in 1970. However, the D&RGW continued to operate its own passenger train service, named the Rio Grande Zephyr, between Salt Lake City and Denver using the original equipment until 1983. Since 1983, the California Zephyr name has been applied to a Chicago-San Francisco Amtrak service, which operates daily and is a hybrid route between the route of the original CZ and the route of its former rival, the City of San Francisco. Another former rival was the San Francisco Chief.