Southwest Chief
The Southwest Chief is an American transcontinental long-distance express train that operates the 3,588-kilometer route between Chicago and Los Angeles via Kansas City , Albuquerque and Flagstaff .
Route
Starting in Chicago, the route runs approximately diagonally in a southwesterly direction through the states of Illinois and Iowa to Kansas City and further parallel to the former Santa Fe Trail through Missouri , Kansas and Colorado to the state of New Mexico . Running in an east-west direction, Arizona is crossed. Finally, the route leads through the Mojave Desert and over the Cajon Pass before reaching Los Angeles, located on California's Pacific coast . The entire ( standard gauge ) line is owned by the BNSF Railway and is not electrified. The well-known Route 66 was largely built parallel to the railway line.
history
Today's train left the express train Super Chief of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway indicates the upside on the same route. After passenger traffic was taken over by Amtrak in 1971, the train was first renamed Southwest Limited in 1974 and finally Southwest Chief in 1984 .
The train today
The train is now operated by Amtrak and travels the route in both directions daily. The westbound train has train number 3, the eastbound train number 4. The journey time for the entire route is more than 43.5 hours. This makes the Southwest Chief the fastest transcontinental train in North America.
Superliner double-decker cars are used as sleeping and seating cars. A dining car , a viewing car and a baggage car are also carried. The train is usually pulled by two to four Amtrak P42 diesel locomotives .
In Flagstaff there is a connection with a shuttle bus to Williams (Arizona) on the touristic Grand Canyon Railway , which runs the branch there to the south rim of the Grand Canyon . Until December 31, 2017, the train stopped directly in Williams, Arizona, but remotely outside the city center.
In Los Angeles there is a connection to the Coast Starlight in the direction of San Francisco / Oakland- Seattle and in the direction of San Diego . As a hub for North American rail traffic, Chicago offers a wide range of connection options. Further branches with passenger traffic lead from Kansas City to St. Louis , from Lamy to Santa Fe and from Albuquerque to Belen and Sandoval. In addition, there are various bus connections along the route. All connections are marketed under the name Amtrak Thruway Connections . The train also stops in Las Vegas, New Mexico (not to be confused with Las Vegas (Nevada), to which there are bus connections from Kingman (Arizona) station ).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Amtrak System Timetable