flyingeph12

The CX flight will go from 25K to 37.5K in J, and from 32.5K to 55K (!!) in F.

I share your sentiment regarding Vancouver. It is one of my favorite NA cities, and the CX flight makes for a perfect weekend getaway from NYC.

TheFlyingDoctor

Train 517 Amtrak Cascades
Dep VAC Vancouver, BC 17:35 27nd June 2015 (local time)
Arr SEA Seattle (King St. Station), WA 22:00 27nd June 2015 (local time)
Seat: 1A Coach: 1 (Business class)
1 Adult $29.35, 1 Business Class Seat $22 (as part of multi-city itinerary)




I’d made a scouting trip to Vancouver’s Amtrak / Via Rail terminus – Pacific Central – the day before departure, although other than confirming location and time needed from downtown, I hadn’t learnt much about the process of crossing the border by rail. Second time round, things were rather clearer. A central podium supplied customs forms, luggage tags (obligatory even for cases that would be stored in the carriage), and even some pens! A signpost set out the order of business, whilst later in proceedings there were helpful announcements from one of the baggage guys.





Boarding is due to start at 16:20, but a good fifteen minutes before that the queue starts to form, rapidly extending the full length of the tensa barrier maze set out. Confident of a business class lane, I decided to enjoy a seat instead, after dispensing of most of my last five canadian dollars on some outrageously priced chocolate ($3.65 for 95g – I can only imagine that there is some sort of Canadian dairy cartel at work, given that milk was super pricey too. Or it may just be that groceries are expensive in general - the only sensibly priced purchases I made in Vancouver were bananas and postcards).

Sure enough, there’s a dedicated lane with priority over coach class, with boarding starting at half 4 after a quick check that all queuing were indeed eligible. At the first stage I am issued a tag of Seat 1A, coach 1, plus a bistro voucher for the princely sum of $3. From there it was the usual round of on-your-toes questioning courtesy of US immigration. Vancouver was hosting the soccer world cup, and somehow England had made it to a semi-final versus Canada that evening, so there was some bafflement as to why I wasn’t at the stadium to cheer them on. Claiming to be an airline employee when you’re about to spend two days on trains is rather atypical too. Still, I made it through to the fingers, thumbs and face round, followed by approval of the customs form and stamping of my passport (with the wrong date of entry, and a to: date 15 months away rather than the 90 days you'd expect). Finally there was a swift x-ray of all my baggage - but not me or personal effects - before I'm granted access to the platform (where I'm invited to check luggage, but welcome to keep my case). Coach 1 turns out to be as far away as it can be, but that gives me a chance to check out the whole consist (after confirming some photos are allowed), and all told the process was less than 15 minutes anyway.





No sleeper cars here – it’s all fairly familiar from my European train travels (although much, much slower: in a comparable time in the UK we’d easily cover three times the distance, and on the continent, well, you’d simply have arrived before that much time elapsed). Seat 1A is the window seat of a forward facing airline pair, with no recline due to the bulkhead behind, but reassuringly close to the luggage store. As a solo traveller, I’d imagined I’d be in one of the singletons on the left hand of the carriage, but this way I guaranteed no staring match with an opposing passenger (only two of the singles allow that), and heading south the right hand is definitely the superior side for enjoying the view.





A few others join the service, and I resist the urge to intrude in their conversations as various travel-related naiveties are revealed! This would of course be deeply impolite, but just as when someone is struggling with an obvious crossword clue, occasionally hard to resist. Doors are sealed five minutes ahead of scheduled departure, and I’m pleased to find that the adjacent seat is vacant for at least the 2 hours to Bellingham.

We’re notified that this is both a non-smoking service, and that there are no smoke stops en route either; bizarrely, we are also requested to keep our shoes on throughout! Further details on customs are explained - we should expect that in an hour or so we’ll have no access to the restrooms or bistro when CBP officials board to collect the forms and check passports.

