Why No Wyoming?

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I'm curious about the routing of the California Zephyr between Denver and Salt Lake City. The current route sags to the south. If the train went up through Wyoming I'm guessing that the mileage would be about the same. Was the route up through Wyoming ever part of Amtrak? If so, how did it come to be "abandoned"?

Thanks,

jb
 
The original Amtrak San Francisco Zephyr route was through Wyoming. After D&RGW eventually joined Amtrak the train was rerouted via the current route and renamed the California Zephyr. Much later for a little while the Pioneer ran the Wyoming route again before being discontinued.

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Also by way of an explanation, the DRG&W routing is more scenic. Amtrak wanted to use it on A-Day (and possibly double up the Zephyr, according to some rumors), but DRG&W thwarted that by not joining (and keeping their still-reasonably-popular 3x weekly, daytime only train running)
 
Right, the "through the Rockies" route is much more scenic than the boring flatlands of Wyoming. Besides, hardly anybody lives in Wyoming.
 
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The Wyoming route is used for detours if the Colorado route is out of service, which happened within the past year. It is not all that boring, but did you know that Wyoming is 50th in population?
 
Pre-Amtrak:

My grandparents lived in Cheyenne when I was a small child and into my teens, and we took the train (Streamliner?) from Los Angeles to Cheyenne at least twice between 1948-1961. How my folks did it with three little girls (and later three teenagers and a baby boy) all in coach, I don't know.

I don't disagree that Denver is a better business location for Amtrak than Cheyenne, but the latter really suffered economically when it left.
 
The Wyoming route is used for detours if the Colorado route is out of service, which happened within the past year. It is not all that boring, but did you know that Wyoming is 50th in population?
Wyoming also has the lowest population density of any of the lower 48 states( Only Alaska ranks lower with 1.3/sq.mi) with a ranking of 6.0/sq.mi and most of that is concentrated in area east of the Rockies. Only other state in lower 48 in single digits in population density is Montana at 7.0/sq/mi. New Jersey ranks highest at 1210.1/sq/mi.That ends today's Geography lesson….lol!
 
It probably isn't that boring if you like speed more than scenery. To many, the thrill of speed on the flatlands and seeing the land fly by is not boring at all.
 
My aunt and uncle traveled from Illinois to our neck of the woods here in Eastern Washington in 1991 via Amtrak. Part of their route they took was on the Pioneer. My uncle had just bought his first video camera and did a lot of filming out the windows of the train. He showed our family some of the video and while traveling through Wyoming, some glitch happened with the tape causing several seconds of a blank white screen. We all agreed that was the scenic highlight of Wyoming. :lol:
 
Right, the "through the Rockies" route is much more scenic than the boring flatlands of Wyoming.
If scenery is the primary consideration then why doesn't Amtrak use the Feather River Route? :mellow:
Possibly a cost trade-off, ie, yes the Feather River route is more scenic, or at least different scenic than the over the top route, but wouldn't it add significantly to the time?
 
The Western Pacific mainline runs north of Reno, but the Feather River route is at a significantly lower elevation than the SP Dinner Pass route. The WP had a branch to Reno, but it appears to be partially abandoned.
 
On the same topic: but hasn't the Feather River route been used on occasion when the over-the-top route has been out of service - or was that bustitution?
 
I think the last time it was used was following the terrible truck-Amtrak collision east of Reno in June, 2011 when it was re-routed for a few days. Perhaps others are aware of this detour on other occasions.
 
Related, having gotten rid of all passenger service in March 1970, Western Pacific had no incentive to join Amtrak and didn't. There was no leverage (running passenger trains until 1975 with no hope of discontinuation was the stick). So the route wasn't available to them at the beginning even if Amtrak was willing to skip Reno.
 
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I think the last time it was used was following the terrible truck-Amtrak collision east of Reno in June, 2011 when it was re-routed for a few days. Perhaps others are aware of this detour on other occasions.
I thought I remembered something like that... but didn't want to assert such with only a very vague recollection...

Any guess on the time penalty of going that route? (beyond that: what is the actual routing from Reno to SAC? ... and the SAC end rejoin the over-the-top route before SAC, or at?)
 
In June 2013 I was on a Coast Starlight that detoured up the Feather River Canyon to Keddie, then continued up Great Northern's Inside Gateway to Klamath Falls, to avoid a derailment somewhere around Redding. It certainly seemed that our velocity in the Canyon was lower than the California Zephyr achieves going over Donner Pass. In the end we were 17 hours late into Portland, but a lot of that had to do with crews going dead on the law, and low speed limits on the Inside Gateway.
 
Last month I was in the WP Railroad Museum in Portola, California and I had read in that museum that the WP line known as the Inside Gateway north of Keddie had been sold to BNSF. I stayed in the Pullman House B&B, which I can recommend, overlooking the RR yard. The lady on duty that night and I had nice chats. Her husband works for a company that transports railroad crews. He has told her that when driving Union Pacific crews, all he hears in the vehicle are endless complaints and counting the days to retirement. With BNSF crews, it is an entirely different story, with a much more positive attitude.
 
I think the last time it was used was following the terrible truck-Amtrak collision east of Reno in June, 2011 when it was re-routed for a few days. Perhaps others are aware of this detour on other occasions.
I thought I remembered something like that... but didn't want to assert such with only a very vague recollection...

Any guess on the time penalty of going that route? (beyond that: what is the actual routing from Reno to SAC? ... and the SAC end rejoin the over-the-top route before SAC, or at?)
The Feather River route (former Western Pacific) is longer than the Donner route. There is a time penalty for taking it, besides the delays related to having a UP pilot. Although it was touted by the WP as a scenic selling point for the original California Zephyr, arguably the Donner route (former Southern Pacific) is the more scenic of the two. The Feather River route is scenic, but in my opinion, the Donner route is more scenic.

Heading westbound, the Feather River route departs from the normal CZ route at Winnemucca NV. It heads due west (as the CZ heads southwest) to Portola CA. It then follows the Feather River (CA Route 70) though the northern Sierras to Oroville, then south to Yuba City where today it joins the route used by the Coast Starlight on to Sacramento.
 
I think the last time it was used was following the terrible truck-Amtrak collision east of Reno in June, 2011 when it was re-routed for a few days. Perhaps others are aware of this detour on other occasions.
I thought I remembered something like that... but didn't want to assert such with only a very vague recollection...

Any guess on the time penalty of going that route? (beyond that: what is the actual routing from Reno to SAC? ... and the SAC end rejoin the over-the-top route before SAC, or at?)
The Feather River route (former Western Pacific) is longer than the Donner route. There is a time penalty for taking it, besides the delays related to having a UP pilot. Although it was touted by the WP as a scenic selling point for the original California Zephyr, arguably the Donner route (former Southern Pacific) is the more scenic of the two. The Feather River route is scenic, but in my opinion, the Donner route is more scenic.

Heading westbound, the Feather River route departs from the normal CZ route at Winnemucca NV. It heads due west (as the CZ heads southwest) to Portola CA. It then follows the Feather River (CA Route 70) though the northern Sierras to Oroville, then south to Yuba City where today it joins the route used by the Coast Starlight on to Sacramento.
Time penalty is a real issue on ANY detour. Most detours don't have passenger speed limits that are higher than for freight. If Amtrak wanted to PERMANENTLY reroute, some heavy maintenance, upgrades, and what not would reduce the time penalty considerably. Enough to make it competitive? Probably not. Enough to justify the cost? Never.
 
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