Zephyr to detour through Wyoming

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The Chief

Lead Service Attendant
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Feb 23, 2003
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Fort Worth Texas Wherethe WestBegins
Repairs on historic Moffat Tunnel will divert Amtrak from scenic mountain route

CASPER, Wyoming - Amtrak's California Zephyr will be detoured away from one of the most scenic passenger rail routes in the country for about a month this summer while repairs are made on the historic Moffat Tunnel.

The 6.2-mile-long tunnel, which opened in 1928, punches through the Continental Divide in the mountains 50 miles west of Denver. Amtrak will detour north from Denver to Cheyenne, Wyo., and then west across Wyoming to Salt Lake City.

Normally, the Zephyr winds through numerous shorter tunnels in the foothills west of Denver, climbs to the Moffat Tunnel at 9,242 feet above sea level and then follows the Colorado River west through steep, narrow canyons until crossing into Utah and heading north to Salt Lake City.

Railroad officials have not set the exact dates of the closure. Some coal trains might use the tunnel at night during the rail repair work.

The Ski Train, an excursion train that runs between Denver and the Winter Park ski resort in winter and summer months, will be suspended during the repairs.

Winter Park lies just on the west side of the Moffat Tunnel. Residents of Winter Park, Glenwood Springs and other resort towns along the route say the closure will be hard on the travel business.

The Moffat Tunnel is named for David Moffat Jr., the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad president who pushed its construction. The tunnel saved about 150 miles and at least four hours of rail travel time.

from Casper Star-Tribune

http://www.casperstartribune.net/news/wyoming/

Wow!
 
Now that is very sad to hear :( , from having traveled on this route recently, I must tell you, this takes a lot of the prestige of it...but not nearly enought to keep me off it!
 
steve_relei said:
Will the CZ be stopping at any of the stations on the UP in Wyoming?
I don't think that they would do that but it could be possible for example if they have a Thruway from Denver to Cheyenne if there is a suitible platform at Cheyenne maybe they would just allow passengers to remain on the train but I would doubt that.
 
I personally would love to take a trip on that detoured Zephyr, get some hard to get mileage. Then again I'd love to take a train somewhere north of Deland. :lol: Guess I'll just have to wait until July for that. :D
 
battalion51 said:
Then again I'd love to take a train somewhere north of Deland. :lol: Guess I'll just have to wait until July for that. :D
You already did. You took the train north of Deland to Baltimore last year. :lol: :D :)
 
here's something I would wish for: to take the train via Tennesee Pass. Think about it. If Tennesee pass were still open for business, it would connect with the remainder of the route at Desotero, and then continue on to SLC. Folk would go via the Royal Gorge, and the Arkansas River, and service to Glenwood Springs wouldn't be cut. Talk about rare mileage! It would be enough for me to want to take some time off from paddling Canoes around NW Ontario and take a trip aboard the Z!

I know: don't get my hopes up - it ain't gonna happen. I know the Wasatch Range is picturesque, but passnegers are going to be unimpressed with Sherman Hill.

One can dream, though :)
 
AlanB said:
battalion51 said:
Then again I'd love to take a train somewhere north of Deland.   :lol: Guess I'll just have to wait until July for that.   :D
You already did. You took the train north of Deland to Baltimore last year. :lol: :D :)
West of Jacksonville. How's that Alan. Besides which I need some new scenery, I'm kind of sick of the same CP's, same slow orders, same work foremen, same jerks at Herzog.
 
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it is after June 19 which is the outbound portion of my trip from Sacramento-Chicago-New Orleans. I wonder what it will do to connections between the Zephyr and the City of New Orleans. There is only a 4 1/2 hour layover now. :(
 
denmarks said:
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it is after June 19 which is the outbound portion of my trip from Sacramento-Chicago-New Orleans. I wonder what it will do to connections between the Zephyr and the City of New Orleans. There is only a 4 1/2 hour layover now. :(
Well I can tell you that overall, the bypass on UP's Wyoming mainline is quicker then the scenic Moffat route, so I don’t think it will affect things time wise to much.
 