Departing three minutes early turns out to be a bit of a false start, grinding to a halt at van east for a good ten minutes. This seems to be a good time to investigate the bistro car, as others have already done so and filled the coach with hot food aromas. Sadly most of the options look a bit forlorn; I end up with a hotdog ($5) and bottle of water ($2.25). The former is apparently microwaved to nuclear reactor temperatures, but the latter is refreshingly cool, albeit the price (for barely over a pint) frustrates given water will be free on the Coast Starlight. Anyway, I'm no foodie and (alongside my stash of chocolate and after a hearty lunch at Granville market) this is sufficient fuel.





Views aren't much to start with, so the first thing of interest is actually a view obstruction - my first super-sized freight train. It takes me 30s or so to consider counting containers, despite which I hit 145 and begin to wonder if it's just a storage yard before we eventually overtake the engine. A little further along, we take another ten minute break as we wait for one to clear the Fraser bridge. It's our turn for that at half 6, and shortly thereafter the views really come to life - Mt Baker looms ever closer, and we start to hug the coast of boundary bay. Wifi starts working too, but I'll take the window, thanks.





Ten minutes from the border we get another reminder about the inspection, and this comes with graver news - all electronic devices must also be stashed away. I am not sure if this includes my camera, but err on the side of caution. This turned out to be a shame as we make our way through White rock - at little more than walking pace, and with heavy action on the horn, we get many a wave from the beach-goers we're passing. Feeling like a celebrity, or perhaps a touring royal, from my position so near the front I feel it's a duty to wave back to anyone who considers our passage exciting!

It became very clear when we finally gained an inspection team, as they boarded through my coach, after we'd pulled up to a stop besides a road crossing checkpoint. (I never quite get used to the fact that we can stop and let people aboard at places other than stations, as staff had also hopped on during our first impromptu halt). I learn we have 145 pax and 7 staff, and that the process is very efficient: a sweep through the carriage with some ghostbusters-like device; collection of forms; and a friendly acknowledgement of passport with news that we’ve won the soccer, 2:1.

With a flourish of the horn (and presumably just the 152 of us again) we cross the border into the United States in general and Washington state in particular. Half an hour of beautiful scenery breezes by, taking us to Bellingham a little behind schedule at 7:45. Business coach is opened here, but I don't gain a seatmate.

The views continue to captivate, as by now the sun is starting to sink and my right hand position means I'm viewing west out onto the coast. Sometimes that's very close, literally feet from the tracks; at others, we have rolling fields in green or yellow. Wherever we pass people, they seem to be enjoying one of those fantastic summer evenings that follows a too-hot day, when the warmth is fading but the light persists. I sit back to enjoy the whole thing, and attempt a photo or two along the way: it’s always tricky shooting through glass, and by now we're maintaining a good 50 or so miles an hour as further complication. Still, you get some idea:






Another half hour down the line we get a call for Mt Vernon, but as only coaches in, well, coach are scheduled to have their doors opened I assume I will continue to keep my seating space. With much work of the horn we pull in at 20:20, this time only for a minute - this is clearly not a big place, and we are soon back into sun-dappled farmland. I notice the absence of the clacking sounds of earlier, and instead the running sounds just like that on a 125 back home- reassuringly familiar when thousands of miles away. The whole process feels relaxed; sure, it's slow, but like the business flights I took, there's a lot to be said for not feeling herded or confined, and there's a definite sense of space here. Unhurried is probably the word I'm looking for.

Just shy of Stanwood we take a quarter hour stop to allow our northbound sister train to pass by, and I manage some more stable photos. We arrive some 25 minutes off schedule, with the business coaches opened up only for departures – with little left of our run, I doubt anyone would pay extra from here. With the approach to Everett being less striking, I make another visit to the bistro, dropping $5 on what turns out to be the last yoghurt parfait (way better than the hotdog).




By nine the sun is sinking off the horizon, but still underlighting clouds in oranges and purples – big skies, here! I get in a few pages of my book. Nobody seems to talk, so it’s just the rails and the horn for soundtrack. The artifacts of industries I don’t understand line the trackside I spot more enormous freight trains, double-stacked with containers, and bi-level ‘sounder’ cars on the way in to Everett. From there we rejoin a coastline with the last of the light, and another beautiful scene: a calm, blue body of water yellowed by sun, giving way to distant mountains. No people now, just Herons and driftwood.





