A Trip on The Californian Zephyr

We boarded the Zephyr in Salt Lake City on Thursday evening after a lovely dinner at Fraser's sister-in-law Nancy's house.  This was to be our home for about 18 hours. This photo was taken when we arrive at Emeryville which is the terminal for San Francisco. We boarded the train and were immediately disappointed at the size of our sleeping berth. I had great difficulty getting into my upper berth. I had even more difficulty getting out of it, but Gaye was fine in the bottom bunk. 

After about 7 hours in our cramped cabin we woke to a beautiful Arizona sunrise.  

This is the Arizona desert

We had breakfast with this charming Greek couple who were on holiday in USA from their home in a small Greek Island. They were eager to talk about Brexit and told us we were stupid to leave Europe. We of course agree with them.  

This is our tiny cabin once the seats have beer returned from beds to very comfortable seats again.We used the Observation Carriage several times but spent most of the journey in these seats. 

Still in Arizona

The observation Carriage. We had a superb view from here but it got very busy just before the dining car opened.

We are now in California and following the route of the Truckee River. This river is the sole outlet of Lake Tahoe. The river flows northeasterly for 121 miles and empties into Pyramid Lake in the Great Basin. Although it is high summer there is plenty of water which is used for irrigation along its route. Fraser and the family recently did a rafting trip along it when they were on holiday at Lake Tahoe. 

We are now climbing into the Sierra Nevada mountains and the train is going very slowly. 

This is Donner Lake which is at an elevation of almost 6000ft.   

After we leave the mountains and get beyond Sacramento we head into the rich agricultural plains. The harvest is over now on this field

There are loads of orchards

A field of Maze 

We crossed several bridges over the various Bays that form San Francisco inlets 

Another road bridge over the Bay 

One of the many ships moored in the Bay

We enjoyed our train journey but its not nearly as good as the Canadian Rocky Mountaineer which is much better customer service. The USA uses the railways for freight and passenger services seem to play second fiddle. The most upsetting thing is the number of homeless people living beside the railway line near the main cities. 

President Trump if you want to make America Great Again then start by looking after your thousands of homeless people.