Portal:Trains/Selected article/Week 48, 2017

The City of Denver was a streamlined passenger train operated by the Union Pacific Railroad between Chicago, Illinois, and Denver, Colorado. It operated between 1936 and 1971. From 1936–1955 the Chicago and North Western Railway handled the train east of Omaha, Nebraska; the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (the "Milwaukee Road") handled it thereafter. The train was the fastest long-distance train in the United States when it debuted in 1936, covering 1048 mi in 16 hours. On its launch in 1936 the City of Denver used a pair of articulated trainsets built by Pullman-Standard. They were the fastest of the streamliners employed by the Union Pacific at the time and maintained the fastest long-distance schedule in the United States. The streamliners would remain in service until 1953, when conventional locomotive-hauled rolling stock replaced them. The City of Denver always carried both sleeping cars and coaches. For almost its entire career its principal competitor was the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad's Denver Zephyr. When Amtrak assumed operation of most intercity trains in the United States in 1971 it discontinued the City of Denver, preferring to use the Burlington's route between Chicago and Denver.