Did the UP ever pull a section of the California Zephyr ?
Well it seems that from what I found doing a search the WP did and was acquired by the UP in 83
So it seems Hank Williams must have had too much to drink when he wrote and recorded
"The California Zephyr, the Union Pacific Queen "Ol Hank died in 51 so maybe he knew about the 83 acquisition ahead of time
The California Zephyr was a joint venture of the CB&Q, Rio Grande, and Western Pacific. The UP had nothing to do with it.
The UP had their own streamliners named for their destination cities; i.e., City of San Francisco, City of Los Angeles.
The original CZ was never a UP operation, however, the AMTRAK CZ runs on now UP tracks from Denver to Oakland, but takes a more southerly route over Donner Pass, instead of the original WP Feather River Canyon.
For a time, the AMTRAK version did run through Wyoming instead of Colorado, while UP was doing major track-work on the Moffat Tunnel (ex Rio Grande) portion of the line. But with the track-work finished, the train is running generally on its original Burlington (BNSF) trackage from Chicago to Denver, and on ex-Rio Grande trackage (now UP) between Denver and Salt Lake. However, instead of traveling through California’s Feather River Canyon, it now veers south and travels the ex SP Donner Pass line over the Sierras into Oakland.
By the time UP absorbed WP, the original CZ as a through train had been long gone from the Feather River Canyon.
The UP Chicago–Oakland trains (in conjunction with both C&NW and SP) were the City of San Francisco and the Overland Limited. The reason the CZ was so popular is that it traversed the most spectacular portions of its run (Colorado Rockies, California’s Feather River Canyon) by daylight. UP’s COSF went through the California Sierra Nevada’s at night. The AMTRAK CZ traverses the ex-SP Donner Pass route by daylight. It’s pretty jaw-dropping.
Tom
I have a book here that shows the Cal Zepher in North Platte Nebraska, But that was a detour when the CB&Q mainline between McCook Nebraska and Hastings Nebraska was washed when the Republican River flooded in the mid 50s Larry
Larry:
You’re right. And there were several times in the Sierra that the CZ had to be re-routed over the SP Donner Pass line due to landslides and washouts in the Feather River canyon in the 'fifties. What was interesting about that was that the dome cars on the CZ couldn’t be occupied between Truckee, CA and Emigrant Gap, CA over Donner Summit due to clearance problems on the SP tunnels (!).
Tom [:)]
As others have stated Union Pacific had nothing to do with the “California Zephyr” it was a CB&Q D&RGW & WP train. The Cal-Zee was discontinued 21 March 1970 more than a year before Amtrak.
Following the advent of Amtrak the D&RGW part of the route was served by the “Rio Grande Zephyr” until April 1983. Amtrak’s "San Francisco Zephyr"took over after the route was reopened after a slide at Thistle Utah was cleared. The Amtrak train runs on the Cal-Zee route from Chicago to Salt lake City then to Oakland via the late Espee over Donner Pass.
This is why I asked
That’s called “Artistic Liscence.” [:P]
Tom [:D]
Might be called Ol Hank had too much to drink when he wrote it