Zephyrette (train)

The Zephyrette was a tri-weekly Western Pacific Railroad train run with a single Budd Rail Diesel Car between Oakland, California, and Salt Lake City, Utah, from 1950 to 1960. At 924 miles it was the longest RDC service in the United States. It replaced the Royal Gorge as a secondary supplement to the California Zephyr, and its route to Oakland was set by the California Public Utilities Commission and the Interstate Commerce Commission rather than by the railroad. The Western Pacific bought two 70-seat RDC-2 cars after a ten-day evaluation with an RDC-1 demonstrator and modified them substantially. Savings over steam and conventional trains kept it going only a few years, and it was discontinued on October 2, 1960.