Southwest Chief or Sunset Limited
The two routes share one station, Los Angeles. The table lists what each shows and how long each takes; the route pages carry the full stretch tables.
Side by side
| Southwest Chief | Sunset Limited | |
|---|---|---|
| Endpoints | Chicago Union Station to Los Angeles | New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal to Los Angeles |
| Duration, end to end | 43 h 57 m | 45 h 35 m |
| Frequency | Daily | 3 days a week |
| Trains | 3 westbound, 4 eastbound | 1 westbound, 2 eastbound |
| Named stretches with a cited source | 10 | 10 |
| Shows | Mountains, Desert and canyon, Big rivers | Desert and canyon, Mountains, Big rivers, Wildlife, National parks, Big cities |
| Headline stretch | Raton Pass | Rio Grande and the Florida Mountains |
| Headline stretch in daylight | westbound: daylight, 8:38 a.m.; eastbound: daylight Feb to Oct; dusk Nov to Jan, 4:47 p.m. | westbound: daylight, 2:44 p.m.; eastbound: daylight, 1:54 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.