I have recently bought some videos that show the Denver Zephyr and the City of Denver. I would like to know, which was considered the better train, that is more luxurious diners and lounge cars, which had the better food. I did ride the Denver Zephyr in December 1971 which still had the Burlington food service and lounge cars. I remember the oil painting murals with western scenes. What kind of schedules did they have? Did the City of Denver have the lounges trimmed with redwood and also the dome diners?
From my own experience it was the Denver Zephyr. The lounges and dining cars were superb and the cars were newer than those provided on the City of Denver except when it was combined with the City of Portland, but that was only noticeable leaving Chicago. The Denver Zephyr provided three domes, although not a dome diner. The City of Portland operated with a dome diner during summer months and from talking to several crew none seemed to like them. The dome diner only provided eighteen seats per seating in the dome so few passengers were really able to enjoy that feature. By the time I rode the City of Denver their was no domes assigned not even the former Milwaukee Road Super Domes which most of which went to the Canadian National. I rode these domes on the Olympian Hiawatha and on the CN’s Panorama and Super Continental and must say the CN interior decor was far more to my liking. But not to get off the subject the Denver Zephyr was a truly splendid train and had the pleasure eight or nine times to ride. Tried the City of Denver once and that was enough for me. By the way food was excellent on the DZ can’t remember about the COD.
Remember if man were mean’t to fly God would have given him wings!
For … several years? in the 1960s the CoD was combined with the CoP-- so it must? have had a dome diner then. But not before that.
My experience with the combined COD and COP was in the winter and as from what I remember the dome diner was not operated on that particular trip or were a summer only thing. Not really sure. I did experience the dome diners on two other trains the COP when I was younger and the first Dome diner from the Train of Tomorrow when it was in Seattle-Portland service. The latter on several occasions. I was never personally impressed with the Pullman Standard domes except for those that the UP purchased after their AC&F domes built to the same plans I understand. The Budd domes have always seemed the best to me and I rode numerous trains so equipped including the Empire Builder, Canadian, North Coast Limited, Denver Zephyr, Kansas City Zephyr, American Royal Zephyr, California Zephyr, and Twin Zephyr. Yes I did ride the Super Chief and have to say I liked the swivel parlor seating in that Pullman Standard built dome. I mentioned earlier about UP crews not liking the Dome diners and that was because the cooking area was very hot in the summer and the AC seemed unable to cope. The other reason were the dumbwaiters were prone to failure as well at the busiest of times and the waiters became very tired running up and down with orders. They always seemed to have troubles at the busiest of times, something to do with fuses from what I understood.
The Denver Zephyr was THE train for the Burlington, its very best train. (Not the California Zephyr, the pecking order was sort of Denver Zephyr, Twin Cities Zephyrs, then the three interline trains, North Coast LImited, Empire Builder, and CZ lumped together. (Except that the GN rode heard on the EB to keep it up to snuff.) So-----, the DZ was kept really up-to-snuff, shiney carpets replaced, roomettes in perfect operating order, and good employee moral, right up to Amtrak, while the CZ suffered.
The premier train for the UP was the City of Los Angeles, not the City of Denver.
[#ditto] The Denver Zephyr was re-equipped with a full new set of equipment late in 1956. This was more than a full year after the MId-Century Empire Builder recieved its domes, and the Santa Fe ordered their high-level El Capitan cars. Therefore it was the last full set of passenger equipment purchased in the USA until Amtrak did the superliners. By this time the City of Denver was using standard “fleet” equipment. I would say the only better maintained (and only by a bit) train in the USA was the Super Chief, but that was equipment that had been running since 1951.