Edmonds is a place I've never heard of, but like so many other stops, I wish I could revisit someday, perhaps spreading the cascades route across a week or so. As it is, we linger there only for a couple of minutes.

At 10pm, we’re advised that we’re ten minutes shy of Seattle, but it’ll be necessary to overshoot and reverse back, so we should hold tight. That manoeuvre takes us past the two sports arenas; at Century Field we get some final waves from onlookers.

We disembark 18 minutes late, and a few tracks over I spot some of the metallic equipment that springs to mind when I think of Amtrak, dwarfing our Cascade service in both length and height. But that is for tomorrow – already having my luggage and with no arrival formalities, I get a first look at King Street station before heading out into the night for my next hotel stop.

TheFlyingDoctor

Room Type: Standard Room
Nights: 1
35,000 IHG Rewards points

My accommodation for the night is the downtown Crowne Plaza – no great distance from King Street, but almost all of it is uphill, sometimes seemingly at 45 degrees. With a case and the heat, that takes me 20 minutes to negotiate.

I hadn't originally planned to stay here, having booked an interesting-looking airbnb space in a warehouse conversion near the station. Hotel prices for anywhere in the area – with such little time in Seattle, I didn’t want a long trek to and fro - had already been pushing a couple of hundred pounds - when I reserved that for the far more reasonable rate of £50 all in. However, for the first time in my (considerable) use of airbnb, I got cancelled on – only a week out, and just a day before I was departing for New York! Perhaps picking a host with only 2 pieces of feedback was a mistake - but everyone has to start out somehow. Airbnb were offering £55 in credit to stay with another of their hosts, but by this stage that wouldn't even get me and airbed in someone’s living room (literally: such a listing was £64; and I saw a room for over £400!) So it was back to the hotels, only to find a similar story. A quick google revealed why: my visit coincided with Pride weekend.

Points to the rescue then, and so it came to pass that this trip effectively drained the balance from my big win haul in 2013. Crowne plaza cash prices were in the hundreds, but just 35K points would see me covered for the night. With a 100% bonus on points purchases I did consider a 25K points, $40 version - especially as that would leave me with 25k points for a similar stay down the line. But post-Canada I was points rich and cash poor, so I go all in. Of course, this raises the eternal question about points value - I could have probably found something cheaper on airbnb, but a theme of this trip has been recognising the value of comfort and convenience. This way I was headed to familiar downtown, didn’t have to worry how the train times interacted with my host’s schedule, and could be sure of air conditioning and a decent bed!

I'd stayed at a Crowne Plaza only once before (on that points run) and their central gimmick seems to be offering the best night of sleep they can. An array of seven pillows were to be found on the bed, alongside a “sleep preparation kit”: a face/neck lotion, another for tired feet, and a spray to set the aroma environment too. A quick shower (in a lovely bathroom), application of the kit (that foot lotion was amazing, despite feeling like ultrasound gel), then ascertaining the comfiest pillow saw me off to sleep promptly, although I once again woke well before my alarm.

So, only a cursory visit - a shame, given how pleasant the room was - but it did what it needed to. Points well spent, I feel.

TheFlyingDoctor

Train 11 Coast Starlight
Dep SEA Seattle (King St. Station), WA 09:35 28th June 2015 (local time)
Arr LAX Los Angeles, CA , 21:00 29th June 2015 (local time)
First Class
1 Adult $89.65, 1 Superliner Roomette $459.00 (as part of multi-city itinerary)

With favourable topography and cooler temperatures, plus my freshly fortified feet, it’s only 15 minutes down to the station despite taking the time to linger at a favourite building and piece of street art from my previous trip to Seattle (I was pleased how well my sense of location had held up, it being five years since my last visit).

The rolling stock I’d spotted last night has since moved on, but a fresh set of coaches make an appearance at ten to nine – although that’s 45 minutes before scheduled departure, a queue inevitably takes form immediately. Passengers in anything other than coach get a dedicated lane, and those of us with sleeper accommodation are the first to board.




