California Zephyr or Empire Builder
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
| California Zephyr | Empire Builder | |
|---|---|---|
| Endpoints | Chicago Union Station to Emeryville | Chicago Union Station to Seattle |
| Duration, end to end | 52 h 57 m | 46 h 24 m |
| Frequency | Daily | Daily |
| Trains | 5 westbound, 6 eastbound | 7 westbound, 8 eastbound |
| Named stretches with a cited source | 14 | 9 |
| Shows | Big rivers, Mountains, Desert and canyon, Snow, Big cities | Wildlife, Mountains, Prairie, National parks, Pacific coast, Big rivers |
| Headline stretch | Front Range and Moffat Tunnel | Upper Mississippi River |
| Headline stretch in daylight | westbound: daylight, 9:47 a.m.; eastbound: daylight Feb to Oct; dusk Nov to Jan, 4:57 p.m. | westbound: dark, 9:30 p.m.; eastbound: daylight, 10:13 a.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.