California Zephyr How do you cross the Rocky Mountains when flying isn’t practical and roads can shut down? Long before modern infrastructure made travel easy, engineers had to solve one of North America’s toughest problems: moving people reliably through massive mountain ranges. The answer wasn’t speed, it was smart routing. This is the California Zephyr, first introduced in 1949, a long-distance passenger train designed to follow rivers, canyons, and natural passes through the Rockies. Instead