Amtrak’s California Zephyr, which runs daily between Chicago and the Bay Area, was cancelled for two days last week because of a huge snowstorm that blew across the Midwest and onto the western plains.
The Zephyr operates over track owned by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe and of course the terrible weather affected all their freight trains, too. BNSF crews did everything possible to clear the tracks and get everything moving again.How bad was it? Today I was sent some photographs taken just as the storm had let up.
Pretty impressive gear, eh? Note that it takes two locomotives to power the huge blower and move the units through the heavy drifts. (Sorry, I have been unable to find out the name of the photographer.)
One of the Zephyrs that did get through arrived in Chicago many hours late. Typically, news reports quoted passengers ranting about the inconvenience and swearing they would never travel by Amtrak again. Sorry, but I have no patience with that attitude. Having been through all that weather and seen the conditions firsthand, you would think that those passengers would have been more appreciative of the effort, not to mention expense, put out by both Amtrak and BNSF. They were damn lucky they got through at all!
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