But it is a mockery to use that name for that train.
While in some ways the CZ might not have been a full Canyon Spirit/Rocky Mountaineer ‘experience’, it was every bit as great in its time, and worthy of re-creation as a luxury cruise train.
I rode it in 1962. It was a wonderful journey through great scenery. It was not overpriced faux luxury, as half the train or more was coach. Dining car was good. It seems the current version is as good as any of our other LD trains.
This is where I’d rather see the dumpy Amtrak service dropped and a “rolling National Park Service park”created between Denver and SLC that’s a well resourced grand train operation, including UP steam power from Cheyenne when possible, highlighting the best golden years of US train travel.
Limited audience for that.
There is a “grand train operation”, mentioned by Woke, between DEN-SLC by the Rocky Mountaineer group called Canyon Spirit. Prices start at $2500 per person.
I have doubts that GraMP would want to “pay the freight” for such a ride. And he would be at his wit’s end to embark from a big, dangerous city like Denver.
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I did ride Amtrak’s CZ several times. I once had to send the Rocky Moutain Trout back, necause the Amtrak chef added shrimp to the trouit. Apparently,this was a temporary problem. On subsequent trips I was assured the trout would only be trout.
Dick Horstman ran an excursion, NY-Penn-Seattle-NYPenn, going via Lake Shore and Empire Builder, returning via Pioneer, CZ, and Broadway. I had a project in Portland, OR, at the time,and was able to ride from Portland back to NY. We signed wavers to be alllowed to use the back platform of Lehigh Valley 353, and enjoyed that car for meals and general relaxation, but I slept in a lower birth in Dover Colony the cthree nights, and enjoyed it. Here we are, I think at Glenwood Springs, and I believe this was the one-and-only use (so far?) of LV-353 (now at Steamtown, but available for charter) on the D&RGW. (photo missing, will post when found.)
Another Amtrak ride, shortly after the D&RGW’s merger with the SP;.here is my late sister, Lillian, with an SP office car at the rear of the train. Grand Junction?
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I found the Union Station Chicago photo, so hopefully I’ll find the one for Glenwood Spfrings/ Also, a meal-time LV353 photo.
And I need help. My two Giants Ladder images are missing, even from all my back-up files. One is the photo taken through the window, west-bound on my first CZ trip, winter 1959-1960, and the second has lines added to outline the series of switchbacks. If any reader was lucky enough to download when I posted them, please post to share with others and allow restoration to my files.
In the dinner photo, I’m the one on the left with the raised glass for a toast.
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Time to bump this so Mr. Klepper can post more.
The photo of the caboose trailing off in the canyon suggests the Rio Grande mainline in the Colorado-Utah border area along the Colorado River with the massive sandstone cliffs. Also mainline relocations in the area resulted in some sidings wandering away from the new mainline.
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Thanks!
When the Ajmtrak California Zephyr stopped at Glenwood Springs, a kind detraining passenger used my Leica M-3 to provide a picture of the SP office car, my sister Lillian and me. I stopped over in Denver, and took a photo of the office car the next day. Lillian was living at the Shalom Park retirement home in Aurora at the time, and the round trip to Saltb Lake City was a treat for her.
Bad photo editing, now corrected, previous posting. Thanks.
Carry on.
Looks like Ruby Canyon or Utaline.
Thanks. D&RGW main in any case. Thasnks