I quickly dropped off my case, then set off along the train to grab some shots of where I would turn out to spend a lot of my time: the Pacific Parlour Car. This vintage lounge car is exclusive to the Coast Starlight, and only available to sleeping car passengers. They serve a variety of functions – meals, coffee and bar service, internet access, activities, and there’s even a theatre on the lower deck – but the real draw is the large windows through which the slowly evolving view can be enjoyed from an assortment of seating areas.





Back in coach 30, it was time to take stock of my accommodation. I had a superliner roomette, the smallest and simplest of the possible rooms, although as a single occupant I had rather more space (albeit at considerable surcharge!). Mine was located on the upper level –offering direct access to the other coaches, but perhaps a bit noisier due to passing foot traffic – and on the left hand side relative to direction of travel, so my views would be predominantly to the east. Bathroom and shower facilities would be shared with any other roomette or family bedroom passengers, but that’s still a good ratio – I don’t recall ever having to wait. So, here’s what you get:





We depart with a jolt – but no whistle – exactly on time: 9:35. This sets off a series of announcements over the speaker system, from various parts of the train. In the sighseer lounge car, volunteers from the ‘trails and rails’ program would be offering an in-depth narrative as far as Portland. The dining car gave information on lunch and dinner reservations plus the seating arrangements. We learn of a closed car between lounge and dining, where there is to be strictly no loitering. In the sleeping cars, we hear from the pacific parlour car regarding light lunch options (salad with a roll, or ham & swiss cheese baguettes with kettle chips) and a wine tasting later this afternoon ($7.50, featuring two whites and a red). Finally, our sleeping car attendant introduces himself and points out that there’s coffee on the go and fruit to grab – anything not alcohol or tips is ours to take.

Covering all those underlines just how massive an undertaking this is, even compared to the longest of long haul flights; fascinating for an operations geek like me. Our double level train features two engines, a baggage car, seven coaches of sleepers or seats, a pair of lounges (including theatre and shop) and the dining car. Passengers will need food and entertainment for as much as 36 hours, potentially spanning five meals; and could be arriving or departing at any of 30 different stops. Much clearly will be choreographed behind the scenes, but the announcement system gave some connection to the ebb and flow of all this activity – whilst crew have access to a private intercom, to reach a distant colleague they’d often first have to page them over the PA, inviting them to meet ‘on IC’.

Washington
I linger in the room long enough to make a reservation for lunch (just the time; you select from the menu there), then make my way to a Parlour car swivel chair for some first views of Mt Rainier. We pass through Puyallup, where they appear to have rain, before making our first stop, Tacoma; a place that seems to have seen better days, and where it’s definitely raining. Maybe it’s the weather, or perhaps I’ve been spoilt by the Cascades yesterday, but I don’t find this section particularly inspiring, so I return to my room and book, although I do take note of the Tacoma Narrows bridges as we pass them.





At 11:15 we make a double stop for Olympia-Lacey, as it’s too small to fit all the cars! As such, we collect the sleeper passengers then pull forward for coach. A passenger joining for one of the rooms near mine resolves a question I’d been pondering – what happens if you join after the lunch reservations run? It turns out, you get whatever timeslot is left.

Half an hour later is Centralia- a brief stop, with no time to visit the platform unless you’re leaving (straying too far from the train and being left behind is a fear of mine!) However, I wouldn’t have time to look anyway, as I’ve been called to lunch.





Service in the dining car is at tables for four, and there is a system of “community seating”: to fit everyone in, they’ll make sure that each table has four diners. For those in smaller groups, then, you’ll be sharing with strangers – but having not had a conversation of more than few minutes in the last week, that’s fine by me! On this occasion, I have the lovely company of three young women on their way to Portland. As they’re American, much of our freewheeling conversation relates to differences between the US and UK, and how the familiar in one place becomes exciting across the pond (We’re just getting into pulled pork and kale; they are learning of quidditch; I refuse to believe that vinegar beer is a thing). There’s plenty of travel tips in both directions too – one of them has seen plenty of Europe that I haven’t!

