It's 2:30pm (CST) on Friday, January 26, 1995. I'm enjoying a soft drink in Amtrak's Metropolitan Lounge in Chicago's Union Station when the call to board Train number 5, the California Zephyr is heard on the public address system. Knowing that a storm is brewing across the midwest, having dropped a lot of snow in the Sierra, the Wasatch, and Rocky ranges as it sweeps east gives me a feeling of adventure as I board car 0531 and make my way upstairs to Economy Bedroom number 8. My scanner is turned on and set appropriately...

At 3:03pm, the train departs, snaking its way through the jumble of double slip switches that clutter the yards and south feeds to CUS. We gain speed as we clatter out to Union Avenue and head west on the Burlington Northern. It's fun riding the commuter route that I would normally ride into Chicago from the comfort of a private compartment. We're doing 70mph as we make our way to the first station stop, Naperville, Illinois.

I met a couple of other railfans on board (no surprise there!), Dave and Harold. Harold, who is in the same car, drops by with a quart of Scotch, which he is most willing to share, so we have a leisurly coctail and conversation before heading to dinner. A light snow is falling, and there are some windy gusts as we make our way across the Illinois plain. By the time we're in Galesburg, the temperature has dropped, there's a bit more snow falling, and the wind is stronger.

CB&Q 3006 in Galesburg, Illinois, October, 1995

CB&Q 3006 (a Baldwin Hudson) is resplendent and well lit...including lights inside the cab...and appearing as a strong sentinel standing its post in the weather. We leave Galesburg some 20 minutes behind schedule...there were some freight traffic issues that slowed us down a bit, along with some slow orders. As we cross the Mississippi, we're in the diner having a steak for dinner. We meet a railfan (Digger) and a CP MOW employee (who's name I failed to record, unfortunately). Harold is en route to Denver then Winter Park. Digger is going to Roseville, CA, and the CP MOW employee is headed for Omaha. The chef on this run is good at his job. Dinner was excellent, and as we head back to our cars and compartments, we see that the snow is falling... horizontally! Serious wind and snow conditions exist, and we can feel the slack action as the lead F40PH annihilates snow drifts with its pilot.

We stop at Osceola, Iowa and drop some passengers. Conditions are worsening...we hear later that those folks who got off in Osceola are stranded at the train station for the night... interstates are all closed and there's no lodging available in town. Just west of Osceola (around MP 363) the train slows and stops. The engineer reports that the ground-fault relay tripped on the second F40PH. Heading back to that unit, he found that a cab door had blown open and there was five inches of snow all over everything. He resets the breaker and HEP comes back on. The engineer also reports that heavy snow is beginning to build up on the short hood, limiting visibility. (Presumably, they cleaned that off when we were stopped.) We got moving again, and HEP failed again. After a few more miles, we slowed to a stop, and the engineer reports that he had a ground fault on both units. Snow and ice are packed in around the lead unit's traction motors, so the engineer and his assistant cut out all four taction motors on the lead unit, and switch that unit's HEP online. The second unit has its HEP set to standby. Now we're moving again, with the lead unit providing HEP and the second unit doing all the pulling. This arrangement doesn't allow for a lot of speed with this train...we get up between 40 and 50mph, limping into Creston with two broken wings. By now, the sky is clear and the temperature has dropped significantly. One track detector had reported minus nine, Farenheit. The wind has picked up, and there are reports of gusts between 20 and 40mph! This creates a nasty wind-chill condition for crews trying to get things done outside. We were due out of Creston at 9:41pm, but by 11pm, we had yet to arrive there. We pull in at 11:07pm (all times are noted CST, regardless of time zone), and a bobcat front-loader is clearing snow from the platform. There are drifts that practically engulf garages, even though there's only about twelve inches of snowfall. Switch stands poke through the snow, watching silently over special work unseen. Here and there the rail head appears through the surface of a drift looking like a strange cookie poking out of whipped cream, or edges of cereal flakes in milk. The crew tells the dispatcher we'll be here a while. Indeed.

