There were 6 CZ sets. At midnight, four would be on the road and one each would
lay over in Chicago and Oakland respectively.
When the transcontinental sleeper ran (up until 1957) one of the Chicago
Sleepers
would head east on either the Pennsylvania or New York Central Railroads and
other would come off of those runs (they alternated Pennsy one day, NYC the
next)
for that Afternoon's CZ. Only one additional car, PRR's Silver Rapids, was
needed to protect this service.
In 1952, CB&Q purchased two additional 10-6 sleepers, Silver Crag and Silver
Chasm, one dome sleeper observation, Silver Lookout, and a diner, Silver
Cuisine,
to allow some of the CZ cars to run overnight to Omaha and Lincoln as the Ak Sar
Ben Zephyr to allow increased productivity of the cars. It only took one
additional car set to do this because of the set that would have otherwise laid
over in Chicago.
In later years, the westbound CZ would leave slightly before the eastbound
arrived and the two would meet in Chicago suburban territory. This meet is
captured in Green Frog's 1966 Emery Goulash video, The California Zephyr. I also
remember a time when the eastbound CZ would arrive as the westbound was loading
for departure; I believe this was in 1968 or so.
sjl
SilvrDome@a... wrote:
> Rich,
>
> It seems unlikely inbound #18 could have originated from Chicago as #17 in 2
> hours.
> Read for example Diesels West, where D.P.Morgan describes whats involved in
> turning the Denver Zephyr #11 to #1. It's a big job, and Burlington
> performed maintenance for their own cars as well as Rio Grande's equipment.
>
> The best way to picture it is to look at 330pm on November 1st, 1950. You
> have set #1 at 14th st yard (inbound #18), set #2 is roaring out of Chicago
> Union station as #17. Set #3 is between Grand Jct. and Helper, Ut. Set #4 is
> in the Sacramento Valley heading towards Fremont, CA #17. Set #5 is also in
> the Sacramento Valley somewhere out of Stockton heading towards Sacramento
> #18. (They used to meet near me here in Elk Grove.) And finally, Set #6 is
> east of Glenwood Springs heading to Denver #18. That accounts for all 6.
>
> Hubert Hanrahan
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
|