Everyone knows that the D&RGW & WP hosted the California Zephyr along with the CB&Q. My question is what other Zephyrs were joint operations with other railroads or at least traveled on other railroads tracks?
The CB&Q and the Rock Island operated the Zephyr-Rocket between St. Louis and the Twin Cities. CB&Q from St. Louis to Burlington, IA. RI from Burlington to the Twin Cities via Cedar Rapids and Manly.
Jeff
Texas Zephyr operated on Rio Grande and Santa Fe between Denver and Pueblo, Colo.; Sam Houston Zephyr operated on Burlington-Rock Island (joint line) between Dallas and Houston.
I suppose one could say that CB&Q subsidiaries Colorado & Southern and Fort Worth & Denver made these “joint” operations but that strikes me as hair-splitting.
S. Hadid
Texas–
The Burlington “Pioneer Zephyr” made a tour of the Colorado Rockies over the newly installed “Dotsero Cutoff” when the Moffat Line was connected to the Rio Grande Tennessee Pass line in 1934. There are photos of the train in several Rio Grande books that I have, showing it in Boulder Canyon and up the Flatirons, entering and leaving the Moffat Tunnel, and one at the ‘last spike’ ceremony at either Bond or Orestod, CO (the caption seems to be unclear on the photo I have).
Evidently the “Pioneer Zephyr” inspired the Rio Grande to initiate a similar articulated train called the “Prospector” between Denver and Salt Lake, however the little 2-car train had motor problems and was unsuccessful. It was later replaced by a very successful overnight streamliner between the two terminals.
I know that the “Pioneer Zephyr” traveled out west, making it to Los Angeles to ‘star’ in a film called “Silver Streak” in the mid-thirties. What its route was from Salt Lake to Los Angeles was, I couldn’t tell you, but it seems logical that it might have run on Union Pacific’s former Los Angeles and Salt Lake route.
However, it was an excuse for me to buy Con-Cor’s excellent HO model for use on my Rio Grande Yuba River Sub (complete with 4th car, bought this fall). Neat little train. Handsome as all heck, and a nice little runner.
Tom
When the Mississippi River would flood in spring the Twin Cities Zephyr would detour over the Milwaukee Road from time to time. Other trains would detour over the Santa Fe to Fort Madison from Galesburg – the connection at that time was a twisting bit of industrial trackage which you can still find if you snoop around Galesburg a little.
John Kelly’s book Freight Trains of th Upper Mississippi River Photo Archive reprints part of a CB&Q bulletin about the great flood of 1965. About 300 miles of CB&Q mainline were under water. Steam locomotive 2-8-2 4960 was brought from the Galesburg Roundhouse to move trains through Savanna because the water was high enough to short out diesel traction motors.
Anyway the bulletin makes it clear that on May 1 the NP’s North Coast Limited was the first train to negotiate a new detour – after going through Rochelle it took the single track at Flag Center north to Holcomb (the line is still in place), then onto the Chicago Great Western (a line now gone but you can see evidence of it at Holcomb), CGW to Galena Jct, CBQ to Lytle, then onto a C&NW branch line to a newly built connection at Winona Jct. with the CB&Q. The implication is that the GN’s Empire Builder and the CBQ’s own Zephyr used the same route.
By the way the CB&Q needed fill to replace what had washed away so it purchased the Trempealeau Mountain from the State of Wisconsin and dynamited it to get needed rock and earth fill.
Dave Nelson
Hello “Texas,”
The Burlington-Rock Island Joint Line, between Houston and Dallas in Texas, was the route of both the “Sam Houston Zephyr” and the “Texas Rocket.” The B-RI was a jointly operated subsidiary, with the Burlington’s share under the ownership of its Fort Worth & Denver Line.
So long,
Andy
One of the cars on the California Zephyr was a PRR owned car - Silver Rapids - that travelled on to New York on the PRR. I’d have to look up which trains it was carried on but primarily it was on secondary trains as it needed to arrive in Chicago around noon to be switched into the consist. Most of the PRR name trains had early morning arrivals.
