THE AMAZING CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR STORY-1940-1970 

Relive the story of the "California Zephyr" and its history! www.cspmovies.com

Thanks for this. I rode the California Zephyr for its full route as a child a half dozen times, beginning in 1954, and ending in the mid-1960's. I then rode Amtrak's version of the Zephyr again in 1986 and again in early 2008 in order to give my children the train experience. Needless to say, the Amtrak experience was much more mundane than the original Zephyr. Boy, do I remember being excited as a kid to get on the train in Chicago to go to California! Great memories. Thanks again!

Thank you for this video about The California Zephyr. My grandfather was a Conductor on The Zephyr, and my dad and brother were Brakemen on the WP. Using CZ to abbreviate the name feels a bit unfamiliar and awkward, but the historical detail more than compensates. Those of us who lived along the route, and for whom the WP was our way of life, we simply called it The Zephyr. Everyone knew what we were talking about. In the 50’s and 60’s, I had the pleasure of riding the Zephyr several times from Portola west through the Feather River Canyon to Oroville, and east to Salt Lake City. There was nothing like The Zephyr!

I remember these trains in the 1950’s when I was young,aloha

When my father was transferred from the Brooklyn Navy Yard to the Mare Island Naval Shipyard, in 1965, this was how we got from the East Coast to our eventual home in Napa, CA. We had a compartment, which was wayyy cool.

One of my earliest memories is of standing with my dad in downtown San Diego, watching a giant steam engine shake the ground as it rolled out of the station. It seemed alive to me. As much as my grandson loves trains, he could never imagine standing 5 feet from one thundering by with the engineer waving in the cab. Great memory.

This is the train I remember from childhood. My favorite train.

Thank you very much for this beautiful footage of a bygone railroad era.

It was great to see these views of the train along the line with the various routes and operators through the years.

I love the idea of a huge train trundling down the middle of the street

This is a great find for me on RU-vid. About 25 years ago in five weekend to weekend trips I rode all the AMTRAK rail west of St. Louis making connection in Chicago or Kansas City for some of the trips as my way to see The West. Very scenic was the AMTRAK Zephyr, the Coast Starlight and The Canadian I rode between Vancouver and Jasper as part of those trips. I rode the AMTRAK Zephyr twice as part of those trips. Thanks for all this history of the route. Also interesting was seeing all of the Western Pacific route at that time that differs from the AMTRAK route some .

A terrific video! Very informative and enjoyable! The west is the best for scenic rail travel and this video proves it. Away from the asphalt and the common motorists. Taking the back roads beside the rivers and through the tunnels and snowsheds! That's what traveling by train is like. See America! 🇺🇸 👏Excellent narration and footage. 👏😁👍

I just joined a N scale club as a new to the hobby modeler. They are in the benchwork phase of modeling the Feather River Canyon route. What a perfect time to join a club. Other than missing out on the benchwork build I'm excited to learn and help in building that fantastic route.

thanks a lot, so great! special thank for the lot of amazing details.

Have really enjoyed seeing the history of the Zephry many of the F7s and the fabulous scenery. Have been watching many of the Amtrak videos done by rail fans of today. Many thanks from John W Sydney Australia

I rode most of the tracks shown in the video in 1969. I will never forget that wonderful experience. UP, Milwaukee Road, etc. to Chicago.

This footage is amazing and shows me the train and route my parents used to ride from Omaha to San Fran. I’ve only seen video of the modern day Zephyr until now.

Wonderful video -- and so strange to think I must be one of the youngest to remember riding this train. I was four years old in 1966 when my grandmother took my sister and I on a ride from Sacramento to Oakland. My only ride on a "named train" before Amtrak! I remember standing with the crowd on the platform until that orange-and-silver engine blasted its horn and pulled up, very slowly. I remember the feather on the front. I loved the dome car. The views here are what I remember seeing.

🚂 Outstanding RR Footage 🚂

Excellent historical piece about passenger rail in the US. I had no idea Amtrak acquired the name to carry on the tradition. It was also a surprise to hear the journey started South(!!!) through Niles Canyon and Stockton. Thanks for sharing!

Excellent.

Another great presentation. Thank you.

Very nice video/documentary. Thanks!

I use to enjoy watching the Western Pacific and those beautiful GP7s locomotives switching and kicking cars in West Oakland , East Oakland and San Leandro , just the sound of those roots blowers at notch 8 was amazing , this brings back lots of great childhood memories !

Beautiful footage. Excellent editing and narration. Thanks!

