Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:13 — 18.5MB)
In the eleventh episode I travel from Chicago to Burlington on the California Zephyr. The episode starts at the historic Drake Hotel in Chicago where I stayed for a night. After a restful night I took a taxi to Union Station for the start of my journey on the California Zephyr.
Our journey takes us from Chicago, across Big Muddy and on to Burlington. This is the first part of the journey on the California Zephyr travelling from Chicago to the Bay Area.
Our first stop after leaving Chicago is at Naperville station. Nearly 50,000 Amtrak passengers travelling on the California Zephyr, Amtrak’s Southwest Chief, Illinois Zephyr and Carl Sandeberg used the station in 2014. In addition Metra commuter services also call at the station.
Our journey from Chicago to Burlington on the California Zephyr continues to Princeton, which was used by nearly 36,000 passengers in 2014. We then stopped at Galesburg where there is a Railroad Museum. The station was used by over 100,000 passengers in 2017.
Our final stop in this episode, shortly after crossing the Mississippi, is Burlington, Iowa. The station was built in 1944 and is very much in the mid-century modern aesthetic style. Nearly 9,250 passengers used the station in 2016.
I’ll tell you more about the journey on the California Zephyr in the next episode of US Rail Journeys in two weeks time.
Click on any of the ‘thumbnails’ below to open the photograph gallery.
I thank the passengers and crew on our journey from Chicago to the Bay Area, aboard the California Zephyr, for their tolerance of the man waving the microphone. It truly is a magnificent journey.
Full definition copies of the photographs taken by MrT are available on Flickr. In addition a selection are on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Steam Railway is used for the theme music, under licence from AKM Music.
This podcast is also available through iTunes (Apple podcasts), Spotify and Stitcher besides this website.
© The MrT Podcast Studio 2017 to 2019