Here's some more info on reroute that finally posted:

Instead of rolling west from Denver through Winter Park-Fraser, Granby, Glenwood Springs and Grand Junction en route to Salt Lake City, Amtrak's California Zephyr will head north to Wyoming, bypassing Cheyenne and crossing southern Wyoming to Salt Lake City during the track work.

Moffat Tunnel is expected to be closed for several weeks to permit major track repairs.

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,3...l?search=filter

...Interestingly, article notes that coal trains may be allowed during Tunnel at night...
 
Well there are coal mines around the Grand Junction area, that would encounter significant delays should they have to detour through Wyoming.
 
Just for the record, the CZ is no stranger to Wyoming. That train, which dates to 1949, has gone through several changes of route, days of operation and slight changes of name.

At times, under Amtrak, it was called the San Francisco Zephyr, and has actually been routed through Wyoming on a regular basis(not just as a temporary by-pass). During some of the time it was going through Wyoming, a short length short distance train called the Rio Grande Zephyr operated from Denver to Salt Lake CIty. This was all around the late 60's to mid-70's. Don't remember when Amtrak got it back on its Moffat Tunnel Rockies route, and restored its old name.

The route through Wyoming is undeniably less scenic than the Rockies, though it can be said to have a charm of its own.

The original train, 1949 ,also went a different route from SLC to SF from what it does now; it went through the Feather River Canyon, an arguably more beautiful trip than the present one through the Sierras, though people have different opinions about that.I have seen both routes, but so many years apart I am not sure what I think about which is prettier. But of course I am very sure the Rockies are prettier than Wyoming.

However, let us just be glad that the tunnel is getting its needed work-over----what a disaster and a nightmare for a wreck to happen around that area.

The original Caifornia Zephyr's route was very specifically and very commonly advertised as "The train designed for scenery" and "The most talked-about train in the nation". that is because it was really designed to go through the most scenic points of it route via daylight. The one hitch to this is that sometimes coming East, one misses out on some of the Rockies, either due to lateness or due to the time change.

The original CZ had an unheard of five vista-Dome cars: three on top of coaches, one on top of a mid-train buffet-pullman lounge and one of on top of the rear-end Observation lounge. This may not sound like much today, as spoiled as we are to entire trains being superliner equipped---but it was quite the thing back then.
 
I've been in one of those Domes, Silver Lariat. I can only imagine what the view is like going through the Rockies in that car. (Drool)
 
When Amtrak began service in 1971, the San Francisco Zephyr (as it was then called) was routed from Denver to Cheyenne to Ogden to Reno on the SP across the Sierras then into Sacramento and Oakland (highlights of trip). At Denver, The locomotives would run around the train to the rear and pull the train from the rear as far as Cheyenne. At Cheyenne, the locos returned to the front of the train and resumed pulling the train from there. Until 1982, or so, the Rio Grande continued operating its own Rio Grande Zephyr (mostly with former CZ cars) between Denver and Salt Lake. The Rio Grande tried to keep the pride of the CZ for as long as it could, but as with most railroads the cost of providing passenger train service became too high. Also, the Rio Grande was bought out by the SP, which had other ideas about running the railroad. That's when the San Francisco Zephyr was re-routed onto the Rio Grande line and the name changed to the CZ. This left Wyoming without passenger service. This was remedied when the Pioneer was separated at Denver and was routed through Wyoming on the UP, then to Ogden, Pocatello, Boise, Portland, and Seattle. This lasted until 1997 when the Pioneer was discontinued.

I have seen pictures and videos about the CZ and scenes of Feather River Canyon. It is quite beautiful. However, the ride over the SP Donner Pass is also quite spectacular. The train reaches a higher elevation (over 7,000 feet above sea level). This is part of the first transcontinental railroad; much of it was built by hand, by Chinese laborers. It's still an amazing feat that this railroad was completed the way it was. Some of it has been put out of service (a more modern doubletracked mainline and other improvements have disminished to need for some parts), but it is still a nice ride. Train schedules presently allow trains to pass through the mountains in daylight. It wasn't always this way for the City of San Francisco (under the SP) and the San Francisco Zephyr in the early years.

