Just Found My Pictures of the California Zephyr...

Very Cool!  Here are some pictures of her sister the Silver Solarium that came through Austin years ago.

@scale rail posted:

About ten years ago my wife bought us a trip on four original California Zephyr Cars. We road the "Silver Lariat" in the dome from the Bay Area to Reno, then a bus ride over to Portola and a visit to the Western Pacific Railroad Museum. Next day another trip on the Zephyr back to the Bay Area. Thought I had lost the photos but just found them on an old drive. With the photos was a shot of the "silver Lariat" and I included a shot of my new Atlas dome car of the same name. I took me a long time to find that Atlas car. Don

Don and Allan,  

Wonderful photos of an epic train.  NH Joe

Nice photos -- I wonder if 'they' still offer similar trips.  I'd love to ride that dome car, which would be nostalgic.  Way back when, I used to take the train from central NE to Pittsburgh, PA during my college years (mid 1960's) and would ride either the CZ to Chicago or one of the "city" trains on the UP to Chicago -- then on PRR to Pittsburgh.  I would spend almost the whole trip in the dome car (not one of the dome/observation cars) until the conductor would kick me out.

When my wife and I first came to the SF Bay Area in 1967, we rode the CZ back to NE for the Xmas holidays.  Little did we realize then that would have been our last chance for that ride.  I still have the timetable and the trackside guide book.

Here are more California Zephyr cars I took pictures of.  They were part of the Railroad Revival Tour in 2011.  The cars shown (in no particular order) are the:

• Silver Splendor
• Silver Lariat
• Silver Quail
• Silver Rapids

ALL VERY COOL! That Atlas model was quite a find! :-)

@richs09 posted:

Nice photos -- I wonder if 'they' still offer similar trips.  I'd love to ride that dome car, which would be nostalgic.

Several of the cars, including the Silver Lariat, were sold a couple years ago to the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad.

https://www.cvsr.org/our-fleet/

David

Here is another one owned by the Austin Steam Train Organization - the Silver Pine:

Nice!

Anyone have information on why some cars are noted with the road names of CB&Q and DR&W?  Were there any other road names used on these?

The California Zephyr was owned by CB&Q, D&RGW, and Western Pacific RRs.  The CB&Q ran from Chicago to to Denver (D&RGW) which then ran to California.  They just put the road names on to show which Railroad ran the cars and what portion of the route they were on.  From what I found online, the original intent was to run them with each name on the consist (all CB&G, D&RGW, or WP).  That became impractical, so the cars on the later consists were just a mix of them.

My Lionel Burlington F3 (early in the Zephyr days) actually has Colorado and Southern on them instead of the others because C&S merged with Burlington Northern in 1981, so the engines may have had others on them.

Just to footnote what Allan just said - the three railroad consortium ran the CZ from 1949 to 1970.  The eastern third was then CB&Q, Chicago to Denver, via Omaha and Arapahoe, NE (the small town in western NE where I went to high school - train didn't stop there...).  From Denver to Salt Lake City it was D&RGW via the Moffat tunnel, Grand Junction (CO) and the Price River canyon into SLC.  Western Pacific took the train from there to Oakland, via the Feather River Canyon through the Sierra Nevada (didn't go through Reno).

The current Amtrak version of the CZ follows (I think) essentially the same route from Chicago to SLC and then somewhere west of Wendover (UT) it picks up the old Southern Pacific route into Reno and crosses the Sierra via Donner Pass.  It enters the Bay Area via the bridge at Martinez, crossing the Sacramento River and then down the East Bay corridor into Oakland.  The old WP route between Sacramento and Oakland was via Altamont Pass and down Niles Canyon and into Oakland from the southeast.

Okay, what are the grab irons for on the rear side of the observation car? There doesn't appear to be anyplace to go if you climb on by those handles.

Great photos by the way.

If you look closely at the rear end () picture of the observation door, the back is actually a door.  The movie Silver Streak had one open to let the main actors get on the train while it was pulling out of the station.

@GVDobler posted:

Okay, what are the grab irons for on the rear side of the observation car? There doesn't appear to be anyplace to go if you climb on by those handles.

Note the foot stirrup on either side of the observation cars rear end, thus the hand grab-irons for a person to hang on to, when making a reverse move.

Great photos by the way.

Everyone knows what those grab irons are for! Here's a few more pictures and video I shot. Don