3 sights you’ll miss if you take the longest train route in the US: Jalopnik

Traveling across the US by train is a special experience that offers passengers an up-close look at the country’s diverse landscapes and features. The California Zephyr has the longest rail route across America, offering a journey of almost 2,500 miles. It starts near the southern part of Lake Michigan, in the windy city of Chicago, where you can see one of the few remaining car shows that are still worth seeing. The end of the line stops on the shores of a huge bay overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. Covering seven states, with multiple stops in each, the California Zephyr navigates both the Rockies and Sierra Nevada mountain ranges, offering plenty of fantastic photo opportunities.

However, the train misses some unique places that might be interesting for car enthusiasts. While the California Zephyr may not offer stops at these locations, a road trip behind the wheel of a car might. What sights might you miss along the way? How about a prehistoric monument reconstructed to scale using old cars? Or the experience of driving your own car to the top of a more than 4,000-metre-high peak, which is also the location of one of the most challenging motorsport events in the world? And what about entering one of the most unusual and alien landscapes on Earth, where many land speed records have also been set?

Enter Jim Reinders, creator of Carhenge. When asked why he decided to recreate such a historic spot in Nebraska, he simply thinks, “Why not?” according to Carhenge.com. Only instead of stones, Reinders used old cars and trucks and created a scale replica in the rural plains of Nebraska. Although the Stonehenge piece is the main attraction, there are some other works of art on display that also use old cars. One visitor Tripadvisor wrote: “Such a strange idea, and yet so nice for photo opportunities.”

Unfortunately, in the case of the California Zephyr, the route runs far south of Alliance, Nebraska (where Carhenge is located). The nearest stop is McCook, NE, but from there it’s almost a four-hour drive to Carhenge. While it may not be everyone’s kind of sightseeing, those who visit can at least get an interesting photo and story out of it.

After you reach the top, you may have a greater appreciation for the Pikes Peak Hill Climb – a motorsports event dating back more than a century and called ‘The Race to the Clouds’. According to Guinness world recordsFrenchman Romain Dumas was able to complete the course in a powerful electric Volkswagen and reach the top in just under eight minutes. Remarkably, this time an average speed of more than 150 km/h was required, which is incredible considering the height differences and the 156 turns involved. (Cars aren’t the only vehicles that drive up the mountain; check out the fastest Pikes Peak motorcycles of all time.)

However, among the automotive community, this area is more known as a place where land speed records are attempted and broken. For example, a mud racing champion destroyed a 58-year-old land speed record on an Indian Challenger, nearly 200 miles per hour. One of the reasons this place might be a better experience on a road trip is that you can cruise on the flats yourself—and not just cruise, but open the throttle all the way, to see how far your ride can safely get into the triple digits. There are no speed limits and plenty of space, so it’s a popular place for performance junkies to test the capabilities of their cars.