OMAHA, Neb. — Beginning with trips originating in Emeryville, Calif., on Saturday, March 30, and Chicago on Monday, April 1, Amtrak will again operate the California Zephyr over its regular BNSF Railway route east of Denver, Colo.
However, the train will bypass downtown Omaha because a bridge over the Platte River, part of its normal route, was destroyed by flooding and is not expected to be rebuilt for weeks. In the meantime, the train will detour on more direct east-west tracks between Ashland, Neb., and Oreapolis, Neb.
The company has temporarily chartered connecting Thruway buses between Amtrak’s Omaha station and Lincoln, Neb., to make connections to and from both eastbound and westbound trains.
On Friday afternoon, an advisory on Amtrak’s website indicated that connections would also be made at Creston, Iowa, but those arrangements have not been implemented. As a result, passengers headed east from Omaha will leave at 2 a.m. on the bus to Lincoln, 3 hours and 15 minutes earlier than the Zephyr’s scheduled Chicago-bound departure from Omaha. Because the travel time between Lincoln and Creston is shorter, Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari notes that in any case, trains will hold at Creston for the scheduled 7:04 a.m. departure.
Until last Tuesday, the Zephyr had detoured for a week between Chicago and Omaha over Union Pacific’s former Chicago & North Western east-west main line, but since then hadn’t operated east of Denver.
Meanwhile, Missouri River Runners between St. Louis and Kansas City, Mo., will also resume April 1. Buses have substituted for trains for about two weeks — not because of washouts, but because Union Pacific advised Amtrak it was unable to handle the two daily round trips in a timely fashion. Freight trains detouring away from their regular routes, closed because of flooding, had clogged the busy east-west line.
glad to hear it, as friends and I will be on there in a few weeks on way to Glenwood Springs and pick up rental car and drive to Ogden, UT.
Rather ride a train than a bus.