In the first decade of the 21st century, I travelled a lot of Amtrak, mostly in California. Involvement in high speed rail, initially as an advocate, then professionally, took me into the San Joaquin Valley often, as well as Sacramento. There was also travel on the Coast Starlight to meetings in Los Angeles, San Luis Obispo, and San Diego, as well as some recreational trips. By 2009, I had accumulated enough Amtrak rewards points to book a room on the California Zephyr from Emeryville to Chicago. 

I had never taken an Amtrak long-distance train other than the Coast Starlight, and this was my first trip in a Roomette. I was past the age where two nights sleeping in coach held any appeal to me. But my own room? Yes!

The first 90 minutes or so out from Emeryville were very familiar to me as I settled in to my roomette. Shore of San Pablo Bay and Carquinez Strait, the wetlands of Grizzly Bay, and the expanse of the Sacramento Valley. But east of Sacramento was all new to me. There was light traffic climbing into the Sierra on I-80 the morning my train crossed high on a trestle.

Following lunch, crossing the summit of the Sierra, and making a stop in Truckee, the train passed along the Truckee River under the (then) new and quite elegant SR-267 bridge. The ride from Sacramento, up and over the Sierra, and then down into Reno was full of spectacular scenery and geography. The pines, granite, snowsheds, winter cabins, plunging gorges and valleys, quick mountain waterways, serene lakes, and long views add up to an astonishing, non-stop show of big and bold western scenery.

Almost to the inch, the tall trees end at the Nevada stateline. The panorama from the train changes to the landscape of the Great Basin. The Truckee River doesn’t flow to an ocean– it flows to Pyramid Lake and ends there. I made my way to the dining car around Winnemucca to sit down for Amtrak’s famouse signature steak dinner as the sun began to fade on the first day of travel.

Morning comes as the train is traversing Utah, headed towards Colorado and its namesake river. The train had passed through Salt Lake City in the dead of the night, around 3:30am. The Zephyr’s schedule does not treat Salt Lake well, the westbound train is a bit better, with a stop around 11:30pm.