I often like to reminisce about my two trips 11 years apart - 2005 & 2016 - aboard the Southwest Chief. I have set up five live video embeds on this page to commemorate those trips. The embeds are provided by the YouTube channel Virtual Railfan.
As frames of references I offer:
The Amtrak station in La Plata, Missouri with a PTZ camera there are cameras that are at the actual Amtrak depot there. The one pointed east has a chat. [VIDEO]
The Amtrak station in Flagstaff, Arizona with a new PTZ cam sponsored by the City of Flagstaff [VIDEO]
The Amtrak station in Barstow, California. From Virtual Railfan: "Amtrak’s "Southwest Chief" stops in Barstow (BAR) twice daily: the eastbound #4 at 9:41 PM, and the westbound #3 at 3:45 AM (Pacific time zone)." [VIDEO]
While my trip in 2005 was fairly routine in which we arrived in LA via train and then we departed LA via train the trip in 2016 wasn't as routine. After my family was finished with the LA portion of the trip we found our way into Las Vegas, Nevada and then after leaving Vegas found our way to the Grand Canyon via a tour service.As frames of references I offer:
- Southwest Chief schedule as of July 31, 2018 via Amtrak
- Track your train via Amtrak
- Feel free to visit Amtrak.com for fares & schedules
Here are the live videos. You won't just see the Amtrak trains in these videos, you'll also see freight train traffic that rolls through all these stations on a daily basis. So thus you will be seeing all types of trains on these webcams.
Galesburg, IL you will see the Southwest Chief and California Zephyr stop here [VIDEO]
Ft. Madison, Iowa you will see the Southwest Chief stop at a historic train depot [VIDEO]
The Amtrak station in La Plata, Missouri with a PTZ camera there are cameras that are at the actual Amtrak depot there. The one pointed east has a chat. [VIDEO]
The Amtrak station in Flagstaff, Arizona with a new PTZ cam sponsored by the City of Flagstaff [VIDEO]
The Amtrak station in Barstow, California. From Virtual Railfan: "Amtrak’s "Southwest Chief" stops in Barstow (BAR) twice daily: the eastbound #4 at 9:41 PM, and the westbound #3 at 3:45 AM (Pacific time zone)." [VIDEO]
After leaving the Grand Canyon we spend the night in Flagstaff and then hopped on the eastbound Southwest Chief in the wee hours of the morning back to Chicago. Not a smooth vacation, but something of a satisfying end which I wrote about briefly back in July 2016.
The Virtual Railfan YouTube channel is basically owned by a website also called Virtual Railfan. Most of the live feeds on the YouTube channel are sponsored though on occasion they may have available a feed that's not intended to be permanent - or doesn't have a long-term sponsor.
The website itself is a membership based service and offers other cams from around the nation and around the world with one in the Netherlands.
Hope you enjoy.
- Originally published February 6, 2018
- Updated June 30, 2023