The Burlington only went to St.Paul MN but the Twin Cities Zephyr went to Minneapolis. CB&Q used Great Northern tracks (going over the Stone Arch Bridge across the Mississippi) for the 8-10 miles from St.Paul Union Depot to GN’s Minneapolis station.
Ah, the GN there is one I had overlooked.
I have included TRRA on my list for the trains going into St. Louis Union Stations.
Any other station or local railroads the Zephyrs had to pass over (The CZ obviously had Denver Union Terminal RR and Northwestern Terminal RR)? Anything for the CZ on in SLC or on the far end of the line?
Though it obviously wasn’t a ‘permanent’ arrangement, the CZ traveled over SP’s Donner Pass route several times during the 'fifties, when rockslides closed down the Feather River Canyon. However, SP closed the dome cars while the CZ was on the Donner Line over the Sierras, due to claiming ‘tight’ restrictions in several of the SP tunnels (a fact that seems strange to me, since by that time, their secondary “Overland” train was using one of their ex-“San Joaquin” 3/4 dome cars). The train then re-joined the WP in Sacramento.
One wonders if SP didn’t want the CZ passengers to enjoy Sierra scenery that was certainly the equal of the Feather River, LOL!
Tom
I believe the actual trackage in “SPUD” was owned and operated by the “St.Paul Union Depot Ry.” so the Zephyr would have been on their tracks at the depot…and perhaps the SPUD Ry. did the switching in / out of cars in any CB&Q consists??
The Burlington and Milwaukee had parallel mainlines on the east bank of the Mississippi between DT St.Paul and Hastings MN (maybe 20 miles or so) and for many years operated the lines jointly (like using one railroad’s main for southbound trains, and the others main for northbound trains) so the TC Zephyr would be on MILW trackage for a while. BTW the Rock Island and C&NW had trackage rights over these lines for a few miles starting in DT St.Paul (to reach their own bridges across the river), so I guess if you were at the right place in St.Paul at the right time you might be able to see a Zephyr, Rocket, 400 and Hiawatha in action, plus GN and NP trains being hauled to Chicago by CB&Q engines.
Additionally–
FWD/CS TX Zephyr also used:
T&P trackage into FTW to access T&P station from Tower 55
RI (B-RI dispatched w/ FWD rights) FTW-DAL
Union Terminal Co. in DAL from N. Tower into the station and to the coach yard and UTC roundhouse.
The Little Sam (SHZ), which pre-1945 was technically a B-RI train, as was the TX Rocket when it ran on the same route, used:
T&P trackage into FTW to access T&P station
RI (B-RI dispatched w/ FWD rights) FTW-DAL
Union Terminal Co. in DAL N. Tower-ENDOT
MKT DAL UTC ENDOT-Waxahatchie
B-RI Waxahatchie-Belt Jct in HOU
HB&T Belt Jct- HOU Union Station
Pre-1945 these trains were lettered for and identified as B-RI services. In fact both 1st gen. Twin Zephyr sets 9901 and 9902 wound up being used until one burned up in 1944, with one lettered B-RI and SHZ for the Sam and one lettered B-RI and TXR for the Rocket. The earlier original Rocket trainset (the stillborn of the two Denver Rocket trainsets) was the very first to make it into service on their system (pressed into service to compete with TNO’s Sunbeam) and, even though it was painted “Rocket” and carried the bas-relief “The Rocket” on its sides, it was the only one ever lettered for something other than RI, AND it was the only one not to carry “Rock Island” on the locomotive’s (TA) nose shield–it was lettered “Texas Rocket” on the shield and “Burlington-Rock Island” on the sides of the locomotive and the cars.
Post-1945, the Sam and Twin Star Rocket FTW-HOU maintained more distinct FWD and RI identities, with home road power and equipment.
Toward the end and before it was dumped in the mid-60’s, the Sam (usually only one chair car