I wake up at around 6:00, while we're still in northern California, and watch the scenery roll by from my bed for a while. Eventually, I put on some clothes and head for the dining car. Mount Shasta becomes visible while I'm eating, and stays visible for quite a while afterwards.
I go to the Pacific Parlour Car after breakfast. We stop in Klamath Falls, Oregon, at 8:43, which means the Coast Starlight is still running only 20 minutes late, and I know for sure that we've entered the first "new" state I'll pass through on this trip. I knew from reading various travelogues on the Internet that it's often running so late that Amtrak has a bus meeting the train at either Klamath Falls or Eugene to take passengers connecting to the Empire Builder either directly to Portland or to a point further west; in fact, several web pages advised spending the night in Seattle when connecting from the Starlight to the Builder. I decided I didn't have the money to do that, so I'm taking my chances, and it looks like things are working out so far.
While in Klamath Falls, the Parlour Car attendant brings up a stack of newspapers and puts them on the rack, saying, "The news is about five days old." But it really is today's Oregonian (that's right, no USA Today on Amtrak).
At one point during the morning, while using one of the restrooms in my sleeping car, I overhear a man having a discussion with the conductor. The Starlight is one of a few Amtrak trains that doesn't allow smoking anywhere on board, and this man is saying that he's a lawyer and will be filing a class-action suit against Amtrak for denying him his right to the pursuit of happiness. I think the conductor tells him to go ahead.
The train is 47 minutes late leaving Eugene, and then an hour and 2 minutes late leaving the next stop, Albany. I guess we've been going a little slower than we're scheduled for, for some reason. The train parallels Interstate 5 north of Albany, and I get a good look at Oregon's unique speed limit sign design, in which they drop the word "LIMIT" and print the number larger. "SPEED 65," say the signs on I-5.
The wine tasting in the Parlour Car begins after the train leaves Salem at 3:10. This wine tasting is slightly different than the one I participated in on Saturday. The Parlour Car attendant comes around with a bottle of water after each wine to wash everyone's glasses out; he also asks a trivia question after each wine, with the prize being a full bottle of the wine that was just tasted. I happen to know one of the questions (about the sister ship of the Titanic) because my office closed-captioned a TV-movie about it, but I keep quiet because I don't want to have to carry around a bottle of wine until I get to Chicago, and I didn't really like that particular wine anyway.
Mount Hood becomes visible at around 3:30. The weather is sunny but hazy.
Thanks to schedule padding, we're on schedule to be only about half an hour late into Portland, but then we come to a stop behind a freight train for about 20 minutes and continue the rest of the way into the station very slowly. The Starlight finally pulls in at 4:50, an hour and 10 minutes late and 10 minutes after the Empire Builder was supposed to depart. But it's still in the station, of course, waiting for the connecting passengers. I get off the Starlight, walk two tracks over to the Builder, and find Room 5 in the one sleeping car, "Connecticut," in the Portland section. There's a copy of the Idaho edition of the Spokane Statesman-Review sitting on one of the seats in the room, so I get to read a different set of comic strips.
The Builder departs at 5:13, making it 33 minutes late. After the stop across the river in Vancouver, Washington (another new state for me), the sleeping car attendant, Bill Jones, comes around to introduce himself to everyone. He tells just about everyone they look familiar and asks if they've been on this train before. I say no.
This half of the Builder has the lounge car, but no dining car (the section coming from Seattle has the dining car, but no lounge car), so sleeping car passengers get a cold box dinner served in our rooms, with a choice of beef, chicken, or fish. It turns out to be surprisingly good, with, in addition to the meat, some potato salad, coleslaw, fruit salad, lettuce leaves, tomato wedges, a dinner roll, cheese, crackers, a brownie, and a mysterious black olive. It's enough food that I opt to save the cheese and crackers and the brownie for later.
The train is running alongside the Columbia River, but my room is on the other side. I consider going to the lounge car to look at the scenery, but I figure they've probably got a movie playing in there, so I stay put and get some reading done.
After the Wishram stop, we're still running 33 minutes late, and I'm glad I saved the cheese and crackers because Bill hands out little bottles of red wine to everyone who wants one. I end up drinking the whole thing, and then I get off the train at Pasco to get some fresh air. We leave at 9:25, 28 minutes late.
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| Mount Shasta, made famous by soda pop. |
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| This was the view from my room while the Coast Starlight was stopped just south of Portland. Hmm, I don't see any of those roses Portland is famous for. |
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| Portland Union Station, which I'm sorry I didn't have enough time to go inside. The clock tower reads "UNION STATION" on two sides and "GO BY TRAIN" on the other two. |
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| Vancouver, Washington. This station has tracks on two sides; we're on the east side, with the line to Seattle on the west side. |
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| An inlet from the Columbia River, on the other side of Washington state highway 14 from the train tracks. |
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| That's right, I was so impressed by the dinner that I took this picture right before I started eating it. |
It was probably thanks to the wine, but I completely sleep through the train combining operation in Spokane. I wake up briefly as we make a brief stop in Sandpoint, Idaho; my handy-dandy travel alarm clock that I already set ahead to Mountain time says it's 4:05 A.M., but it's still really only 3:05, and the train is now only 18 minutes late. It's the first time I've seen Idaho, but it's dark, so I can't see much. Not even a single potato.
