The Texas Zephyr was a named passenger train

Train

A train is a connected series of vehicles for rail transport that move along a track to transport cargo or passengers from one place to another place. The track usually consists of two rails, but might also be a monorail or maglev guideway.Propulsion for the train is provided by a separate...

 operated by the Colorado and Southern Railway

Colorado and Southern Railway

The Colorado and Southern Railway was a railroad company in the western United States that operated independently from 1898 to 1908, then as part of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad until it was absorbed into the Burlington Northern Railroad in 1981.The railway began as the...

 and the Fort Worth and Denver Railway

Fort Worth and Denver Railway

The Fort Worth and Denver Railway , nicknamed "the Denver Road," was a class I American railroad company that operated in the northern part of Texas from 1881 to 1982, and had a profound influence on the early settlement and economic development of the region....

 (both subsidiaries of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad

Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad

The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad was a railroad that operated in the Midwestern United States. Commonly referred to as the Burlington or as the Q, the Burlington Route served a large area, including extensive trackage in the states of Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri,...

). The train was designated number 1 southbound, and number 2 northbound.

Inaugurated on August 22, 1940, the streamlined train

Streamliner

A streamliner is a vehicle incorporating streamlining in a shape providing reduced air resistance. The term is applied to high-speed railway trainsets of the 1930s to 1950s, and to their successor "bullet trains". Less commonly, the term is applied to fully faired recumbent bicycles...

 ran from Denver, Colorado

Denver, Colorado

The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...

 to Fort Worth

Fort Worth, Texas

Fort Worth is the 16th-largest city in the United States of America and the fifth-largest city in the state of Texas. Located in North Central Texas, just southeast of the Texas Panhandle, the city is a cultural gateway into the American West and covers nearly in Tarrant, Parker, Denton, and...

 and Dallas, Texas

Dallas, Texas

Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...

, replacing the heavyweight Colorado Special. At Dallas, the Texas Zephyr connected with the Sam Houston Zephyr

Sam Houston Zephyr

The Sam Houston Zephyr was a named passenger train operated by the Burlington-Rock Island Railroad, a subsidiary of both the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad and the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad...

and Texas Rocket, both operating on the jointly owned Burlington-Rock Island Railroad

Burlington-Rock Island Railroad

The Burlington-Rock Island Railroad officially came into existence on July 7, 1930, through the reorganization of its parent road, the Trinity and Brazos Valley Railway Company , AKA the “Boll Weevil"....

 for through service to Houston.

Initially, the train was equipped with Budd-built streamlined stainless steel chair cars and an observation dining-lounge car. Sleeping car

Sleeping car

The sleeping car or sleeper is a railway/railroad passenger car that can accommodate all its passengers in beds of one kind or another, primarily for the purpose of making nighttime travel more restful. The first such cars saw sporadic use on American railroads in the 1830s and could be configured...

s were, however, rebuilt streamlined heavyweight cars. The train was pulled between Denver and Fort Worth by pairs of General Motors

General Motors

General Motors Company , commonly known as GM, formerly incorporated as General Motors Corporation, is an American multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan and the world's second-largest automaker in 2010...

 Electro-Motive Division stainless steel E5

EMD E5

The EMD E5 was a , A1A-A1A passenger train-hauling diesel locomotive manufactured by Electro-Motive Corporation, and its corporate successor, General Motors' Electro-Motive Division of La Grange, Illinois, and produced exclusively for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad , and its...

 diesels. To allow adequate time for servicing the diesel locomotives in Fort Worth, a FW&D 550 class 4-6-2 "Pacific" type steam locomotive shuttled the train between Fort Worth and Dallas. It was later replaced by sister E5 diesel locomotives purchased by C&S from parent CB&Q.

In 1957, the re-equipping of the 1936 Denver Zephyr

Denver Zephyr

The Denver Zephyr was a passenger train operated by the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad between Chicago, Illinois, and Denver, Colorado...

made those trainsets available, and they were assigned to the Texas Zephyr. Though older than the original Texas Zephyr equipment, they offered more luxurious amenities. These consists ran on the Texas Zephyr until February 1965, when they were retired and the original equipment restored to the train, albeit with Pullman

Pullman (car or coach)

In the United States, Pullman was used to refer to railroad sleeping cars which were built and operated on most U.S. railroads by the Pullman Company from 1867 to December 31, 1968....

 pool streamlined cars or sleeping cars from the parent CB&Q.

As a result of it losing its U.S. Mail contract, the Fort Worth & Denver abandoned all passenger service in 1967, the Texas Zephyr making its last run on September 11 of that year.

External links

• Burlington Route Historical Society, "The Burlington Zephyrs" (includes map of the various Zephyr routes)
• Dallas Railroad Museum, "A Brief History of Railroads in Dallas"
• Goen, Steve Allen, Fort Worth and Denver Color Pictorial, Four Ways West Publications, 1996. ISBN 1885614128.
• Goen, Steve Allen, "Zephyr a Star in Wichita's Crown," 1999 newspaper article about the history of the Texas Zephyr, published by the Wichita Falls, Texas
  Wichita Falls, Texas
  Wichita Falls is a city in and the county seat of Wichita County, Texas, United States, United States. Wichita Falls is the principal city of the Wichita Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Archer, Clay and Wichita counties. According to the U.S. Census estimate of 2010,...
  
  , Times Record News
• Ken's Weather and Railroad page (photos and timetable of the 1959 Texas Zephyr)
• "Southwestern Hospitality," Time August 26, 1940 (article about a railroad controversy affecting the welcoming of the new Texas Zephyr to Texas)
• Streamliner Schedules (timetable and consist of the 1941 Texas Zephyr)