12 August 2025: Riding the Rails from Denver to Chicago – Part 1
Story and photos by Will Mahoney
Those of you who know me well have learned that I have an
unusual, nerdy hobby: stamp collecting. I was infected by this affliction at age 6
just after starting first grade in Southern Pines, North Carolina in 1952. I now specialize in stamps of the colonies, territories,
and protectorates of the British Empire and my collection is housed in more
than 100 three-ring binders. I won’t
bore you with further details but would be glad to regale interested parties
with countless stories about, and scans of, my collection.
A silly hobby, yes, (aren’t most hobbies?) but it has had a
major influence on my life. It got me
interested in the world at an early age which eventually led to an M.A. in geography
which, along with my undergrad degree in geology, was an excellent background
for my career in environmental science.
When I realized earlier this year that the 4-day Great
American Stamp Show (probably the largest annual stamp show in the U.S.) would
be held this month in Chicago, it occurred to me that I could combine my
philatelic (stamp collecting) passions with a visit to my Chicago-resident
nephew, Liam, for his 27th birthday.
I had made the Denver-Chicago trip on a number of occasions
since 1999. Included were several trips
by air and pick-up truck when I was the lead environmental inspector on a large
natural gas pipeline construction project in the western Chicago suburbs in
2001-2002.
But there was one way to get to Chicago that I had never
tried – the train. It’s a long
(1000-mile), overnight trip – 18+ hours if it’s on-time which it often isn’t. Being retired, I have lots of time for a
leisurely train ride. I’ve had a love
affair with trains going back even further than my interest in stamps.
Trains are literally in my blood. My dad’s father was a locomotive engineer for
the New Haven Railroad and drove trains between Boston and Provincetown at the
tip of Cape Cod. From ages 1 to 5, I
lived in a railroad town (Cresson) which was on the west side of the Appalachian
Divide in western Pennsylvania. The
train whistles in the night became part of my dreams, and it was a special
treat when Dad would drive us down to the local station after work to watch
trains pulled and pushed by old steam locomotives and new diesel-electric
engines on their way to and from the tunnel at the top of the mountain. Cresson was on the main line of the
Pennsylvania Railroad between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
In addition to nostalgia, a train trip would give me a good
opportunity to report on the experience to the readers of this blog. Many of you probably have a curiosity about
train travel especially with growing awareness of the greenhouse gas pollution
from cars and planes. Even though most
trains run on diesel fuel (which powers the electric motors that drive the
wheels), they produce fewer COs emissions per passenger mile than
the more popular means of transport. You
may also be fed up with the stresses of driving in heavy traffic and the
hassles of plane travel.
I decided to make the train trip two ways: first class (with a private roomette and
meals included in a dining car) on the way to Chicago so I could hopefully get
a good night’s sleep. For the return
trip I would take the much cheaper alternative:
a seat in the coach section with no amenities. If I couldn’t sleep, the train would arrive
in Denver in the early morning and I could go home and sleep all day if I
wanted to.
Booking the trip on the Amtrak website was not as easy as it
should have been, but I managed to get my 1st class ticket for the
trip east and my coach ticket for the return.
Even with the senior discount, the coach ticket was $135, and the roomette
was nearly 500 bucks. It felt insane to
pay that much for the roomette, but I reminded myself that the trip was about
the experience – not about saving money.
On the day of my departure (Tuesday, August 12), I received a
text message from Amtrak telling me that my train (the California Zephyr) would
be an hour late. It had left the western
terminal in Emeryville, California (north of Oakland) on time but heavy freight
train traffic had slowed them down. I
later heard from a passenger that they had lost time when the lead locomotive
hit a cow, but I didn’t get confirmation of the incident from Amtrak.
So, I left home for the station an hour later than originally planned. It was easy getting to Union
Station in Denver. Judy dropped me off
at the light rail station 1.5 miles from our house. In 32 minutes, they deposited me at Union
Station where I was happy to drop my big, heavy red suitcase at the baggage
check-in.
