Seat 2A

January 26, 2013
Amtrak Portland - Havre 445p – 112p Empire Builder First Class

Boarding for train #28, the eastbound Empire Builder, was announced at 4:30pm. As I began to gather my belongings in the lounge, I overheard a woman ask her husband “Why is it called ‘The Empire Builder’?”

He didn’t know, but I do…

The Empire Builder is one of the most famous passenger trains in America. Originally operated by the Great Northern Railway, the Empire Builder commenced service in 1929 and soon became the railroad’s flag bearer. The train is named in honor of James J. Hill, the Great Northern’s president and founder. Hill reorganized several failing railroads into the Great Northern Railway and so himself became known as The Empire Builder.



The Empire Builder awaits

From the Northwest, there are actually two departures of this train – one from Portland and one from Seattle. Because the main portion of the Empire Builder departs from Seattle, this afternoon’s section out of Portland was a fairly small train comprised of a single Genesis I engine, a Superliner II Sightseer Lounge, two bi-level coaches and, at the rear of the train, my Superliner sleeper. The dining car and another four or five coaches and sleepers depart from Seattle at about the same time we do. Later this evening we’ll quite literally “hook-up” in Spokane and then continue as a much larger train all the way into Chicago.

All of the Car Attendants I’ve had on this trip have been excellent and my attendant for this ride, O.C. was no exception. Courteous, cheerful and ever helpful, he could have been the poster boy for Amtrak’s Sleeper Car Attendants. It’s not an easy job. Amtrak’s Bi-Level sleepers have 14 roomettes, 5 deluxe bedrooms, one handicapped room and one family room. Sleeper Car Attendants are responsible for greeting riders at all hours of the day or night, assisting them with their luggage, explaining their room functions and the layout of the train, serving drinks and meals in the rooms if requested, setting up an entire car worth of accommodations for nighttime occupancy and then returning those rooms to their daytime configuration in the morning – all this in addition to a variety of smaller tasks such as ensuring that the lavatories and shower are clean and stocked, delivering newspapers and having coffee and juice available in the mid-car service center. I honestly don’t know where these folks find the time to sleep, much less complete all of their various chores and still remain cheerful and efficient throughout. My hat’s off to all of them for they are worth their weight in gold plus any extra remuneration I may send their way at trip’s end.

As with the Coast Starlight, First Class passengers on the Empire Builder are welcomed with a split of California “Champagne”. Now unless you’ve been drinking heavily before boarding your train, the JJJ brand “Champagne” offered by Amtrak will never be confused with the Krug Grande Cuvee or Dom Perignon that welcome the fortunate few aboard the likes of Cathay Pacific or Singapore Airlines, but then we’re talking four or five hundred dollars for your ticket as opposed to four or five thousand. Triple J notwithstanding, I appreciated the gesture even if I’ve never yet been able to choke down a complete bottle of that stuff.



Welcome Aboard

Departure out of Portland was right on time and soon our little train was rolling smoothly across the many bridges that cross the Willamette and Columbia Rivers along with numerous wide sloughs. Twenty minutes later we pulled into Vancouver, Washington just as the sun was setting.



Leaving Portland



Evening sky and rails at Vancouver, Washington

From Vancouver, the Empire Builder rolls eastward along the banks of the mighty Columbia River. This is one of the prettiest portions of the journey, one that I’ve enjoyed many times on trips made during the summer and fall months. Unfortunately, this being winter, there was no longer enough daylight to be able to appreciate the scenic views.

Because this section of the Empire Builder doesn’t have a full service dining car until after it meets up with its other half in Spokane, First Class passengers are offered a choice of three cold dinners (Chicken, Beef or Salmon). These are prepared and packaged somewhere in Portland and are actually pretty good, not to mention filling. Last time I rolled out of here in a sleeper, I had the roast beef. This time I chose the Balsamic Chicken Breast. O.C. delivered it to me shortly after our departure from Vancouver.



Cold Chicken Dinner out of Portland

It’s worth noting here that the café up in the lounge car is open with its full menu available, including hot food. However, even First Class passengers have to pay for any food purchased there. I took my meal up to the lounge car and enjoyed it at one of the tables while watching the lights of Portland reflect off the Columbia River as we sped alongside it.

All of Amtrak’s long distance trains (as well as most of its shorter distance ones) now have electrical outlets at every seat. I was thankful that the refurbished Sightseer Lounge cars now also have outlets available at each table. I plugged in and put in some much needed work on this trip report.

I called it a night about a half hour before our arrival into Spokane. I was actually lying in bed reading Tom Clancy’s latest tome when we rolled into Spokane about twenty minutes early. Since we had to await the arrival of the Seattle section and then hook up with them, we were looking at a layover of almost two hours before we’d continue on. Smokers rejoiced while I read for another half hour or so until sleep overtook me.

