Riding the Zephyr in transitional times

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Joined
Jun 29, 2020
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The P.A. system crackles before we leave Emeryville: "This is train number 6. This is not the San Joaquin, this is not the Coast Starlight."

Good. It's June 13, 2021, and I have a ticket on the California Zephyr. Part of a cross-country trip to New York and, ultimately, New Haven.

Don't read this review if you are curious about food upgrades. When I took this trip, daily service had returned, but not yet "traditional dining", though change was in the wind: there was already a shortage of flexible dining meals, and the lunch menus "entrees" were from the snack bar: cheeseburger, DiGiorono's cheese pizza, Mac and cheese & hot dogs.

The beef stew flex meal was out of stock already.

I should note that Michael Jay, LSA managing the dining service, was very on the ball, informative, and did a good job of making mealtime as 'normal' as possible, mixing good service with social distance. When your reservation time arrived, you proceeded to the diner, and the meal was on the table labeled for you. I kinda liked having the table to myself, and frankly the microwaved cheeseburger for lunch was, while not exactly good food, better than any of the flex meals.
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We left Ely pretty close to on time, were two hours down by Salt Lake City, and lost a couple more hours in Colorado, heat restrictions being blamed. From Lincoln on, though, our late train didn't get much later and notably the crew kept station stops tight.

The train was well-patronized, particularly in Colorado. West of Glenwood Springs, word from the conductors to coach passengers was 'consolidate your seats, consolidate your parties, no more stuff on the seats, it'll be a completely full train with a lot of groups.' And there was a long line to board the late train in Denver as well.

On the final day, as we rumbled past Mendota, most connecting passengers' fates had sealed; they'd been bundled onto a bus at Galesburg to connect to the CONO (for some reason), St. Louis, and Cardinal; or told to hit the Union Station information desk if headed to Michigan or a Wisconsin bus destination north of Milwaukee.

I was connecting to 48, so had little to worry about, but we had Drama in Real Life for would-be Capital Limited passengers.

The Zephyr was on target to arrive sometime before 7 with the Capital due out at 6:40.

After Naperville, the conductor (she did an excellent job communicating the situation to everyone affected) dropped the hammer: 30 isn't waiting. Passengers through Cleveland are rebooked on 48; everyone else gets sent to the customer service desk.

But as we neared the station, in the coach yard, there was a last minute reprieve: Train 30 passengers are saved!

The train headed straight in with something resembling alacrity, no back-up move tonight, and the message for Capitol passengers was:

'Get your tickets ready and just run for train 30.'

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