I remember those unmanned rail crossings all too well. As a kid, we stayed in a house very close to a dimly lit one (only had a single bulb light on each side of the track), but one that was always very busy. Day and night you would hear car drivers stop short of the rails, then wind up their automobile motors hard and hope to slingshot over the rails within a few feet of the nose of the loco. 1 in 6 wouldn't make it and then the whole town would come out to stand and gawk and stare in comical amazement at the sight of the carnage. Would be town gossip for days on end until the next time it happened. Battered, twisted wreckage and car parts would lie on the sides of the rails for days. Night time would be the same story - you'd lie in your bed and hear the car drivers planting their foot hard flat, winding the revs up deep into the red then dumping the clutch, hoping to catapult the car to make it across. The motor of the car would be screaming louder than the horn of the train, some would make it, others well, not always. Clearly remember an old timer with a huge load of grain in his ancient Chevy, same story; he punished it HARD before taking a chance, but all it did was cough and backfire when it took the load and refused to pull over the rails. The loco hit it squarely and grain flew everywhere like a sandstorm. He was leaning forward in the cab of his truck with massive wide-open eyes, and in those last moments you could see the terror on his face and how tight his hands gripped that wheel. Birds had a field day with what lay all around.

Absolutely FANTASTIC video!!!

Beautiful! Thank-you. I was continuously aware of the unemployed in the 1930's etc riding the rails.

Awesome film.

The train cars back then were more beautiful inside and out than what we have today. Dinning cars had tablecloths, china coffee cups . Cooks to make the food you orderd off of the menu. Todays Amtrak roomets are tiny. Coffee served in paper cups. Cafeteria style dinning car. The food looks frozen then zapped in a microwave.

Nice video. Was the golden age of rail passenger train service before things changed a lot...(takeovers, less ridership, etc..) Albeit, today things are not so bad it seems with a small resurgence of passenger travel..

Al Perlman (formerly NYC & PC chief) took over the WP in December 1970, nine months after CZ's last runs. Perlman was fond of Jade Green (from his NYC days) and dictated that WP's signals and bridges also be so painted. Scenes herein that show jade green signals were taken after the CZ's last runs.

Wow! That was a fascinating and well put-together video! Thanks for that!

A beautiful video I wasn’t even thought of yet but I always loved this model train what a beauty

Nice document!

In 1979, I stayed in the Best Western Hotel across the street from the WP station, it was a restaurant at the time

I had an uncle that was a brakeman workung out of Bloomington, Ca. He worked for the Southern Pacific RR! The operation is still working today out of Bloomington,. His name was David Stevens for anybody still around that worked with him.....A Super cool uncle, whom I miss very much.....Brad Watson😀, DHS, Ca😀

An America Gone and Greatly Missed

simply can't stop to look this great vid -

The brickyard in Niles Canyon has been razed and decontaminated...to be or is now a protected area....maybe a future park.

that was an awesome video thanks i am modeling a N scale train set using CB&Q and WP it has helps with the scenery and landscape and it looks like i might have to add some Rio Grande as well lol

Great video!

Cool video!! At <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="344">5:44</a>...GEEZ, I hope that's a spring switch!!!!!

FLOODS of Memories Rode the CZ with my Grandpa who worked for the WP came here when the Eureka & Palisades was still operational ! Wow anymore footage of Rnd House in Carlin or any footage of this area I'm pushing 70 & decided to Model this area in the Transitions era. WOW man Thanks Sooo much

Just took the Amtrak California Zephyr for the first time last year. Wish I could've ridden it in its heyday in the late 1950s and early 60s.

I presume it's dubbed sound, but it fits really well. Lovely scene at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="80">1:20</a>, some cool cars as well.

Great Video, Thanks for Sharing !

A California Zephyr is a great story!! A feature for Amtrak California Zephyr is 53 years.

Such a shame these trains are long gone We need more passenger trains in America

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="2870">47:50</a>; Union Pacific trains used the Chicago & North Western between Chicago & Omaha until 1955, when they switched to the Milwaukee Road. UP did use the Wabash from St. Louis to Kansas City.

This is very informative and shows a different route than the California Zephyr takes now. The observation cars are still there, though less luxurious. The dining cars are also still there, and the last time I was on one the food was still good. That was 2018. I've done the Emeryville to Denver trip twice and to Chicago once. Denver to Chicago is not worth the time and money. We actually went on to Boston South station, the Lake Shore Limited is not a patch on the California Zephyr, it's more of a poor people's mass transit than a luxury tourist experience. The good food also departs at Albany, if I remember right, and wasn't near as good as the Zephyr anyway.

Quite surprised that a 2 night train would not have had sleeping car accomodations. But cool to see that it was co-operated as single ticket/train over 3 separate railroads.

Western Springs at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="3185">53:05</a>. I grew up there and saw the CZ go by many times. Rode the CZ between Denver and Chicago once, but also rode the Denver Zephyr between Chicago and Denver many times, when I was in undergraduate school.

nice , love to see the cz , can't believe all the shops in aurora at 52.45

The museum of science and industry in chicago, has a california zephyr interactive display. It pretty cool and very in formative.

The yard and environs at the "Fremont" yard are ghosts. The occasional pieces of MOW equipment are the only visitors to the yard, and the drywall facility is now a couple of piles of ground-up concrete. The whole area has a fence around it. The former main from Oakland to Union City is littered with trash and ripped-up sidings., and is even more seedy than in years gone by. Pacific States Steel is now apartments. The old roundhouse in Oakland is now occupied by Schintzer Steel....

