The California Zephyr, the most famous passenger train to pass through Utah, is celebrating its golden anniversary this spring.
Named for Zephyrus, the Greek God of the west wind -- a personification of renaissance and change -- the California Zephyr made its inaugural run on March 20, 1949 between San Francisco and Chicago. A special anniversary trip was made on that same date this year.There were many different Zephyr passenger trains, including the Pioneer Zephyr of 1934 -- America's first diesel-powered streamliner.
However, the California Zephyr is the most famous, and its modern reincarnation runs through Salt Lake City daily, arriving at midnight westbound and 5 a.m. going east as the streamliner continues a half-century tradition of scenic travel through the mountains and canyons of the American West.
"It's still a very special and unique passenger train, one of the few of its kind left," said Daniel B. Kuhn, Utah state rail planner and transportation historian.
The Zephyr was the nation's first streamliner not geared for speed but rather sightseeing. It was equipped with the revolutionary "Vista-Dome" cars that became the sensation of train travel in the 1950s and 1960s. Clear-domed cars allowed passengers to see the view up, down and all around rather than out of the side of the train.
Utah had an intriguing role in the genesis of Vista-Dome Cars, according to Kuhn.
In 1944, Cyrus Osbourne, a vice president with General Motors, was traveling from Denver to Salt Lake City in the cab of an early streamlined GM diesel locomotive. While passing through Glenwood Canyon, Colo., he had the idea of a glass-roofed rail car for sightseeing.
Upon reaching Salt Lake City and while staying at the former Hotel Utah (now the Joseph Smith Memorial Building), Osbourne sketched on hotel stationery the first rough draft of what would become the most popular rail passenger car ever devised -- the Vista-Dome.
"Few Utahns are likely to know the state's connection," Kuhn said, explaining most Utah adults recognize the California Zephyr name, though.
The first prototype Vista-Dome was built in 1945, and the design was incorporated in the California Zephyr, which was in the planning stages. Each Zephyr was 11 cars long, and five of those were Vista-Domes -- more than any other train in history.
"It was a cruise ship on wheels," Kuhn said.
The Zephyr allowed passengers to travel across the Nevada desert and Nebraska plains at night, while allowing passengers to enjoy the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Range during the daytime.
Kings, queens, ambassadors, Hollywood movie stars -- they all rode the Zephyr, where 25-35 mph was the average speed through scenic areas, Kuhn said.
"The train would be sold out for months in advance," Kuhn said. "It was called the most talked about train in America."
However, by the 1960s, massive federal investments in highways and commercial aviation were changing the personal travel habits in America, and privately operated passenger trains declined dramatically.
With the creation of the Amtrak system, the original California Zephyr was discontinued on March 22, 1970. However, the Rio Grande would continue to operate a small Vista-Dome equipped train called the Rio Grande Zephyr running between Salt Lake and Denver.
When Amtrak was formed on May 1, 1971, it began running a train that came to be called the San Francisco Zephyr. It traveled between Chicago and San Francisco via Cheyenne and Ogden. The Rio Grande Zephyr still continued on its own.
In 1983, the Rio Grande finally joined Amtrak, at which time the Rio Grande Zephyr was the last traditional dome-equipped streamliner in America. Amtrak rerouted its own train onto the scenic Rio Grande route through Salt Lake City and the Rockies -- picking up the original California Zephyr name on July 16, 1983.
The scenic route through the Rockies remains the same, and the dining car still serves Rocky Mountain Trout, just as the first Zephyr did 50 years ago.
Kuhn, 43, is a fourth-generation railroader and former Amtrak official, whose family celebrated a century in railroading on the Zephyr's 50th anniversary.
Having traveled over 500,000 miles by train, Kuhn served as historical narrator aboard the Zephyr on its March 20 special commemorative run -- his 250th trip aboard the famous train.
Kuhn said, "People from all over the world still come to enjoy the scenic beauty of the American West aboard the California Zephyr."