Chicago, Denver & San Francisco Railroad

CKM's History: In 1873, the Missouri Kansas Western began operation. MKW ran between Kansas City, MO and Denver, CO. Later on, roughly around 1889, the Colorado & Western (CAW) (a MKW subsidiary) was created with the purpose of expanding service to Provo, UT. At this point, the railroad worked hand-in-hand with the Sacramento Central (SCCL), a railroad operating from Sacramento, CA to Provo, UT via Eureka, NV. In 1900, the Sacramento Central eventually renamed to "Shorewood Southern" (SWS), in an attempt to make the railroad sound more appealing. The "operating together" style kept going until roughly 1941, at which point SWS, C&W, and MKW had decided to officially merge, leading to the Colorado Kansas & Missouri Railroad (CKM). This name was initially met with disdain, as it was more or less just a rebrand of the original railroad. The CKM ran nearly as-is until 1978, at which point the merger with LMKC had finally been finished.

CDSF's History: In 1978, the LMKC and CKM had merged to create the Chicago & Western Railroad. This was a placeholder name though, only existing on paper, as the company was renamed to the Chicago Denver & San Francisco within the same year. April 6th, 1979 marks the first locomotive actually painted in CDSF's livery. Per LMKC tradition, CDSF had begun researching electrification west of Kansas City in 1981, however it was dropped, as they needed government funding in order to afford such a feat, but the then-new president at the time was against the idea of electrification. CDSF didn't give up however, because in 1989 they tried again. Unfortunately though, this attempt was still denied. At this point, CDSF began looking into ways to make electrification seem more worthwhile, and decided to simply expand electrification as money came in, leading to CDSF starting their own passenger service, making it the first Class I railroad in a post-Amtrak world to start passenger service back up. This also marked the first time in CDSF's entire history that they actually had any form of passenger service. (aside from Shorewood Southern's services, but those were more akin to tourist trains than actual intercity service.) This service wasn't very glamorous though, as it was more or less glorified transcontinental commuter service. However, it did pick up enough traction to actually help pay for the electrification, getting the catenary to span into Denver, CO by 1994, and was deemed the current "end of the line" for electrics, as the rest of the electrification would be through mountainous terrain with lots of curves. However, in 1996, CDSF had brought in some swiss engineers to help devise a plan for electrification west of Denver, and in 1998 had begun construction. By 2009, electrification from Denver to San Francisco had been completed. At this point in time, CDSF had begun looking into reworking their passenger services, in particular looking into Electric Multiple Units (EMUs), such as those built for NICTD, NJT, and Septa (as a few examples). However, they didn't want to continue running (essentially) commuter service, and wanted to make this an actual luxury train, featuring a double ended consist, where the ends would be power cars, followed by baggage cars, then coaches, then a business, then a sleeper car, and would mirror across to the other end of the consist, with a dining car and dome car between the two halves. However, this was quickly changed to a consist that would operate with a locomotive on one end, and an observation car on the other, as it was deemed to be more luxurious to be able to see out the back of the train. In 2015, the first trainset was accepted, and an exhibition was held in Chicago, then Denver, and finally San Francisco.

2 - In 2010, CDSF had ordered multiple "Travelliner" trainsets from Nippon Sharyo, these were designed with the idea of a streamlined Highliner II and NSSLs. The construction of these trainsets was finished and debuted to much fanfare in 2015.

3 - The year is 2018, Brightline had just started operations with Siemens Chargers and Venture coaches. Fast forward to 2023, Amtrak is still slowly rolling out their "next generation fleet" of Siemens products, and after noticing this trend, CDSF announces plans to purchase Amtrak Airo style EMUs which would be planned to operate side-by-side with the Travelliner. The construction of this fleet was started in April of 2023, and is projected to start operating in 2025. To complement this, CDSF has also begun upgrades on long sections of their track to be capable of 110 mph, which is said to be finished along the same time the trainsets will be finished.

4 - write more at some point

5 - the roster written below isn't actually the full roster, rather it's written and updated based on which ones we've seen (out of universe, which ones we've built in gmod), and any notes we may have on each unit.