Sacramento, California, May 26.
Well I lost several paragraphs from the beginning of this post. Hopefully I’ll remember enough of it to re-dictate. They are not showing up in back up either.
This post will be primarily pictures. I will start with narration to explain the trip and then finish with the pictures.
This journey is about the California Zephyr. Zephyr is one of Amtrak’s long distance routes, going from Chicago to Emeryville, California, which is across the bay from San Francisco. The stretch between Denver and Grand Junction Colorado is noted as particularly scenic. Since we have driven the flatlands of Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, we flew to Denver and skipped those sections.
We thought the journey would be important enough that I purchased a digital book that explains the scenery outside the window as a train travels west. Some of Amtrak‘s long distance routes have the Trails and Rails program that narrates that scenery to the people sitting in the observation car. The Zephyr no longer does.
Our train was on time and boarding began at 8:15 AM. We left our hotel early enough to make it via walking to Union Station. We’re in a family room, which is considered one of the sleeper units. The other sleepers are called roomettes and sleepers.All of the sleeper passengers boarded last in Denver. In this way, the crew has sufficient time to clean the rooms that were used last night and were vacated here in Denver. Our family room was the last of the sleeper suites available when we bought our tickets.
The family room is on the lower level and is the only unit that stretches the width of the train. It’s narrower, so the total size is not much bigger. Amtrak says it’s suitable for two adults and two children under 12. The family room does not have a private bathroom or shower. That is only available in the sleeper unit. The roomettes also do not have a shower or private toilet. While the communal toilets were clean enough, they could’ve have been enhanced by the judicious use of air fresheners. We chose not to shower on the train, it’s only one night.
Passengers traveling in the coach cars are given a ticket while on the platform by the conductor that indicates which car and which seat they will be in. This ticket is put above their seat and also has written on it their destination. This information is used by the conductor to make sure that people getting off the train in the middle of the night are awakened at the proper time.
Food on Amtrak trains is quite good. There’s no variation, the menu has stayed the same for several years. Meals are part of the package for those in sleeper units. For those of you who do not know, the equipment, (coaches, sleeper cars, observation car, and dining car) are all at least 30 years old.
Instead of going due west and following interstate 70 all of the way, the California Zephyr leaves Denver and goes northwest towards Winter Park and Granby before dropping down in the southwesterly direction to pick up Interstate 70. The California Zephyr picks up the Colorado River around Granby. We went through numerous canyons and tunnels, along rivers, and generally had great scenery.
One tunnel, the Moffat tunnel, is 7 miles long. I think in total we went through well over 50 tunnels. Being somewhat egotistical, while the scenery was very nice, it was not dramatically different from other locations we have visited around the US. The meals on the train were good. The sleeping arrangements, while tight, accommodated two people easily in the family room. Amtrak says the family room can accommodate four people, two adults and two children under the age of 12. However, neither one of us slept well or long. We are not anxious to repeat an overnight travel trip on Amtrak in the future.
On a sidenote, I mentioned the digital book I had purchased. The book was written 15 or 20 years ago and it referred to a section of the Colorado River as Moon River. Along that section of the river, fishing and kayaking are popular activities. At the time of publication, it was not uncommon for these people to drop their drawers to moon the passengers on the Amtrak. I certainly thought the passage of time would have eliminated that tradition. However, the tradition is still alive and we were mooned four times during the trip. I did not take any pictures of that. 
As I mentioned, the train was full. This translated into a very busy observation car. For those of you who do not know, the observation car does not have assigned seats. People come to it from their regular seat. The advantage here is that the windows are twice as tall as the regular windows and go high enough to observe the sky and tall mountains. The conductor, every hour or so, would make an announcement that people in the observation car should leave in order to allow new people to come in and take advantage of it.
The observation car seats about 40 to 50 people. A coach car can hold over 70 and we had several of them. Sleeper cars can handle easily 30 and we had three of them. So it is not difficult to conclude, as the train travels through particularly scenic areas, it becomes difficult to snare a seat in the observation car. In this regard, the family room was an advantage, although even while at a lower level and with smaller windows, you could observe scenery on both sides of the train.
Enough with the narration. On to the pictures.
In the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Almost to Sacramento.
Ed and Chris, Sacramento, May 26.
Chris Klejbuk and Ed Heimel travel adventure 
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