Today, Amtrak's Zephyr train still chugs along much of the most arduous portions made by Chinese workers more than 150 years ago. Climbing through the Sierra Nevada mountains, the trip offers expansive views of snow-capped peaks and swaths of towering pine and fir trees. (The rest of the line, connecting the San Francisco Bay Area and Chicago, runs on a different route forged after the original Transcontinental railroad.)
