Portal:US Railways/Selected article/December 2007

The Pioneer Zephyr is a diesel-powered railroad trainset built by the Budd Company in 1934 for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad (CB&Q). The train, which featured extensive use of stainless steel, was originally named Zephyr and was meant as a promotional tool to advertise passenger rail service in the United States. The train's construction included innovations such as shotwelding (a specialized type of spot welding) to join the stainless steel, and articulation to reduce the train's weight. On May 26 1934 it set a speed record for travel time between Denver, Colorado, and Chicago, Illinois, when it made a 1,015-mile (1,633 km) non-stop "dawn-to-dusk" dash, covering the distance in 13 hours 5 minutes at an average speed of 77 mph (124 km/h). For one section of the run, the train reached a speed of 112.5 mph (181 km/h), just short of the then-US land speed record of 115 mph (185 km/h). The historic dash inspired two films and the train's nickname, "Silver Streak". The trainset entered regular revenue service on November 11 1934 between Kansas City, Missouri, Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska. It was operated on this route until its retirement in 1960 when it was donated to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago where it remains on public display. The train is generally regarded as the first successful streamliner on American railroads.