Running "only" 4 hours 21 minutes behind schedule, Amtrak's train 3, the Southwest Chief, rolls through the location on BNSF Railway's San Bernardino Sub known as Esperanza, overtaking BNSF train H-BARWAT1-06A … which hasn't had a crew for the past 15 hours and 20 minutes. (How are today's railroads not just bleeding customers? How is management OK with this lack of ability to maintain schedules?) Amtrak P42DC 174, painted in the carrier's new Phase VII paint scheme (a vast improvement, my opinion) leads train 3, and if one looks carefully, it also now wears the name "Mark B. Kenny" on its cab, which it did not have when I first photographed it nearly five months earlier. Assisting AMTK 174 is P42DC 19, as they pull this eight car Chief. (Yorba Linda, California – November 7, 2024)
California-bound rail travelers from the east have three choices to reach the Golden State: California Zephyr, Southwest Chief, Sunset Limited/Texas Eagle. A look back through the years including the now-defunct Desert Wind
