Following the Tracks of ‘The Most Talked About Train in the Country’

The California Zephyr captured America’s imagination when it debuted in 1949 — and it still captures mine

The California Zephyr running along the Colorado River near McCoy, Colorado. Photo by Vincent Gragnani

I awoke from a NyQuil-induced sleep at sunrise aboard Amtrak’s California Zephyr to a scene from another planet.

Groggily peering out the window, I could see we were cruising along a mesa over a massive, rocky desert plain, with mountains in the distance.

Sunrise at the Utah-Nevada border. Photo by Vincent Gragnani.

Google Maps told me we had just crossed from Utah into Nevada, but the view was other-worldly, like the surface of Mars.

The landscape took on the pink hues of the rising sun as the train navigated switchbacks through this high-altitude desert.

The California Zephyr navigates a series of switchbacks as it enters the eastern Nevada desert. Photo by Vincent Gragnani.

This marked my third morning in a week waking up on a train, part of a cross-country pandemic trip to visit my family in California.