A close friend who is a resident of Gottenburg, Sweden, and a professor at a university there has been asked to give a technical paper in Salt Lake City this Spring. He was uncertain that he would want to travel, and I have been urging him to do so. I mentioned the wonderful train trip from Denver to Salt Lake City as an additional motive for him to go there. Can anyone report on current conditions? Will a coach ticket be satisfactory or should be get an economy room for a day trip? I see from the schedule that the westbound trip does go throught he best scenery during daylight and has a decent Denver departure time, but how good has the westbound on-time performance been? Will it be better during Spring than Winter? Should he use the dining car and lounge car snacks exclusively or bring some protection food with him? He is not a railfan but a person of very wide interest who would not have any trouble picking up an Englilsh conversation with others on the train. He also already has had some experience with Amtrak between NY and Boston and NY and Albany.
I highly recommend the CZ from Denver to SLC! I wouldn’t bother with a sleeper if SLC is the destination.
I rode the CZ west from Denver last May. The Denver departure was on time. I had been keeping track for some weeks prior to my departure and the train usually left Denver on or about on time.
The trip was great. We only lost about 45 minutes all the way to SLC, mostly due to following a frt up the Front Range. The scenery is wonderful and varied. There was a wide cross-section of America riding the train - people from all over, of all ages, riding for a variety of reasons.
The food service was pretty good. We had a sleeper, so ate in the diner. The food and staff were good. I think a coach passenger would do well eating lounge car food for breakfast and lunch and then dinner in the diner. Of note on our train, the lounge car attendent, Johnny, had a great time making announcements for his service in the lounge car - often acting like he was in direct competition with the dining car.
We actually arrived in Denver the day before, took an express bus from the airport to downtown Denver (cheap and easy!), overnighted in a hotel downtown and then caught the train in the morning. Downtown Denver has a mile long transit mall with a free shuttle bus that runs every couple of minutes. Lots of restaurants and shopping. Union Station is at the bottom end of the mall. There is a hotel just accross the street from Union Station, but we chose a cheaper Hampton Inn closer to the Capitol Bldg.
Seems like an excellent recommendation. Thanks! I hope he will visit the USA again on that basis.
Dave:-
The Oxford Hotel located on 17th St. is about half a block south of Denver Union Station. It’s a comfortable place with a funky bar (“The Cruise Room” - Art Deco in the extreme!) and many fine restaurants lie within easy walking distance. A branch of the nationally famous Tattered Cover Bookstore is about a block and a half away; and, it carries a good number of foreign periodicals, some of which are written in the German language and there may even be some in Swedish as well.
The Ski Train decorated in Rio Grande passenger colors is often parked at Denver Union Station. If your friend likes trains, he’ll surely want to see this unique set of equipment.
Riding the CZ through the Colorado Rockies is a fantastic trip! Your friend shouldn’t miss it!
The CZ is my one Amtrak long distance trip annually (Chicago to San Francisco) so, while I’m no expert, a couple of minor things…
BNSF does a pretty good job of keeping trains OT between Denver & Chicago. The UP westbound is so-so to Ogden but I swear they have lost us over an hour between there and SLC… Eastbound? We are usually behind time by Roseville if not Sacramento (once we were over an hour late out of Emeryville!). By the time SLC is reached, the schedule is in shreads. To be fair though-last year’s return trip had us OT all the way to Denver and the BNSF dropped the ball sometime during the night and lost us a couple of hours. Made a heckuva try to make it up; though to no avail. Sigh-I almost had my first OT trip. I always plan a day’s layover in Chicago for missed connections. The worst that will happen is he gets another sightseeing day each way. On the way back he might be able to change his reservations and get home earlier if the CZ is on time for his eastbound connection but I just wouldn’t plan on it.
For best scenery after Denver, tell him to grab a right hand (as you face the front of the train) seat when boarding in Chicago.
For food, I find that sitting down most of the time leaves me with little appetite. The lounge car (plus a bag of fruit) see me through the trip. There is a fruit/snack stand at Grand Junction (service stop so there’s time even if the train is running late) to replenish the supply.
It’s still a great trip and I’d recommend it!
Kevin and everyone else. Thank you for the useful tips. I am looking forward to the CZ this year.
Normally the CZ is routed through Provo - not Ogden - but either approach in to SLC is really congested.
dd