From Chicago I travelled west on an Amtrak train called the
Empire Builder. The return trip was on
the California Zephyr from Oakland back to Chicago. Long-haul trains are made up of double decker
sleeper and coach cars, and Empire Builder had a pair of each going to Seattle and a pair
of each going to Portland. This train is
split in Spokane. There’s also a dining
car and an observation/lounge car. The
‘roomettes’ are tiny, basically two wide seats facing one another with a
six-inch wide closet to hang clothes in.
The seats come together to make into a bed, and there’s another bed that
can fold down from above.
These trains make more stops than you might expect, and a
number of people use them as a short-haul commuter train. There are also people who go overnight in a
coach seat (like on a bus) and that’s cheap, but that seems to be a rough way
to travel. Also, since there are no
showers available to coach passengers, I’ll wager that the air gets a little
‘stale’ in there.
If you fly over this country, you get no concept of how damn
big it is, and how much of it is just flat! Even on Empire Builder’s northerly route
there are few hills to break up the landscape until you reach the Rockies. On the Zephyr the flat part starts overnight
on the second day and continues through the third.
One interesting feature of these trains is that they are
ridden by volunteers from the national park service, who point out features as
you go by, such as Fort Union outside of Williston, ND, which is where Sitting
Bull signed a peace treaty.
The Empire Builder also had a Native American in costume who
told some stories and played a native flute, then hawked his CD and website.
Being a train buff, I made sure I got out and got this shot
in Havre, MT (they pronounce it so that it rhymes with cadaver [I couldn’t
think of another word with the same sound – I’m open to suggestions]) I suspect the mispronunciation is intentional,
like Bogota in NJ.
In the morning, the Empire Builder passed under the Cascades
in the longest such tunnel in the US.
We didn’t see much of the Rockies on the Empire Builder as
it was night when we passed most of them, but I did get a few shots near sunset. On the California Zephyr, on the other hand,
we came through the Sierra Nevada range in the afternoon, and woke up to the
Rockies the next morning, having stopped at Salt Lake City at 3AM. There were some spectacular twists and turns
as we wound our way along river valleys and beneath nearly sheer rock
walls. I wouldn’t want to be in the
train that was struck by one of these falling behemoths. These are a sample of the landscape.
On the Empire's more northerly route, you pass through the lower end of Glacier National Park. But there was little snow or ice to be seen.
There was a surprise on Empire Builder. I’m used to houses near train tracks being
rather run-down; places where people live ‘cause it’s cheaper when dealing with
the noise. On the way into Seattle I
noticed a long string of well-maintained lawns on what where obviously upscale
houses. I realized that they all had
wonderful views of Puget Sound, and figured they were built to take in the
view, with the occasional train being a necessary nuisance.
After the cruise I took the Coast Starlight overnight from
Seattle to Oakland. This is a much more
scenic trip as you get south of San Francisco, where the train really lives up
to its name. The portion I was on was
more prosaic, but we did get glimpses of the Cascades and the ‘ghost fleet’ of
mothballed naval vessels.
One thing I did notice was how neat the hay farmers were,
with same-sized bales all neatly stacked up.
No haystacks for these folks, I guess.
I spotted this huge letter L on the side of a mountain
somewhere soon after we came into Nevada.
I stumped the rangers riding the Zephyr with this, but they did say that
it was somewhat common for towns to put up these markers.
The Starlight was hauling two private cars (shades of ‘Wild,
Wild West’) and the California Zephyr left Emeryville with three. This is a fabulously expensive way to
travel. Not only do you have to have the
price of the cars, but the connection and cartage fee is thousands and
thousands of dollars.
On the Zephyr I had the misfortune to share a car with a
couple of rug rats under the ‘control’ of their grandparents. And you thought sitting on a plane with a
crying baby for a few hours is hard! They
got off in Grand Junction and were replaced by a 29-month old travelling with
her mother. Cute but also occasionally
noisy. But there was worse in another
car. There’s a woman who has two
‘service dogs’. Really two tiny
Chihuahuas which she carries around in a purse, a la Paris Hilton. She got the service dog certificates because
she uses them to ease interactions with the special needs kids she teaches, but
of course the kids were not on the train.
There really should be better controls over these certificates. Her neighbors told me at breakfast that they
barked during the night and woke them up.
I’m glad I built overnight stays between each of my
connections. Besides my disinclination
to rush, these are long trips, and there are ample opportunities for
delay. The Empire Builder arrived in
Seattle only an hour late, but was more than two hours behind at other
points. The Coast Starlight had some
difficulty in the train yard, and we boarded that three hours late. They did manage to make up an hour by the
time we arrived in Oakland. On the
Zephyr, we were actually early arriving in Denver where we had to drop the
private cars and get a new engine, but they had some difficulty finding a
working replacement engine and we left over an hour late with a freight engine
in front. Because of its somewhat slower
speed we were three hours behind when we left Omaha.
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