We while away an hour and ten in this fashion, over what turns out to be hearty comfort food; I was too self-conscious to grab a photo of this one, but I’d opted for the chef’s marketplace special, “a crispy panko-crusted breast of chicken over a sweet onion sauce, served with garlic mashed potatoes”. That’ll damage you to the tune of $12 if you’re in coach – all meals are free for sleeper passengers – or 500 calories, if that’s your greater concern. Given that I’d be barely moving for a day and a half, my diet seemed worth considering, but the burgers run heavier and you’re never going to convince me of the merits of salad, so in practice I went for whatever sounded tastiest.

Since I was up and about, I took a look at the Sightseer lounge – this lounge is accessible for all passengers, but given I had the Parlour car, it seemed unfair to claim a space there that could be enjoyed by someone from coach. That also meant I saw the forbidden car – I don’t know if this is normally part of the dining consist, or they were just transporting it elsewhere.





By now the view, if not the weather, has improved somewhat as we follow a river through woodland. Near Vancouver (the American one), I’m surprised to see houseboats – I’d expect them in, say, Louisiana, but not this far north. Although they might fit with the kind of environmentally sound, off-the-grid living I can imagine appealing to some in the Cascades.

Vancouver is the last stop in Washington state, and we cross the Columbia into Oregon at 2pm, about forty minutes behind schedule.

MattS1974

It is always interesting to see the Pacific Northwest through others eyes. Thanks for the trip report and can't wait for the rest of it.

jacobitetraveller

wonderful report

thoroughly enjoying it

thanks

davidvc

Great report! Looking forward to the rest. Having lived in Seattle for a while, it's neat to see an outsider's perspective.

TheFlyingDoctor

Oregon
Our arrival in Portland at 14:30 marks the first stop where one can stretch their legs (and perhaps even smoke – the rules are unclear), although the advice is still to stay trainside, since departure is on the basis of “when we’re ready” rather than a fixed time. It’s surprisingly humid given the overcast conditions, so I settle for a few shots of our units and a Cascades train on the adjacent track (At one point I’d considered switching trains here, although I’m glad I stopped short at Seattle and thus got to complete the full run of the Coast Starlight).

We gain quite a few sleeper passengers, but they are in search of the dining car at first. The power went out for a bit, prompting apologies from the world-weary sounding café attendant. Perhaps as a result, our eventual departure from Portland is at 3pm, at which point a film starts in the parlour car’s downstairs theatre (the excellent Big Hero 6, although I decide to stick with the windows and company of fellow passengers).

The Parlour Car offers alternative evening meals, and after some deliberation – the main dining car strikes me as more sociable – I opt for that on the basis of a lamb shank offering (with a vegetarian alternative of mac and cheese). I seem to be quite far along the ordering queue, so the only possible time slot is 18:40; for the parlour car you do pre-order, and I’m the last to have the option of lamb.




We make our way to Salem through snapshots of American towns: wooden houses, often with boats; Oregon city; and unidentifiable agriculture – strawberries, perhaps? Salem is another stop purely for those joining / leaving. We receive a reminder about the strict liquour laws preventing consumption of your own carry-on, followed by a convenient reminder that they can nonetheless sell you some at the bar!





We haven’t been making as many non-station stops as the Cascades did; the first I notice is just past Salem, at Renard siding, where we meet the northbound Coast Starlight, train 14. We learn that all dining car reservations have now been taken, full to capacity with a waitlist in operation, so I wonder what their catering ratio is.





Like some scene from a small-town radio drama, there has been a series of PA announcements from Chris in the dining car, attempting to locate a Ms Roth, the owner of a wallet which has been turned in. Since she has not responded to a few calls, they were now seeking the individual who found it; presumably, then, there is no passenger list.





Another siding, Millersburg, to let train 508, the northbound Cascades, pass. That turns out to be a few minutes from Albany, where we arrive a little before 5pm. The station itself seems to be a freight yard, a reminder of how this dominates the US rail industry. Although cloudy, the sun seems to be trying harder to push through. Sure enough, a quarter of an hour down the line we have sunshine, and by Eugene (17:45), there’s both lovely weather and a spare swivel seat in the parlour car for me to enjoy our climb into the Cascades. The rolling views of close-by sun-dappled forests are lovely, but near-impossible to capture by camera- even more so, the occasional glimpses of lakes beyond.