I slept well, too – almost six straight hours. We were just preparing to leave Whitefish, Montana when I threw off my blanket, pulled on some pants and padded on down to the shower. We were now on Mountain Time, so I reset my watch before heading up to the diner. Normally sleeper cars are attached directly to one end of the diner but with the merging of both the Seattle and Portland sections in Spokane last night, somehow the diner ended up being the third car from the front, right behind a sleeper and the crew dorm. My sleeper was the very last car on the train so I had quite a walk for my breakfast. Once again, I was surprised to get a table to myself – especially being freshly showered and all – but then I did enjoy all that extra room to spread out the morning news.



Good Morning on the Eastbound Empire Builder

Shortly after leaving Whitefish, the Empire Builder begins its traverse of Glacier National Park. I have had the good fortune to have made this journey many times during the summer months and it is a very pretty section indeed. Unfortunately, my last three trips have been during the winter and early spring and in each case Old Man Winter has been out in full force with cloudy skies and blowing or falling snow. Today was bad enough that there really were no good photographic opportunities what with the mountains being obscured by the snow. Even so, it’s pretty neat being aboard a train whilst powering through nature’s tempest – warm and secure in your comfortable seat behind a big picture window through which to take it all in. Here are some pictures I took while rolling through Glacier Park on a marginally nicer day a couple of years ago.



Glacier Park scenery from the Empire Builder



Glacier Park scenery from the Empire Builder



Glacier Park scenery from the Empire Builder



Glacier Park scenery from the Empire Builder

Over the past three days, my crossings of the Sierras, Cascades and northern Rockies have all been through snow and fog, followed by sunshine and blue skies the moment we got out of the high country. Today was no different as we rolled through Browning and Cut Bank right on time. An early arrival in to Shelby gave the smokers cause to celebrate since normally they’d be required to go a full five and a half hours from Whitefish to Havre without so much as a single puff. I suspect that more than a few smokers have been unsuccessful in this endeavor since the crew made numerous announcements throughout the trip warning that anyone caught smoking would be put off the train at the very next stop. I sure am glad I quit back in 1990 before all the major restrictions came into being.



Train time at Shelby, Montana

My destination of Havre is only 105 miles and an hour and twenty-nine minutes down the tracks. Even a fourth grader could tell you that our average speed over that distance worked out to about 70 mph and it looked like we did every bit of that and maybe more as we went rockin’ and rollin’ down some of the roughest track in the west. It was bumpy, it was noisy and it was about as much fun as you could have while speeding across the vast expanse of eastern Montana’s high plains on a beautiful sunny day.

I spent most of the last hour enjoying the ride from a seat in the lounge car. I had a good chat with a couple of guys from Wisconsin who gave me some great tips on places to visit next time I do a road trip up through the U.P. or Upper Peninsula to those of you unfamiliar with the geography of northern Wisconsin and Michigan. I drove through there this past October and loved everything about it from the small towns to the vast forests and of course those big lakes. The people there were uniformly friendly and in many ways the lifestyle and even climate very similar to what we experience in rural Alaska. I look forward to my next visit.

Detraining at Havre, I took a moment to thank O.C. for a job well done. It’s nice to see people who take joy in their work and by extension spread that joy to others. Smile and the world smiles with you. O.C. epitomized this and though tipping is not required on Amtrak, I was happy to leave him with a ten spot. It’s interesting to note the number of people that don’t tip the employees on Amtrak. It’s not required and while I’ve neither seen nor heard of any protocol on gratuities, the effort that O.C. and many of his fellow employees have put into making my Amtrak experience as nice as it can be certainly seems worthy of a little extra “thanks”.

I then began the long trek past six or seven cars up to the entrance to the large brick station. It had snowed the night before and then begun to melt under today’s sunny skies so the entire walk was through slush and sand. I got the sense that Havre’s the kind of town where they’ll only come out and clear the walks if there’s a foot or more of snow. Until then, real men just gotta hoof it!

Once upon a time I had planned to hitchhike the 114 miles from Havre down to Great Falls and fly back home from there, but then I came across this great $76.00 airfare from Spokane down to Denver routing via Portland and Seattle. Sigh… guess I’m going to Spokane then…


January 27, 2013
Amtrak Havre - Spokane 305p – 140a Empire Builder Coach Class

Back in the 1980s, Amtrak used to offer a great deal called the All Aboard America Pass. The contiguous United States was divided into three sections and you could by a pass through any one or all of them for $125.00 per section. There was a period in 1984 where I spent the better part of a month and a half riding just about every long distance train in the Amtrak system, as well as many shorter routes. It was all about travel and seeing America and I accomplished that and then some. All of those trips were taken in Coach and I learned how to sleep quite comfortably atop two coach seats with the leg rests fully raised. I also became a lot more familiar than I would have liked with Amtrak’s café fare.

