As previously mentioned, I’ve wanted to take the California Zephyr to California for decades.  I finally did it.  It turned into an even larger excursion to make a loop, including three other train routes: The Coast Starlight, The Pacific Surfliner, and The Southwest Chief.  (You can visit Amtrak’s web page for each route by clicking on the links.)

Here is a quick synopsis of the trip. I left Denver on the Zephyr to Emeryville, California where I stayed with friends for a few days of sight seeing.  I departed on the Coast Starlight from Emeryville to Los Angeles, where I changed trains and continued my journey on the Pacific Surfliner to the San Diego area.  I stayed with family for about 5 days.  I took the train back up to L.A. and transferred to the Southwest Chief that would take me back east along a more southern route to Raton, New Mexico.  From there, I took a dedicated Amtrak bus north to Denver — a complete loop.

The California Zephyr departs lower downtown Denver.

I’ve got a bunch of photos, but in a lot of cases, the quality is not very good due to reflections off the window, or the window tinting interfering with the color, etc.  Click on the photos for a larger view.

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