The dining car is running delays of 15-20 minutes, no doubt as customers enjoy the scenery with their food, but in the Parlour Car all is to schedule so I move up for my meal. Here I dine alone, although that means I can offer a photographic retrospective; a good piece of lamb, but I was unconvinced by the mash. It turns out there were actually two other courses available; I declined the opening salad, but given dessert options of tiramisu (from Italy!), ice cream or a strawberry cheesecake, I couldn’t quite resist the latter. I also claimed another bottle of ice cold water to take to my room.





We’re advised that there’s no signal up here for phones or the parlour car wifi to reach the wider world, so it’s just the view – which continues to delight. Around 8pm I stretch my legs by walking the length of the train; coach seems dark and one car smells mostly of feet. Our slow, looping route takes us ever higher into forested mountains, but half an hour later the light is dropping off – ok for eyes, but my camera becomes an expensive paperweight.





We make a brief stop at Chemult, again just to trade passengers; by now the sun has sunk below the horizon, although still lends a tinge of red to scattered clouds.

The twelve hour mark passes with just 475 miles covered, an average of less than 40mph. Little to show for what is easily the most time I’ve spent on a train, and perhaps any mode of transport; both time and distance will triple before I’m done.

At 22:05 we reach Klamath Falls, having thus recovered all but five minutes of earlier delays. This marks the start of quiet time, with no use of the PA – in particular, there will be no call to breakfast, nor announcements of the overnight stops Dunsmuir (00:35), Redding (02:21) or Chico (03:50). This therefore seems a sensible time to request the transformation to sleeper mode:





After setting an alarm for a solid nine hours, and the surreal experience of getting undressed on public transport – I check the door several times – I turn in for the night, easily rocked to sleep by the sway of the train.


California, AM
I wake ahead of my alarm – and breakfast – around 6:20, the quality of the light through the window suggesting we’re now well into California. Indeed, once I crack the curtains I find we’ve just pulled up at Sacramento.





There has been a dramatic change to the view from my window – the gloom of late night mountainous woodland replaced with sun-soaked plains and parched looking hills, punctuated by the artificial green of agriculture. This may be my favourite aspect of the slow travel experience – whilst airplanes can speed you between very different environments, you are buffered from them by the airport terminal at each end, and should you be lucky enough to manage to sleep in flight, the consistency of clouds and sky mean little contrast when you awake. Here the overnight shift feels more immediate, all the more noticeable for the gradual evolution that occurs whilst awake.





After a lazy hour enjoying the view – plus my fastest shower ever (50mph) – I make my way to the dining car for breakfast. No reservation needed for this, but community seating is still in effect. I’m joined by a retired couple who, in one of those small world phenomena, are from Reading, England – practically the next town over from where I live. Breakfast is the only meal you don’t repeat on the Coast Starlight, so some hard decisions had to be made regarding the menu. But the scrambled eggs and biscuit ($7.50 / 540cal) with a side helping of three applewood smoked bacon rashers (+$3.75/90cal) seemed a good choice, even if it meant foregoing the French toast. (For the curious, the full menu is online; I don't know how often it varies but this is what I was choosing from).





We work our way along the shores of a series of bays – Grizzly, Suisun, San Pablo, San Francisco – with a mix of scenery both natural and urban as we tick off additional stops: Davis, Martinez, Emeryville, Oakland. In the latter we seem to be literally driving down the street on approach to Jack London Square station. This is an experience I’ve had in Canada too, but, like track-level access, seems utterly foreign after years on carefully segregated British rails. Whilst we have a few tram systems that share their route with roads, they’re nothing like the scale of this train (courtesy of google maps, here’s how it looks when freight is passing through Oakland).

Mid-morning my thoughts turn to a swifter form of travel, as I review my standby options for flight home from LAX tomorrow. BA has two services, and I’d prefer to be on the earlier of the two rather than wait six hours, particularly if that’s landside; but there’s also more chance of a club seat on the later flight. The good news is the waitlist is thinning out – I’m now 4th, rather than 11th when I last checked back in Vancouver – and whatever happens, there’s enough space to get home somehow in the next couple of days.