Over the years I reckon I bought at least a dozen All Aboard America passes, most of them in the western two thirds of the country. For the western zone, the easternmost town served on the Empire Builder route was Wolf Point, Montana. On those occasions where I had only a western zone pass, it made better sense to only go as far as Havre because the schedules were such that the eastbound Empire Builder arrived in Havre at about noon and the westbound train came through at about three. It was the perfect layover with plenty of time to head into town for lunch and even visit Havre’s famous underground mall.

The schedules haven’t changed much over the past thirty years. Per today’s schedule I had just under two hours in Havre before the westbound Empire Builder was due to arrive for my 510 mile ride back to Spokane. Thankfully the westbound Builder was running about an hour late – a good thing in that it allowed me that much more time to walk into town for a bite to eat.

I used to eat at a downtown café called the Iron Horse but where it was once located is now the Guadalajara Mexican Restaurant. Fair enough. Interestingly, I didn’t see any Mexicans either eating or working in this restaurant and, to some extent, the food reflected that. It was passable in a Swanson TV Dinner kind of way, but otherwise unremarkable.

Back at the train station, I took some time to check out the huge Baldwin S-2 Class “Northern” steam locomotive. It is a massive machine, weighing in at over 400,000 pounds. Combined with the oil tender attached behind, its overall length was about the same as a 737-200. This engine was on display through all of my visits to Havre in the 80s. It’s the last surviving unit of its type and though it’s looking pretty good it could really use a new coat of paint.



The Baldwin S-2 “Northern” at Havre, MT

Sitting at the approximate halfway point between Minneapolis and Seattle, Havre was founded primarily to be a service center for the Great Northern Railway. Up until the 1990s, the railroad was the primary employer in town and Havre remains a service center for the BNSF (Burlington Northern – Santa Fe) to this day. When train #8, the westbound Empire Builder arrived in town, it stopped about 100 yards short of the station to be refueled first.



Pulling up to the pumps at Havre, MT

Since we’d be arriving in Spokane at 1:30 in the morning, I booked this portion of the trip in Coach. I presented my ticket to the Conductor who directed me to board what appeared to be the “Local” car. I could see by the seat checks that everyone aboard was headed to places like Shelby, Browning, Whitefish and Spokane. This car was only about two thirds full when I boarded and since Amtrak rarely assigns seats unless the train is full, there were plenty of seats available and lots of room to stretch out.

We had an interesting mix of humanity in the car with quite a few oil workers from the Williston, North Dakota fields as well as Montana locals of all stripes. Behind me sat a group of old geezers who spent the first hour out of Havre complaining about everything from their various physical ailments to the car temperature to sitting too long between stops. Two young guys who looked like ranch hands were sat just a couple of rows up from me and a lady with three rambunctious young kids sat just ahead of them. The kids ran around a lot, the geezers complained and the oil guys traded bawdy tales of their life experiences working other fields. It was a lively ride!



High Plains Sunset outside of Shelby, MT

Shortly after sunset I made my way forward to the Sightseer Lounge car and bought a burger and a beer for dinner. I spent some time upstairs chatting with a couple from England who had purchased a rail pass and were just beginning their travels around America. They’d flown into Chicago and boarded the Empire Builder yesterday afternoon. They had an ambitious itinerary with visits to Vancouver, BC, San Francisco, Los Angeles and New Orleans planned. Rental cars were involved for travel around northern and southern California. I wished them well, especially with regards to weather which can be a bit dodgy around the West Coast in February.

It was 9:30pm when we rolled into Whitefish, Montana. We’d made up almost a half hour off our delay for which I was especially thankful. The sooner I can get into Spokane, the sooner I can get to bed. Whitefish serves Kalispell and Missoula as well as skiers from the Whitefish Mountain Ski Resort just north of town. As such, there was a big crowd of people waiting to board. According to the Amtrak route guide, Whitefish is the busiest station on the Empire Builder route between St. Paul and Seattle. The station itself is very attractive, built in the Tudor style back in 1927. It was added to the Register of Historic Places in 2002.

Amazingly, I didn’t acquire a seatmate out of Whitefish. With all that extra room around me, I managed to curl up and knock off a couple hours of sleep before we pulled into Spokane – ten minutes early!

I grabbed a cab and headed out to the airport where I set up camp for the night in a quiet hallway on the upper level. It was a lot warmer and quieter up there than down on the ground floor by baggage claim. The police stopped by to wake me up at about 7:30am. Not many people – hell, probably nobody – sleeps where I was located so the cops were just making sure I was actually flying out and not one of Spokane’s homeless population. They were very nice about it and said I was welcome to sleep in a bit longer if I liked but that it was going to get busy up there soon so I might want to move somewhere else.

I was booked on a flight departing Spokane at 10:40am but what the heck – given the time I might as well see if I can get on the 8:40 departure. As an MVP Gold75K with Alaska, I can change and confirm on to another flight on the day of departure, so I took advantage of that benefit and then made my way down to Alaska’s side of the terminal.