Left: Denver’s Union
Station is one of the city’s more impressive landmarks. Right:
This huge chandelier in the station’s Great Hall weighs approximately
1200 pounds!
Contrary to the baggage agent’s assurances that the Zephyr
was making up time, I received text updates from Amtrak indicating that it was
falling further behind schedule. It
would be a challenge to make up time in western Colorado as the tracks follow
at least four winding canyons and the route down to Denver from the Moffat Tunnel
which crosses under the Continental Divide is a serpentine SOB limiting speeds
to 15-20 mph through its many curves.
I was in no hurry, so I hung out for a while in The Great Hall, Union Station’s spacious waiting room. Chat GPT tells me that it dates from the 1881 construction of the station and was refurbished in 1914 in a Beaux-Arts design. One hundred years later, a major and tasteful renovation was completed earning it the title of “Denver’s Living Room”. It features an adjacent hotel, bars, restaurants, and shops. The goodies at the food kiosks looked tempting but when I saw the $9.00 price tag on a small chocolate torte, I decided to hold off until dessert in the dining car.
I got tired sitting around checking emails on my phone so I decided to take a walk around the station and train platforms before my long, upcoming confinement on the train. Finally, the Zephyr arrived more than two hours late. There were no security lines, metal detectors, or other TSA annoyances to deal with, but agents checked tickets before boarding. Fortunately, the line for 1st class was short. Since I had a car and roomette assignment on my ticket, I zipped through, found my car (they had signs with the car numbers along the platform), and was shown to my little roomette by an attendant. And I mean LITTLE! It was no more than 8 by 5 feet in size, OK for one person but two passengers (the seats make into two bunk beds) would be barely able to squeeze around each other with the bunks folded down for sleeping.
It was after 8:00 PM and I was starved. The attendant told me to head for the dining
car as soon as I dropped off my stuff in the roomette. I gladly complied. Tables in the dining car sit four and, unless
you are with a partner or group, they sit you with other people. I was seated across from a big 40ish guy who
was polite but very quiet. I made a few
comments but he didn’t seem interested in conversation so I didn’t push
it. I’m quiet myself and have sympathy
for others who aren’t in the mood for chit-chat. I noticed he had a white cane when he left
but he didn’t seem blind to me – probably just poor, uncorrectable vision.
Dining options on Amtrak are limited. Nothing for vegans (I usually eat vegan at home). There was one vegetarian option, a pasta primavera which tasted pretty good to a famished traveler. My table mate got a steak. The lettuce salad was wilted but the cheesecake desert satisfied my sweet tooth. One alcoholic drink is included which, unfortunately, I had to turn down because of my heart condition.
There is a standard 30 to 45-minute layover in Denver (crew change, restocking food, etc.) As I was finishing dinner, the train finally started inching away from the station. It was now 9:00 PM – we were leaving more than two hours late. I returned to my roomette in the adjacent car. The porter had made up my bed and I sat up for a while watching our progress and following it on Google Maps on my phone. For the first few miles, the Zephyr creeped along like a constipated snail. Eventually, it sped up and up and up. Once out of the Denver suburbs, it was moving northeast at a good clip. The single-track route from Denver to Fort Morgan (the next stop) parallels I-76. I noticed that we were slowing passing trucks on that highway, so I estimated our speed at 75-80 mph.
The Zephyr made a quick stop in Fort Morgan, CO before
heading east across the Great Plains. By the time it arrived in McCook, NE, I was sleeping soundly.
After our Fort Morgan stop around 10:30PM, the tracks turned away from I-76 and crossed the sparsely-settled plains with no more stops for the 2.5 hours it took to reach McCook, Nebraska. Not much to see out there in the dark so I settled into my single-bed width lower bunk. It was comfortable enough although the track or the wheels on my car were a bit bumpy. The air horn’s (long – long – short – long) warning when the Zephyr approached each road crossing seemed soft and distant from my roomette and I drifted off into railroad dreamland……
Story and photos copyrighted 2025 by Will Mahoney
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