It’s somewhat overcast as we make our way through the wetlands of the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge, but the clouds have lifted when we reach San Jose at 10:15. This is a service stop, which makes for a pleasant – it’s not yet overly hot – opportunity to stretch legs and get a few lungsful of fresh air (or deliberately unfresh air, for the smokers). It takes fifteen minutes to collect new passengers and supplies, so I’m also able to grab some pictures of the equipment in rather better light than Seattle or Portland.





Some of our new arrivals include a group with crying children, scattered across a trio of roomettes instead of a family room. So once our attendant has taken lunch reservations – still full from breakfast, I opt for a 1pm slot – I return to the Parlour car, for sun-soaked views of increasingly parched landscapes. I’m definitely a long way from the pine and firs of Vancouver now!





There’s another call for a wine tasting session for sleeper car folks, plus announcement of an apparently new (and so far only on the Coast Starlight) feature for those in coach, a “just for you” menu that allows for at seat dining. Given the oversubscribed dining car last night, this will probably catch on.





Be it through industrial / freight use, or just the natural drift of urban centres of gravity, railroads don’t always travel through the most appealing parts of town, and our next stop, Salinas, is bordered by a large collection of tents and gear stashes of the presumably homeless. This is another fresh air stop, although a brief one to recover the five minutes we’ve slid off schedule. By now we’ve cleared a thousand miles, chewing through them at a leisurely 40 an hour.

For lunch I have just one companion, a Los Angelean civil servant from the libraries department, who booked a sleeper for the peace and space, despite only travelling from San Francisco (linked to the route by thruway bus to Emeryville). Like many I’ve met, she prefers the train to the plane, and is proud that an epic cross-country journey from Chicago once got her home faster, after a blizzard grounded flights for a few days. She also explains the six year drought that has afflicted this area, as we take bridges over rivers that no longer exist and pass strange parks which I realise are dried up lake beds. This makes the artificially green patches of farmed land all the more ridiculous!





California, PM
I took few notes and many photos as we made our way the hundred or so miles along the valley of the Salinas river, a testament to the striking landscapes slowly rolling by. The experience only improved once past the next stop – Paso Robles – as we climbed into and wove our way through the Santa Margarita Mountains. Many of us congregate in the Parlour car at 3pm for Horseshoe Curve, where in addition to the spectacular scenery, it’s possible to see both ends of the train at once. This also adds an impressive squiggle to my map of the journey!





25 minutes later we’re in the Palm Tree’d oasis of San Luis Obispo station, for a fresh air stop and a blast of vitamin D – google claims it’s only 24C, but after a day in an air-conditioned bubble, it hits like an oven. The opening act of another small drama plays out on the PA before going to IC, as a flurry of messages are exchanged in confusion over an unaccompanied minor. With the next stop, Santa Barbara, over 2.5 hours down the line, you want to depart with the right passengers!





Tiny snapshots of other people’s lives are possible through the train windows: a child being lead across the car park of a paediatric dentist, crying; homelessness; a police stop; workers, wavers, waiters. I’ve seen everything from launchpads to film sets, dried up rivers to crashing surf – having finally joined the edge of the Pacific a little past Santa Maria (where my phone briefly dies, breaking my map).

Despite the name, the Coast Starlight spends relatively little time on the coast, although this small stretch is spectacular, deep ocean blues contrasting the yellows and oranges of the land. Better still, my car attendant sees me taking pictures, and makes the offer I’ve been waiting for – to open the window on the car door. After hours of working through dirty glass, this is perfect – sightlines along the train, easier focus, true colours. All that plus a coastal breeze to enjoy to – so of course I only grab a few frames before another attendant I’ve never seen before appears to ask that I stop. Alas, I can’t quibble with the rules printed right in front of me, and even sealed in again I get some shots I’m happy with.





We briefly veer inland for Santa Barbara, the last fresh air stop, but I also get my 17:45 dinner call, so don’t venture out. This time our table is made up of three groups – myself, an old chap on a seriously circuitous itinerary who’s been visiting his son, and a grandmother and granddaughter pair. Conversation stays a bit lighter than usual – this is the first time in years I’ve dined with a child, so I am suddenly extremely conscious of my language – but we nonetheless chat for almost an hour. I also kept things light on the food front with the Vegetarian Pasta ($15.75 / 455 cal), which turns out to be a little too little.