There's no use crying over something that can't be helped. The Feather River is nice, but Donner Pass is great, and it does not bother me that the train uses that route. Much of the WP route, out of Salt Lake, which the original CZ used, is now under the control of the UP, which means that the present Amtrak CZ still uses the same route across the Great Salt Lake, Utah and Nevada deserts as did the original WP CZ. Amtrak CZ joins the former SP route at about Elko.

On the UP through Wyoming, perhaps the most scenic part of the trip is through Echo Canyon, which is in the far western part of the state. With the Pioneer, it was morning going east--with plenty of daylight for sightseeing--but evening going west--when it was dark. Although during the summer, you will have more daylight for sightseeing even westbound, depending of course on train times. Another highlight for many railfans is the traverse over Sherman Hill (west of Cheyenne). The elevation is over 8,000 feet. Grades can be steep here. This is where the Big Boys made their fame.

In many ways, I still prefer the old vista dome cars. They allowed you to look out the front at the locomotives and back toward the rear of the trains. It was more fun and scenic "playing engineer." Also, you could look up and enjoy the high crags and cliffs above the train better. The Superliner lounges pretty much restrict your view to looking straight out sideways. The front and rear of the trains can only be seen when trains go around curves. Although I must admit that by the 1970s, Amtrak dome cars were so dirty (after years of use and engine exhaust and other dirt) that one could not always see clearly out of them looking out the front. Sometimes amtrak crews did wash the windows, but it didn't always do much good.
 
Hello all!

Living, in Cheyenne, I'm looking forward to seeing Amtrak up here. Does anyone know whose line they will detour on from Denver to Cheyenne before heading west? If they use the UP line that parallels US85, they *could* make a stop in Cheyenne at the depot downtown. This is on the UP mainline and they would have to go right past the depot to go west out of town. If its the BNSF line, then no stop in Cheyenne is practical. Cheers!

John
 
I just received a call from Amtrak today (3/12/04) about the rerouting on trains 5 and 6. My trip is from June 19-27 so repairs will at least be during that period. They say that there will be no delays in my arrival times in Chicago and Sacramento.
 
n2qmt said:
Hello all!
Living, in Cheyenne, I'm looking forward to seeing Amtrak up here. Does anyone know whose line they will detour on from Denver to Cheyenne before heading west? If they use the UP line that parallels US85, they *could* make a stop in Cheyenne at the depot downtown. This is on the UP mainline and they would have to go right past the depot to go west out of town. If its the BNSF line, then no stop in Cheyenne is practical. Cheers!

John
No word on which line will be used yet. However the NARP hotline is reporting that no stops will be made along the detour route. So you're out of luck regardless of which way they go. :(

Of course maybe you could still catch a picture from the station, if they run by it. :rolleyes:
 
AlanB said:
Living, in Cheyenne, I'm looking forward to seeing Amtrak up here. No word on which line will be used yet. However the NARP hotline is reporting that no stops will be made along the detour route. So you're out of luck regardless of which way they go. :(
I was told by an agent today that it will be through Laramie.
 
Will they not be making refueling and smoking stops? I know the CZ does not allow smoking onboard the train (or does it) and will have to stop some time for the smokers. Refueling usually takes palce (it did on the Pioneer) at Rawlins. The Pioneer went through Greeley (CO) and Borie (just outside and within sight of Cheyenne) so it did not have to turn or be turned in and out of the Cheyenne station. The SFZ had locomotives run around the train to pull it from Denver to Cheyenne and then run back around to the front for the rest of the trip west of Cheyenne (the process was reversed for eastbounds).
 
It would make sense to refuel at Rawling considering there is a decent sized UP facility there where that could easily be accomplished.
 
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