Twin Cities Zephyr
The Twin Cities Zephyr in Oregon, Illinois in 1941.
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| Overview | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Service type | Daytime inter-city rail | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Status | Discontinued | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Locale | Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| First service | April 21, 1935 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Last service | April 30, 1971 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Former operator(s) |
Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad (1935–70) Burlington Northern (1970–71) |
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| Route | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Start | Chicago, Illinois | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| End | Minneapolis, Minnesota | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Train number(s) | 21, 22, 23, 24 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| On-board services | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Class(es) | Coach and Parlor | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Observation facilities | 1947: Four dome coaches, one dome parlor | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Technical | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1935: Two articulated 3-sets, 1936: Two articulated 6-sets, 1947: Two sets of 7 non-articulated cars |
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| Track gauge | 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Twin Cities Zephyr was a streamlined passenger train on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad (CB&Q). It was the second Zephyr service introduced by CB&Q after the record-setting Denver–Chicago "dawn to dusk dash" of the Pioneer Zephyr trainset. The service ended in 1971 with the inauguration of Amtrak.
The train competed with the Chicago and North Western's Twin Cities 400 which ceased operation in 1963, and the Milwaukee Road's Twin Cities Hiawatha, which, like the Zephyr, ended with the coming of Amtrak in 1971. The CB&Q trains went west from Chicago to the Mississippi River and along that river to Saint Paul, while the North Western and Milwaukee Road trains traveled via Milwaukee.
Two three-car trainsets were delivered in April 1935 and proved too small; a second pair of six-car trains with matching locomotives were ordered as replacements. The new trainsets were put on display before they entered service.
The second pair of Twin Cities Zephyrs entered service on December 18, 1936 as the Morning Zephyr and the Afternoon Zephyr. On the first run the two trainsets departed Chicago simultaneously on parallel tracks with 44 pairs of twins as a publicity stunt.
In 1935 Zephyrs were scheduled to cover 431 miles (694 km) between Chicago and St Paul in six and a half hours, later reduced to six hours and 15 minutes. At first each trainset made one one-way trip a day, but in July 1935 each was making a round trip a day, leaving each terminal at 8:00 AM CST and returning at 10:59 PM. In 1940 the westbound Twin Cities Zephyr took six hours to travel from Chicago to Saint Paul, a start-to-stop average of 71 miles per hour, which is a faster average speed between endpoints than the Acela's average speeds in 2016 between Washington and Boston. For several years in the 1950s the schedules along the Mississippi from East Dubuque, Illinois to Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin and from Prairie du Chien to La Crosse were the fastest in the world, and in 1964 the Morning Zephyr had the fastest station-to-station time in the United States between Aurora and Rochelle, Illinois. All three runs were made at over 80 miles (130 km) per hour from start to station stop. By 1964 the timing from Chicago to Saint Paul had relaxed by five to ten minutes, but by 1970, the last full year of service, the journey took seven hours.
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Wikipedia