We leave the coast for the final time at Ventura, and although there should still be some natural views before the sprawl of LA engulfs us, we’re very much in the final stretch now. All of the remaining stops are for passenger drop-off only, so we can depart them ahead of the published time. Since we’re 15 minutes ahead of schedule arriving into Oxnard at 18:50 – nothing special – that’s precisely what happens. We also get the last call at both the Parlour Car bar and the café.

Still, we have rolling agricultural land framed by hills on either side, rendered somewhat hazy as the sun begins to sink. In the distance lie the Santa Susanna mountains, into which we head after our next stop. That’s Simi Valley, where we pull in at 19:24, now 24 minutes ahead of schedule. The Parlour car closes, and five minutes later so does the café, and the rest of the sightseer car with it.

The sun is behind both us and the mountains as we make our way into suburbia (after some promising looking bouldering territory). My guidebook wasn’t joking about this being the land of the swimming pool – I count eight for eight in the first few backyards I see. I also start to spot the iconic water channels that so often find their way into films or TV – although I didn’t reach America until my mid 20’s, some of it feels instantly familiar from all the media I’ve consumed.

19:50 puts us in Van Nuys – amongst others, this is a stop for the Pacific Surfliner, and we pass one of those just outside the station. I couldn’t quite stretch to adding it to this trip, tempting though it was to do practically all of the west coast by rail in one go. But seeing one at San Diego’s beautiful station a few years ago planted one of the first seeds that flourished into this adventure, so I’ll definitely get to it one day.

Our penultimate stop, just 7 or 8 minutes later, is Bob Hope airport – apparently you have to be ready to exit promptly at that one! For those of us sticking it out to the terminus, we’re requested to wait at our seats until arrival, rather than pre-emptively head for the exits or even downstairs.
We arrive well ahead of schedule, at 20:22. This ride, clearly, was about the journey rather than the destination – LA being somewhere I just can’t get excited about. But our final stopping point has one last surprise – the station hall is a masterpiece, more place of worship than transport hub in tone.

view

Very interesting report, especially enjoying the train ride!

mike&co

Stunning report ^ definitely on my bucket list. Train journey looks fascinating

Seat 2A

A wonderful report, Doc - as nice a travelogue on Amtrak as I have read in a good long while. Be it photography or your fine prose, this report is totally First Class. ^^

BTW, next week I will be embarking on an 11 day repeat of my spring itinerary -

Chicago to Portland: Empire Builder
Portland to Los Angeles: Coast Starlight
Los Angeles to New Orleans: Sunset Limited
New Orleans to Chicago: City of New Orleans
Chicago to Los Angeles: Southwest Chief
Los Angeles to Eugene: Coast Starlight
Eugene to Seattle: Cascades

I look forward to a return to the Pacific Parlour Car, not to mention crossing the Rockies and Cascades in the winter.

worldtraveller73

Wow - what a beautiful trip report.

Its difficult to take photographs from a train. Somehow, you've nailed it beautifully.

You've almost got my house there in your photographs from White Rock at the start of your trip in Canada. It was probably me waving at you on one of the days that I've been down there and seen the evening service crawl by.

It's worth mentioning the other train tour in town (Vancouver). The Rocky Mountaineer Rail Tour. They are continuously advertising this in the local major newspapers for local residents - much more than cruise ships that visit Vancouver. Although starting about $2,000, it's at a slightly higher price point.

I have not done either Amtrak Cascades or Rocky Mountaineer but I've always been intrigued by the Rocky Mountaineer cars as they crawl through Whistler in the summer when i'm often at the lake.

kyden

I was born and raised in Vancouver and have never taken the Amtrak train to Seattle. Love your photos. Amtrak appears to be of a higher class than VIA rail, which I have taken across Canada. Thanks for sharing. I want to take a train trip soon.

davidvc

What excellent pictures! They show off some of America at its best. Looks like a great trip.

yerffej201

Absolutely stunning pics. Very nice!