After I go back to sleep, I have what turns out to be my only train-related dream of the trip. I dream that the two sections of the train didn't combine in Spokane, but are operating with one section directly the following the other, except on double-track sections of the route, where they run alongside each other and dining car meals are being passed across from one section to the other. I know this is completely ridiculous; I can tell the train is longer now because the engine whistle isn't as loud as it was before. This is proven when I get up and go to breakfast, because there's now a dining car. Instead of the Coast Starlight's arrangement of locomotives-sleeping cars-Pacific Parlour car-dining car-lounge car-coaches, because the Empire Builder is two trains in one, it's now locomotives-Seattle sleeping cars-dining car-Seattle coaches-lounge car-Portland coaches-Portland sleeper. This means I have to walk ahead five cars to get to the dining car, and then five cars in the other direction to get back to my sleeping car, but at least I'm getting some exercise.
The first announcement of the morning is a reminder that the dining car has been open since 6:30 and an apology for not having a smoking coach on the train, combined with a promise to specifically announce which stops would be long enough for smoking purposes. After we leave Whitefish, Montana, at 7:58, 12 minutes late, Bill slides the morning newspaper under my door. It's the paper from Kalispell, Montana, the Daily Inter Lake, "Serving the Flathead Since 1888." There are two front-page advertisements, one for Denny's ("All-You-Can-Eat Fish Fry Fridays, $6.29") and one for Hooper's Garden Center ("We're Just East of Flathead River Bridge -- Coffee's On!").
I can't resist reading the newspaper, but I keep one eye on the scenery, since we're going through the mountains of Glacier National Park. Per what I understand is the usual practice, several people stand and wave at the train from the second-floor porch of the famous Isaak Walton Inn near the Essex stop, and downstairs, a man with a camera is taking pictures of the train.
After the East Glacier Park stop, the train leaves the mountains and enters the plains. At Cut Bank, a group of elementary school children gets on the train to travel to Shelby, which I later learn has been a regular near-the-end-of-the-school-year field trip for many, many years.
Havre is a service stop for the train, so I get off and look at the trackside attractions, an old Great Northern steam locomotive and a statue of a Mountie shaking hands with a U.S. Border Patrol agent. Several real-life U.S. Border Patrol agents are standing on the platform eyeing the goings-on with suspicion, but if they do end up capturing any terrorists who arrived in town on the Builder, they do so very quietly.
Thanks to schedule padding, the train leaves Havre on time, but is then a few minutes late again by the next stop, Malta, and falls further behind going very slowly past some stopped freight trains. By Stanley, North Dakota, it's 53 minutes late. Meanwhile, the big excitement on the train is that the Builder will cross into the Central time zone during dinner, but the dining car steward specifically announces that the dining car will operate on Mountain time for the duration of dinner. So my 6:30 reservation would have been called an hour late if I'd reset my watch at the right time.
I get another bottle of wine from Bill after dinner, but decide not to drink it tonight. Minot is another servicing stop, so I step off the train, but it's less interesting than Havre, and it doesn't help that it's dark. There's a big sign on the door to the station reading "NO CHECKED BAGGAGE SERVICE. NO PACKAGE EXPRESS SERVICE." It's another example of recent Amtrak cutbacks. Also, on the platform, I overhear one conductor say to the another something about "BNSF all the way to Chicago." The meaning of this will not become clear until tomorrow.
| Mountains in Montana. I don't know, the sky in this state doesn't look that big to me. |
| Glacier Park Lodge. |
| This train station is listed as "East Glacier Park" in the timetable, but the sign on it just says "Glacier Park." The Empire Builder only stops here from April until October. Also, those green benches look just like a certain model of plastic bench I've seen on model railroads. |
| The Empire Builder stopped for servicing at Havre, Montana, just as it's done for over 80 years. My car is at the far left. Havre is not pronounced the same way as Brett Favre's last name. It's pronounced "have-er." |
| Great Northern steam locomotive on display at Havre. |
| (Left to right) Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman, U.S. Border Patrol agent. I briefly try to figure out whether Havre is closer to the Canadian border than Dearborn, Michigan, is, and then vow to visit Canada at some point in my life. |
| The plains of Montana, which were mostly yellow and brown like this the whole way, and U.S. 2, which was mostly gray with yellow and white stripes the whole way. Those are blurry speed limit signs in the foreground. First Montana didn't have a daytime speed limit, then they did because of Federal law, then the Federal law was repealed and the speed limit went away again, but now they have one again. The first sign says "SPEED LIMIT 70/NIGHT 65," and the second says "TRUCK LIMIT 60/NIGHT 55." |
| Saco, Montana, representing one of many small towns that the train went through without stopping. |