California Zephyr: Scenic Train Journey with iBestTravel
Updated 9:07 AM EDT, Fri March 31, 2017
California Zephyr: Amtrak’s California Zephyr train line runs daily between Chicago and San Francisco. The 2,438-mile journey takes around 52 hours.The route: The train sets off from Chicago’s Union Station, travels through the plains of Nebraska to Denver, across the Rocky Mountains to Salt Lake City, and then through Reno and Sacramento into Emeryville then San Francisco.Highlights: Scenic spots en route include the Sierra Nevada, Moffat Tunnel, Colorado’s Gore Range, Byers and Glenwood Canyons, Winter Park, Truckee River, Donner Lake, San Pablo Bay and the Carquinez Strait and Glenwood Springs.Proposed budget cuts: In the US, passenger rail travel is subsidized by federal funding. The threat of budget cuts has been hanging over less profitable lines for a number of years.The numbers: The California Zephyr carried 417,322 passengers in fiscal year 2016, an 11.2% increase over the year before.Long-distance riders: In fiscal year 2016, numbers on Amtrak’s 15 long-distance lines were up 3.7% versus the year before, with close to 4.7 million riders.Northeast Corridor: Should cuts to long-distance funding go ahead, the money could be directed instead to the busier Northeast Corridor lines, which served close to 12 million riders in fiscal year 2016.Sleeping options: On board the California Zephyr, travelers can sleep in their coach seats or upgrade to a roomette or bedroom in one of the Superliner sleeping cars.Illinois: Galesburg is one of the Zephyr’s stops in Illinois. The town was once a stop on the Underground Railroad, used by enslaved African-Americans in the 19th century to escape to free states and to Canada.History: Amtrak has run the California Zephyr service since 1983. The original California Zephyr, operated by three other railroads, ran between 1949 and 1970.Superliner: Amtrak uses Superliner railcars on the service. Superliners first entered service in 1979 and close to 480 of them were built.Communities: Amtrak CEO and President Wick Moorman says that budget cuts could potentially impact 500 communities.Connections: “Amtrak operates 15 long-distance trains across the nation and these routes offer the only Amtrak service in 23 of the 46 states we serve,” Business Insider quotes Moorman as saying. “These trains connect our major regions, provide vital transportation to residents in rural communities and generate connecting passengers and revenue for our Northeast Corridor and State-Supported services.”