It's decided to put a BN freight unit (BN 7894, an SD40-2) on the CZ. Normally an easy task, the weather conspired to make this really nasty. Switch cleaning crews can't keep up with the drifts, and things freeze as fast as they get thawed...and the temperature keeps dropping. One signal maintainer, heading out to work on a signal ahead of us, comments that he's working his way through six foot drifts. To add to the weather, BN has suffered a broken rail and is trying desperately to get freight negotiated around that break and around us. After clearing a series of switches (this takes over an hour), the BN unit is ready to back down to our train. It's 12:52am and there's one more problem. The coupler on the lead Amtk F40PH is frozen and the pin won't drop. Crews stuff lit fusees into the coupler to get it thawed which they succeed at by 1:10am. We're moving out of the yards, across some single track and speed restrictions at 1:13am. The freight unit is only geared for 70mph, and can't maintain the passenger 79mph speed limit, so every mile at reduced speed adds to our delay. The train drags into Omaha, Nebraska at 5:20am Saturday. To ensure adequate pulling power, BN adds a B-unit (BN 4100, a GE B30-7) behind the SD40-2. We leave Omaha twenty minutes after arriving.

BN Power and F40PHs Removed at Denver

West of Lincoln, NE, (at Crete) we go in the hole to wait for eastbound number 6. That train had some problems...all the electrical cable ripped out of the back of the transition sleeper, so the baggage car and transition sleeper were now on the back of the train, making crew comfort a bit of a difficulty, to be sure. This was only about a 15 minute wait, but they all add up.

I have breakfast with Bob and his wife from Cincinatti who are going to Reno. They're planning to drive from there to Tuscon on Thursday. It looks COLD outside, and I'm enjoying French toast, bacon, OJ, and coffee in the warmth of the Amtrak diner. As we reach Sutton, the dispatcher calls out a slow order at MP 150.5. There's an open joint and MOW teams haven't gotten it fixed yet...and there are no flags to identify the point. A 10mph slow order. This at 9:26am, Saturday.

Still heading uphill towards Denver, the train stops at 11:40am, west of Holdrege by about an hour (MP 267). Engineer was getting wheel slip on the SD40-2. This is a short delay, but a delay none the less, and it's determined that there's a small flat spot on one of the SD's wheels. We're rolling again, and pull to a stop in Binkleman at 12:55pm. Time for a crew change (the existing crew would go "dead" in seven minutes!). At 2pm, we stop owing to a ground fault trip out. It's a generator relay fault light. Reset, we're rolling again at 2:09pm. At Akron, Colorado, we hit the hole for about 15 minutes to wait for an east-bound freight. We finally arrive Denver about 5pm. Following servicing, we head out of Denver with two fresh F40PHs on the point (the SD40-2, B30-7, and two "dead" F40PHs are cut out at Denver) at 5:55pm. We're about 8.5 hours late.

"Fresh" Amtrak F40PHs Await our train in Denver

Other delays (like having to uncouple engines at Salt Lake City to be able to fuel them...truck couldn't get to locos in snow), and freight and signalling problems added only another hour to our time, and we arrive in Emeryville at about 4am Monday (again CST...local time would be 2am).

The Great Salt Lake during daylight hours from the CZ window

Some of you may be thinking...what a rotten trip. It wasn't. The train crews kept the passengers informed, were courteous and sensitive to the issues throughout the trip. Some people with connections were concerned, but kept their calm...they knew Amtrak didn't create the storms.

"Smoker Stop (Winnemucka)...we create some snowballs!"

Most saw this as an interesting adventure, and were glad they didn't have the job of cleaning switches or moving cold steel equipment around in that kind of weather. We also enjoyed seeing some scenery that otherwise would have been passed in the dark.

The Nevada Countryside (with an SP freight drag in the distance)

It was a real thrill as the train broke out of industrial areas and tank farms on a clear Monday morning to allow a fabulous view of the San Francisco skyline lit up like the Las Vegas strip!

The return trip on the CZ was fairly uneventful. Starting on Saturday, February 2nd, temperatures had risen some, then dropped as the middle and eastern parts of the country were in a deep freeze. Evidence of the higher temperatures during the week is presented as snow has melted along the Colorado River.

Lots less snow on the return trip!

The return train was about an hour and a half late into Denver. Amazingly, that was made up and the train arrived at Chicago's Union Station 30 minutes ahead of the advertised! I'm ready to go again!!!