Blue Water or California Zephyr
The two routes share one station, Chicago Union Station. The table lists what each shows and how long each takes; the route pages carry the full stretch tables.
Side by side
| Blue Water | California Zephyr | |
|---|---|---|
| Endpoints | Chicago Union Station to Port Huron | Chicago Union Station to Emeryville |
| Duration, end to end | 6 h 31 m | 52 h 57 m |
| Frequency | 5 days a week | Daily |
| Trains | 364 eastbound, 365 westbound | 5 westbound, 6 eastbound |
| Named stretches with a cited source | 3 | 14 |
| Shows | Big cities | Big rivers, Mountains, Desert and canyon, Snow, Big cities |
| Headline stretch | Indiana Dunes | Front Range and Moffat Tunnel |
| Headline stretch in daylight | eastbound: daylight Feb to Oct; dusk Nov to Jan, 4:34 p.m.; westbound: daylight, 11:04 a.m. | westbound: daylight, 9:47 a.m.; eastbound: daylight Feb to Oct; dusk Nov to Jan, 4:57 p.m. |
Duration, frequency, and daylight are computed from the Amtrak GTFS timetable (fetched 2026-10-15) for the representative trip in each direction; daylight is the phrase for the headline stretch, the highlighted row of each route page. Named stretches are counted from the cited route guides. How these are computed.