Source: Missoulian
We recently took a vacation trip to Seattle, and we chose to take a train for the outbound leg of our trip, specifically the Amtrak Empire Builder, which has a daily run from Chicago to Seattle, via St. Paul and a number of other stops, going through Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, and finally Washington. At Spokane, the back half of the train disconnects and connects to another engine to go to Portland, Oregon.
From St. Paul, where we embarked, the trip is about 36 hours, starting around 10:20 pm in the evening, at least for the Sunday – Tuesday run. We rented a family room, which cost us about $700 with a month and a half gap between buying the tickets and actually traveling. Tickets rose in price as the departure date approached. That price also covers meals, which were actually rather nice, including omelettes, pancakes, burgers, steaks, chicken, etc. The Dining Car has far less capacity than the entire train, so if your party is less than four, you almost always find yourself talking to strangers. We enjoyed that experience. As one of our lunch companions pointed out, this is the slow, relaxing way to travel, and if you can self-entertain in the environs of the train, so much the better. At $700 for us, the price is comparable to plane tickets before considering the superior meal service offered by the train. I wish I knew if it is more environmentally friendly than air travel.
The compartment itself stretches the width of the train car, so we had windows on both sides of us; it was perhaps 4 ft deep. I’m sure the Amtrak site would have more precise information.
We had hoped to experience fall colors, but the trip across North Dakota was dull, and Montana and Idaho was blizzard and then dark. Only in Washington did we get color. By then, my Arts Editor was struggling as she could not sleep; I was more resilient, fortunately, although for a day or so after we disembarked I had minor bouts of vertigo.
For those readers who are unfamiliar with train travel – it was our first experience – we have a few photos of the interior.
Here’s the bathroom facilities, which are shared among all in this particular car. They are much like those on an airplane, in good but not great repair. A shower is also provided (no picture), fairly small in itself, but encased in a room with enough room to disrobe and dress. My Arts Editor tells me that worked out quite well for her.
Here’s the comfortable bench on which I spent several hours catching up on my reading. (Just kidding. I never catch up.) For sleeping, this folds into a bed, which could comfortably contain two slim, intimate sleepers. There was also an upper bunk, although we declined the option, as neither of us wanted to stumble down the steps in the middle of the night.
The bench does not stretch across the entire width, but it was wide enough for me to sprawl comfortably.
On the south side of the room were two chairs, facing each other – although if one of the passengers has long legs, there may be a problem. In this picture, the two chairs have been folded into the sleeping configuration, once again with an upper bunk (not shown). In this way, it’s practical to have four or perhaps five travelers in this room – if two of them are fairly short.
This is another view of facing seats, daytime configuration.
And this is another view of the bench and the northern window, along with the shallow storage locker.
Finally, I mentioned Montana had a blizzard (or maybe it was just light snow). It made for this fun view on the southern window.
I’ll post a few more pictures over the next few days. If you’re wondering if we’d travel by train again, given that Deb couldn’t really sleep, probably not; but I wouldn’t mind it, since I rarely get to simply sit and read.
And no wi-fi service, which I perversely think of as a good thing. Some Amtrak trains have it.
