October 14, 2004
Amtrak’s Coast Starlight
Seattle, WA to Santa Barbara, CA.
First Class Standard Bedroom
Car 1132 Room 11

Pictures from along the route of the Coast Starlight can be seen HERE

After parking my truck at one of the discount airport parking areas, I caught the 194 Express bus from the airport into downtown Seattle. Alighting at the International District stop, I then walked two blocks down Jackson St. to the King Street Station.

Once upon a time, Seattle’s King Street Station was as busy as it was grand. The same architects who created New York’s magnificent Grand Central Station designed the King Street Station. On the walls are some archived photos showing what the station used to look like in its heyday. It was constructed of brick and granite from the quarries at Index, WA. The interior of the building was white marble, and ornate plaster decorated the ceiling. Most of the floors were terrazzo and mosaic tiling, forming borders and dramatic designs. The building's most notable feature, the clock tower, was designed to mimic the bell tower at St. Mark's Church in Venice, Italy. The King Street Station truly looked like and indeed was a place where great rail journeys began. The Empire Builder, The North Coast Limited, The Western Star – they all departed from the King Street Station.

Sadly, the decline in the nation’s passenger rail traffic has been mirrored in the once grand central waiting room. The once high ornate ceiling is now hidden behind and above dingy looking particleboard ceiling tiles. The beautiful walls have been covered with what looks to be a basic dry wall. In short, what’s left of the original waiting room now has less ambience than many bus stations.

Apparently there are plans to restore the old station to its former glory, but I’d also heard this two years ago and as yet little if anything has been done.

Boarding commenced about fifteen minutes before our scheduled 10:00am departure. As always, I was a good twenty to thirty years younger than most of my fellow First Class passengers, many of whom grew up in an age when trains were still the best and most affordable means of getting around America. As they dottered their way down memory lane to their sleeper cars, I couldn’t help but wonder if I’ll still be doing Mileage Runs and trips like this when I’m sixty five years old. I hope so.

Due to a fairly light load, today’s Coast Starlight was only ten cars long. I remember once riding it in the summer when it was eighteen cars long! Today consist started with two big General Electric Genesis Model P42DC locomotives pulling a baggage car, a transition sleeper (For the crew and some passengers), three Superliner II Sleeper Cars, a dining car, the Sightseer Lounge Car and three Superliner coaches. With each locomotive generating the power of 4,250 horses, we certainly weren’t short on power.

Strikingly obvious by its absence was the First Class lounge known as the Pacific Parlour Car. Although all of Amtrak’s long distance trains offer a communal lounge car open to all passengers, only the Coast Starlight offers a dedicated First Class lounge car in addition to the regular lounge. It’s quite a nice lounge too, sporting ten large overstuffed swivel chairs, a stand up bar, a buffet area with cocktail lounge type seating and a downstairs movie theater. Apparently, this train’s Pacific Parlour Car had developed a problem with one of its wheels and so was taken out of service for repairs. Ah well, I’ll just pretend I’m on the Empire Builder and hope that the Pacific Parlour Car is included on my northbound train.

Amtrak names its sleeper cars after states. Mine was named “Michigan” and was attended to by a friendly little guy named Santiago. After showing me to my standard room, he was immediately hailed by an elderly couple who needed real assistance in getting up the stairway to their rooms on the main level. Soon after that, he was explaining to another couple where the showers were and what time he’d be turning the beds down. Santiago was a busy man.

As for me, I busied myself in getting settled in for the thirty-three hour journey down to Santa Barbara. There were books and toiletries to find a place for, a battery recharger to plug in, a shirt to hang and of course beers to chill. A full container of ice was located just at the top of the stairs and before long I had converted my garbage receptacle into a makeshift cooler with four cans of Tecate sitting nicely on ice.

The next item of business was a shower. Although we hadn’t yet left the station, Santiago assured me that there would be no problem in using the shower right away. The shower had decent water pressure and fifteen minutes later I emerged feeling much better and ready for a trip up to the big Sightseer Lounge Car.

We’d pulled out of the station while I was showering and as I walked back towards the lounge car, Boeing Field started to come into view. There were plenty of seats open in the lounge car so I grabbed a cup of coffee and settled in for a look at the airplanes. Somewhere out there is one of the six British Airways Concordes, though I never did see it. I did however note one of the ex-TWA 767-200s now in the drab gray colors of Airborne Express. These are, I believe, the only 767-200 freighters in the world.

We began to pick up speed as we continued south through the suburbs. South of Tacoma, at a point where the Interstate parallels the train tracks, we were making better time than any of the cars beside us. The posted speed limit on Washington’s interstate highways is 70 mph.

Before long, it was near noon and the first call for lunch went out over the train’s PA system. I was having a good time chatting with a fellow railfan about some of the lesser known passenger trains that used to serve the West and so decided to wait awhile on lunch. Everyone’s heard of the California Zephyr or the Super Chief. Anyone ever hear of the Portland Rose? The Colorado Eagle? The Aksarben Zephyr?

