ABOARD THE CALIFORNIA ZEPHYR (AP) -- It creeps through the twilight into Ottumwa, Iowa, a silver ghost from the past. In 1923, 57 passenger trains a day called here. Today there is only the California Zephyr -- eastbound in the morning, westbound at night.
Ottumwa's two-story brick depot has been in continuous use since 1889, but only barely. Amtrak rents a glass office for its one attendant. Most of the building is used by the local historical society, as a museum.
The Zephyr has a storied past -- it follows part of the original transcontinental rail route as it travels from Chicago to near San Francisco. But its future is in peril.
In February, Amtrak's then-president, George Warrington, warned that the Zephyr and 17 other long-distance trains -- which cost $1 billion annually to run but bring in only $514 million -- would be the first ones cut this fall if Amtrak did not get a major boost in federal support.
Shutting down these legendary trains -- including the Chicago-Los Angeles Southwest Chief and the City of New Orleans, memorialized in song -- would mean that, for the first time in 133 years, travelers could not cross the United States by rail.
More recently, Amtrak's new president, David Gunn, warned the railroad was on the brink of shutting down all service for lack of cash. An agreement with the Bush administration Friday averted the immediate crisis.
For now, the Zephyr lives. At its stop in Ottumwa, 20-year-old Maegan Lee Andrzejewski climbs down, returning from Chicago, where she has been planning her wedding with her aunt.
The trip marked the first time Maegan and her husband-to-be, Rodney Baker, have been apart during their seven-month engagement. "I'm home! I'm home! I'm home!" she calls, rushing to his arms.
Then, with the hoot of a whistle and the creak of steel, the Zephyr eases out of town. It picks up speed, heading west, running from extinction.
"All Aboard!"
The westbound Zephyr leaves Chicago's Union Station each day at 2:45 p.m. carrying a diverse cast of passengers, from retirees and fearful fliers to the cost-conscious and even a few business travelers, working as they go.
Riders settle in for the two-day, 2,438-mile journey in three double-decker coach cars, where the trip to the West Coast costs $164. In two double-decker sleeper cars, other passengers are splurging on compartments that, depending on size, add $400 to $1,000 to the fare.
The two groups meet and mingle in the lounge car, the train's Main Street.
Long-distance trains are for those with the time and inclination to savor the journey across America with a cold drink, a collegial atmosphere, and a pillow.
"When I was growing up, rail travel was seen as old-fashioned," says Ray Dellacroce, 55, a real estate developer heading home to Colorado Springs. "What I've come to find out is it's a much more civilized way to travel."
He stretches out in his seat as western Illinois unfolds before him. "Here I can lean back and put my feet up," he says. "Try that on a plane."
A nation linked coast to coast
Before 1869, when the pioneering rail route between Omaha, Nebraska, and Sacramento, California, was completed, a transcontinental trip took months. Afterward, New York to San Francisco could be accomplished in a week. A nation still recovering from the Civil War suddenly found itself not only united but linked, coast to coast.
It was 80 years later, in 1949, that three railroads created the first train called the California Zephyr. It had meals with silver and linen, "Vista-Dome" glass viewing cars, and hostesses in teal suits.
But as Americans turned to automobiles and planes, the Zephyr's losses mounted and the route was shut down in 1970.
A year later, Amtrak was created, charged with taking over money-draining passenger service from freight railroads. Eventually Amtrak resurrected the route.
Trains turned Ottumwa into a manufacturing and agricultural center when they arrived in 1859. The city now has a population of 25,000, a community college and, still, the Zephyr.
Cutting Amtrak service would "isolate and cripple the transportation systems in southern Iowa," the Wapello County Board of Supervisors said in a February resolution urging continued federal subsidies for the Zephyr.
"If you are any small town, any rural town," said Supervisor Rhea Huddleston, "and you end up with the post office leaving, or your school leaving, that makes a big dent. It's like your identity is fading away. And you can look at that with rail service also."
Scenic route
Tumbleweeds bouncing in its wake, the Zephyr blows through western Iowa and Nebraska as its passengers struggle to sleep.
"I've never been on a train that jostled as much as this one," says Bill Lawrie of Wayne, Pennsylvania, bound for San Francisco.
Amtrak trains are only as smooth as the tracks they run on, and 97 percent of those tracks are owned by freight railroads.
The train wakes to the farmland of western Nebraska -- a huge checkerboard with squares of gold and green.
For hours, the train cuts a straight line through the flat terrain of eastern Colorado under cloudless skies -- before a voice in the sightseer lounge turns heads:
"Are those clouds, or mountains?" The Rockies are on the horizon.
Arrival in Denver is at noon, more than three hours behind schedule. Amtrak says its long-distance trains were late 32 percent of the time last year; the Zephyr, 51 percent.
The Zephyr pulls out, beginning a snaking ascent up the Rockies. More than 9,000 feet above sea level, it enters the 6-mile-long Moffat Tunnel, a shortcut between Denver and Salt Lake City blasted through the Continental Divide in the 1920s.
The train emerges into bright sunshine and sidles up to the Colorado River, here just a stream. For the next four hours, the scenery is breathtaking: snowcapped mountaintops and whitewater rapids, evergreens clinging to rust-color rocks. Fishermen wave as the train rumbles by.
At Green River, Utah, pop. 1,000, an unstaffed depot awaits riders who get on or off. Not many do: last year, not quite four people per day.
The town's fortunes have been tied to the railroad almost since its founding in 1878. It grew as a shipping point, then declined when the railroad moved operations.
"We never dreamed about being a town without a railroad," says Allene Spadafora, who has lived here since 1940. "That's part of our inheritance."
Connie Copenhaver, a former city recorder, says Amtrak should promote the Zephyr as a convenient way to reach a playground of nearby national parks: Arches, Canyonlands and Capitol Reef.
But promotion may not be the issue. Amtrak says the train is already full during much of the summer.
The biggest problem is the cost of operating the train -- labor and maintenance, for example -- and widespread agreement that fares cannot reasonably be bumped much higher.
The politics
The Zephyr is a creature of politics. Its seven-state journey takes it through territory represented by 14 senators and 18 House members, many of whom would have little reason to support Amtrak if not for the train.
It stops four times in the district of Rep. Jim Gibbons, a Republican representing most of Nevada. If the Zephyr ends, he said, so would his votes to fund Amtrak.
"You need a national Amtrak presence to make it a viable entity that can be supported by all states," Gibbons said.
One stop in Gibbons' district is in Sparks, Nevada., a growing city of 71,000 which began in 1904 as a Southern Pacific yard. Sports teams here are the "Railroaders."
City officials, working with Gibbons, hope to turn an old railroad machine shop into a science center, tourist information office and a grand, Victorian-style station.
But for now, riders get off in the middle of a rail yard, with no services or shelter.
The journey ends
Nearly 56 hours have passed since John Olfano boarded the train in Chicago.
A recent medical problem forced Olfano, 30, out of work. Tired of sitting home in Scranton, Pennsylvania, he headed west. Looking for a journey and not just a trip, he chose the train.
"You take the bus, you're cramped," he says. "You take the plane, you get there the same day, but you don't see nothing. I didn't want that. I wanted to see something new."
At 8:45 p.m., 21/2 hours behind schedule, the Zephyr reaches its final stop in Emeryville, California. Olfano picks up his bags, descends the stairs and steps into the California night.
The empty Zephyr is driven to the rail yard for routine inspections, cleaning and refueling.
At 9:35 a.m., with a new load of passengers and an announcement of "All aboard!" it will begin its long trip back.
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