page_title: Overland Route (Union Pacific Railroad)
section_title: Demise
hierarchical_section_title: Overland Route (Union Pacific Railroad) / History / Demise
context_page_description: The Overland Route was a train route operated jointly by the Union Pacific Railroad and the Central Pacific Railroad / Southern Pacific Railroad, between Council Bluffs, Iowa / Omaha, Nebraska, and San Francisco, California over the grade of the First Transcontinental Railroad which had been opened on May 10, 1869. Passenger trains that operated over the line included the Overland Flyer, later renamed the Overland Limited, which also included a connection to Chicago. Although these passenger rail trains are no longer in operation, the Overland Route remains a common name for the line from California to Chicago, now owned entirely by the Union Pacific.
context_section_description: As intercity passenger rail travel began to decline after World War II and into the 1950s with the growth of the airline industry and development of the Interstate Highway System, the Overland route gradually lost its luster and service declined. After almost seven decades of continuous operation, the Overland Limited came to an end as a daily train on July 16, 1962, when the Interstate Commerce Commission approved termination of the service. While the train continued to run until Labor Day (with some additional holiday runs from Christmas to the New Year), the name “Overland” did not appear in the schedules of the UP or SP again after its last run on January 2, 1963. The only daily passenger train between Omaha and the San Francisco Bay area today is the California Zephyr, operated by Amtrak and mostly along a different route. The Zephyr only uses the Overland Route in the states of California and Nevada, passing through Salt Lake City instead of Ogden and Denver instead of Cheyenne.  In 1996, the Union Pacific again acquired the Southern Pacific, resulting in the entire Chicago-Oakland line being owned by a single company.
caption: "Drumhead" logos such as this often adorned the ends of the observation cars on the Overland Limited.
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