Until today, Amtrak’s reservation system had showed no seat availability on the Zephyr through March 31 east of Denver [see “California Zephyr, Missouri trains disrupted by floods,” Trains News Wire March 18]. That’s still the case for the intermediate Iowa stations at Burlington, Mount Pleasant, Ottumwa, Osceola, and Creston. No alternate transportation is being provided to those towns.
Seats and sleeping car space are available from Chicago to Omaha tomorrow, but the train that would have headed east from Denver tonight had been cancelled in its entirety from the West Coast as a result of the floods.
The duration of the detour will depend on when regular route tracks are restored. Once that happens, Amtrak will move the train back to the BNSF on relatively short notice.
As in previous years’ Zephyr detours over the UP, the train won’t make any passenger stops to receive or discharge passengers. Amtrak crews will be assisted by UP pilot engineers and conductors familiar with the route. Details of where the crew changes will occur are not immediately available, but one was at Clinton, Ia., on a flood detour that Trains News Wire rode.
Locomotives equipped with UP’s ex-C&NW Automatic Train Control as the vital signal system will likely be required to lead the CZ between Chicago and Omaha. The train will depart from the north side of Chicago Union Station and proceed along Metra’s Milwaukee District to Western Avenue (Tower A-2). There it can be easily switched to UP’s West line, which hosts Metra trains as far as Elburn, Ill.