So little car and truck traffic in those days!

Great old video.

I Subscribed. I really like your train video. Good work. Greetings Joe 😊

Good job, could you please do “Milwaukee Road West” please? There are many people out there who are fan of the Chicago Milwaukee St Paul and Pacific Railroad.

I was born in PA in 1965. My Grandma worked for the Union RR in the dispatch office. Both her brothers worked for the B&O. I rode the American Freedom Train in Pittsburgh in 1976. It's a shame what happened to our railroads in this country.

around <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1470">24:30</a> great piano music

Great train. I rode only the post-Amtrak Rio Grande operated Rio Grande Zephyr. Den to Glenwood Springs. Most beautiful 5.5 hours of high country rail running in America.

I was working as a train attendant on Amtrak around the time of the 1989 earth quake and I remember that pretty little pink station they had in Oakland. It was all in one piece and looking good the first time I saw it and the next time it had taken the effects of the quake and and had large cracks up and down near the corners of the bldg. I bet they took her down by now. going to Oakland after the quake was a real lesson to me of how powerful mother nature is. The resiliency of the rail road to tough weather was . During hurricane Katrina their were trains passing through the lake Pontchartrain causeway and there was an especially assembled super long train put together to bring people out of NOL before Katrina hit but some one thought it was a better idea to keep all the folks in the super-dome (I think) stadium (just next to the station).

I recognize some of that Jack London Square area architecture - especially that Union Iron Works building and the sign for what was then the Thunderbird Hotel on Broadway.

Experience is spelled wrong on the "header". How could you miss that, Charles?

At <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="343">5:43</a> notice the switch points..is it a spring switch?? Because they go right thru it.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="343">5:43</a> sprung, turn out

Adoro essa época das locomotivas GM EMD F7 !!! No Brasil teve as GE EP4 elétricas, apelidadas de V8 ou escandalosas, cujo aspecto da frente da cabine eram bem semelhantes as GM EMD F7 !!! 👏👏👏👏🇧🇷

Incredibile!

I'm confused. In 1961 I took Union Pacific/Southern Pacific from Chicago to San Francisco. At about Ogden, Utah, the train split with one portion going to Los Angeles. At that point we lost our observation car, ostensibly due to tunnel height. But the Zephyr observation cars handle the tunnels with no problem. I'll mention that our route included Cheyenne and Laramie, Wyoming, and the plains scenery was breathtaking. Any comments, please?

What is the name of the piano music @ <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1396">23:16</a>? Very nice!

experience is misspelled.

I'm glad to see the original right of way before the Niles depot was close And the Emeryville station was opened It is in a state of limbo this right of way the bart tracks parallel the route into Fremont It's not used except for storing cars You will occasionally see an engine on the tracks The transit and freight main is over a mile to the west Very odd to see no crossing gates Now that makes sense because the Niles depot has move from that location Something amtrack got rid of There kitchen cars Is was cheaper to switch to prepackaged food This old route was a much longer

Interestingly, after the UP took over the WP, the route along time river in the Feather River Canyon got washed out by storms. It took a lot of work and expense to restore the washed out line to operation. I'd like to know the source of the music.

Great documentary! I am curious - would it get hot in the dome cars? I could see the clear western skies and a blazing sun creating a bit of discomfort.

grew up in Desoto Mo where ther was a MoPac repair yard love trains

Third and washington looks better on google maps than it did then

Did anyone catch the run-through switch at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="345">5:45</a>?

🙏🙏🙏🙏

Maybe I'm not seeing this correctly but, I'm sure I saw, from the cab @<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="342">5:42</a> or so, that switch just after the diamond was lined against this train. It didn't appear that anyone could have thrown it quickly enough. To prevent it. It's unusual, but it could have been a "spring switch" but not likely as those are very rare. Anyone else notice this?

Does the San Joaquin run on the line or ex-SP?

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="343">5:43</a> the switches are incorrect

For that place and date, California was it

I got nervous seeing the cars going right in front of it like that!

Went to sub school in 1953, that’s how Uncle Sam provided transportation as far as Chicago, 20th Century to NYC.

Question: Has the rock-fall sensor system changed at all since this time?

At <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="342">5:42</a> did this train run thru a reversed switch ?

Too many ads in this California Zephyr video inserted by RU-vid.

Aurora Branch RR -> turns into; The Burlington Route -> turns into: The CB&Q -> turns into; The Burlington Northern -> & finally: The BNSF

You can still ride a similar train from Toronto to Vancouver

😳 A train. Right in the middle of a downtown street... 🚆 🚉 🚄 😳

It is interesting that "zephyr" rhymes with "heifer".

Does anybody know why they switched over from my aerodynamic engine to one of them flat nose engines I like that older engine it's more streamlined

Saif ne channel delet krdiya

its absurd that a major city has a train station in the middle of the road.

do purchase videos of trains ,

magnesium

*_Wait, he said its so vast and flat you can see the curvature of the earth... I see... I see... I see flat earthers heads exploding..._*

"ExperiAnce"?