Thanks for all the tips. Does Amtrak not offer the kiosk check-in out on the west coast? That could be rather annoying and worth the $14 up-charge.
Timing wise I'm pretty much stuck with only getting to do the SEA-PDX run. The 22 hours to get all the way to SFO is too much for me at this point. I'll just have to deal with whatever views I get on that chunk of rail.
Thanks for the comments on northbound versus southbound. Looks like I'll probably end up on a Cascades train anyways based on the timings that are available and just go from there. But any significant delay is going to be a bad thing as I'm going to have a flight booked at the other end.