Los Angeles to Chicago

Itinerary

1. Los Angeles, CA
   Day 1 | Board in Los Angeles

   Guests board at the iconic 1939 Los Angeles Union Station, a Mission/Streamline Moderne masterpiece. Settle into your private railcar and enjoy a welcome reception as the train heads east through the Inland Empire.

   Dinner

2. Cajon Pass
   Day 1 | Climbing into the Mojave

   An evening climb through dramatic Cajon Pass, where the train threads between the San Gabriel and San Bernardino Mountains and rises onto the Mojave Desert under the stars.

   Sleep Onboard

3. Flagstaff, AZ
   Day 2 | Beneath the San Francisco Peaks

   Wake at the 1926 Tudor-Revival depot in Flagstaff, at 6,910 feet beneath the snow-capped San Francisco Peaks, the gateway to the Grand Canyon and the largest ponderosa-pine forest in North America.

   Breakfast

4. Winslow, AZ
   Day 2 | Route 66 Country

   Mid-morning brings Winslow, the small Route 66 town immortalized in the Eagles' 'Take It Easy' and home to Mary Colter's masterpiece, La Posada Hotel. Beyond the town, the train skirts the colorful badlands of the Painted Desert.

5. Albuquerque, NM
   Day 2 | Heart of New Mexico

   An early-afternoon service stop in New Mexico's largest city, with views of the Sandia Mountains and time on the platform to browse Indigenous artisans selling silver and turquoise jewelry.

   Lunch

6. Lamy, NM
   Day 2 | Climbing the Sangre de Cristos

   The train climbs from Lamy over Glorieta Pass through pinon-juniper country, with the high peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains rising to the north.

7. Raton, NM
   Day 2 | Crossing into Colorado at Raton Pass

   A spectacular late-afternoon climb to 7,588-foot Raton Pass, the highest point on America's passenger rail network, with sweeping views of northern New Mexico and the descent into Colorado's coal country at Trinidad.

   Dinner

8. La Junta, CO
   Day 2 | Onto the Great Plains

   An evening service stop in La Junta on the Arkansas River, near Bent's Old Fort and the historic Santa Fe Trail. The train then runs overnight east across the high plains of Colorado and Kansas.

   Sleep Onboard

9. Dodge City, KS
   Day 3 | The Old West at Dawn

   Wake on the Kansas plains near Dodge City, the legendary cowtown of Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson, the 'Queen of the Cowtowns' on the old Santa Fe Trail.

   Breakfast

10. Kansas City, MO
    Day 3 | Arrive in Kansas City

    Pull into the magnificent 1914 Beaux-Arts Kansas City Union Station, anchor of the Crown Center district.

11. Osawatomie, KS
    Day 3 | Kansas Prairieland

    The train glides east through the rolling Osage Plains, past fields of winter wheat and tallgrass remnants, the same landscape John Brown rode through in the 1850s. Small-town Kansas unfolds in a quiet procession of grain elevators and river crossings.

12. Fort Madison, IA
    Day 3 | Crossing the Mississippi

    The most dramatic moment east of the Rockies: a slow crossing of the great Mississippi River on a swing-span railroad bridge, with broad views of the muddy river bending south toward St. Louis. Fort Madison's 1910 depot stands steps from the bank.

    Lunch

13. Burlington, IA
    Day 3 | River Town on the Bluffs

    A brief stop at Burlington, perched on limestone bluffs high above the Mississippi. The town's serpentine Snake Alley, once dubbed the crookedest street in the world, climbs the hill above the historic, Civil War-era brick depot.

14. Galesburg, IL
    Day 3 | Carl Sandburg Country

    Afternoon arrival in Galesburg, a storied railroad town and one of the busiest hubs in the United States. Watch as trains diverge from the Midwest to the West, Texas, and Pacific Northwest.

15. Princeton, IL
    Day 3 | Into the Illinois River Valley

    The train descends gently through Bureau County's corn and soybean fields toward the Illinois River valley. In autumn the bottomland timber blazes gold and copper; in spring the river spreads across its wide floodplain, reflecting sky and swaying cottonwoods.

    Dinner

16. Mendota, IL
    Day 3 | The Grand Prairie at Dusk

    Threading through the heart of the old Grand Prairie, among the most productive farmland on Earth, the train passes Mendota as the last light gilds the flat horizon in every direction, an ocean of amber grain.

    Sleep Onboard

17. Naperville, IL
    Day 4 | The Suburban Approach

    Early morning brings the western suburbs of Chicago, where one of the busiest freight corridors in North America fills the right-of-way with a constant procession of intermodal stacks and unit grain trains alongside you.

    Breakfast

18. Chicago, IL
    Day 4 | Journey's End at Union Station

    The train glides into Chicago Union Station's Great Hall, a soaring 1925 Beaux-Arts landmark with 110-foot coffered ceilings, completing one of the most scenically varied rail journeys in the world, from Pacific surf to Lake Michigan shore.