Burlington Route history begins with the Aurora Branch Railroad, chartered on Feb. 12, 1849, to build a line from Aurora, Ill., to a connection with the Galena & Chicago Union (forerunner of the ...

If the glory years of the Burlington Railroad began in 1934, with the Burlington Zephyr's phenomenal Dawn-to-Dusk run, surely they culminated in 1949, with the arrival of the California Zephyr.