At about 1:00pm I decided to check out the luncheon offerings. After all, meals are complimentary for Amtrak’s First Class passengers. Despite our light load, I was surprised to find the dining car almost empty. People were being put on a waiting list just a half-hour before, Here’s the menu:


LUNCHEON

Angus Beef Burger
Served on a soft bakery bun, with or without cheese, and lettuce, tomato, red onion slice, chips, pickle spear and coleslaw. Bacon may be added by request

Grilled Chicken Sandwich
Tender boneless grilled chicken breast served on a soft bakery bun, with or without cheese, and lettuce, tomato, red onion slice, chips, pickle spear and coleslaw. Bacon may be added by request

Gardenburger
The delicious meatless alternative. Served on a soft bakery bun, with or without cheese, and lettuce, tomato, red onion slice, chips, pickle spear and coleslaw

Southwestern Quiche
Quiche with pinto beans, onion, jalapeno peppers, red and green peppers, cheese, roasted tomatoes and seasonings. Served with a tossed salad and dinner roll

Tuna Salad & Swiss Sandwich
Albacore tuna salad and Swiss cheese on wheat bread topped with lettuce and tomato. Accompanied by chips, pickle spear and coleslaw

Hot Pizza
Freshly baked individual pizza, plain or with pepperoni. Served with a tossed salad

Field Green Salad
A bountiful bed of field greens with sliced tomato, ripe olive relish, green olives, white asparagus spears, hard cooked egg wedges, toasted croutons and a dinner roll. Also available with herb crusted halibut fillet




So many choices… After verifying that the grilled chicken sandwich was still apparently made from undersized Guinea Hens, I opted to go with that old American standby, the hamburger. In terms of quality and quantity, the Angus Beef Burger may be the best deal on Amtrak’s luncheon menu. I ordered mine with bacon and was served an almost half pound burger presented with all the usual trimmings. Dessert would have to be enjoyed another day.

We crossed the Columbia River and eased into Portland’s Union Station at 2:10pm – only five minutes off schedule. Since no smoking is allowed anywhere onboard the Coast Starlight, those folks that did smoke wasted little time in quickly scrambling off the train to attend to their addictions. Thankfully, I quit smoking back when it was still legal to smoke on most planes and trains, as well as restaurants, bars and office buildings. It’s getting pretty difficult to be a smoker these days, but then perhaps that’s part of the plan.

Portland’s Union Station is a grand old red brick building that’s in considerably better condition than Seattle’s King Street Station. I went in and made a couple of telephone calls, bought a newspaper and then headed back out to the train.

A few years ago, while riding the Desert Wind between Los Angeles and Denver, I decided to take advantage of the longer station stop in Las Vegas to head into the station and buy a six pack of beer. Although we were just a few minutes behind schedule, Las Vegas was a service stop where garbage was emptied, ice and food restocked, etc. The schedule indicated a fifteen minute stop to accomplish these things. At that time, the Las Vegas train station was located in the Union Plaza Hotel, and just off the hotel lobby was a small liquor store. The idea here was to save money. With another twenty-six hours of train travel ahead of me, I’d require at least four to six beers, Why pay $4.00 per beer plus tip when I could just buy a six pack for so much less? The potential savings were too good to ignore and so I bought a six pack of Sam Adams for about $8.00. With a few minutes still to spare, I decided it’d be a good idea to pick up some ice because I can’t abide warm beer. An ice machine was located up on the second floor of the hotel and once I’d filled up my small plastic shopping bag, I headed back down to the train.

By my reckoning, I arrived back at the station with about three minutes to spare. Imagine then my surprise and dismay when I walked out onto the platform to see the end of the train heading down the tracks about one hundred yards away. The big steel mesh gate leading to the tracks was closed and locked, so any fantasies I had of dramatically chasing down the train with my bag of beer were quickly squelched. It was later explained to me that because the train was running behind schedule, the normal fifteen-minute service stop was accelerated a bit. Fair enough. I’d gambled and lost. Both my backpack and my daypack were onboard the train as well, but on a positive note I did have that bag of ice cold Sam Adams with me.

Beer or no beer, I’ve never been one to panic in these kinds of situations. Things are as they are and they only way out is to move forward. Calmly. There had to be a way to catch up with that train somewhere between Vegas and Denver. I had twenty-six hours.

From Las Vegas, the Desert Wind headed northeast up to Salt Lake City, arriving at about 5:00am. I quickly discovered that I wouldn’t be able to use Greyhound to catch it anywhere in between because the train did not parallel the highway but rather took the rural route – out in the middle of the desert. Next I started looking into flying to Denver on one of those air-only specials offered by the package tour companies when I stumbled across Morris Air’s ad in the Yellow Pages. Morris Air was a Salt Lake City based discount carrier. I’d totally forgotten about them! Ten minutes later, I was booked on Morris Air’s 10:00pm nonstop to Salt Lake. Total cost: $49.00.

A shuttle van to Las Vegas’ McCarran Airport only cost me about $5.00. However, because my flight didn’t arrive in Salt Lake City until a little after midnight, there were no scheduled bus or van services offered downtown. As a result, I had to shell out about $20.00 for a taxi. Then, because the train didn’t arrive until 5:00am and the station was closed until about 4:30, I spent about three hours and another $7.00 hanging out in a nearby Denny’s on South Temple Street.

Now let’s do the math.

Had I bought six premium beers on the train and tipped accordingly, I would have paid about $25.00.

Instead, in an effort to save money, I paid the following amounts for my six pack:

 Six Pack of Sam Adams: $8.00
 Shuttle to the Airport: $5.00
 Flight from LAS to SLC: $49.00
 Taxi to downtown SLC: $20.00
 Hanging out in Denny’s: $7.00
 The Overall Experience: Priceless

At $89.00, that six-pack of Sam Adams remains by far the most expensive beer purchase I have ever made.

Upon re-boarding the train, my daypack was still on my seat, right where I’d left it. Interestingly, when I recounted the story of my little adventure to the car attendant, he said they’d never known I was missing. The daypack on my seat notwithstanding, he’d just figured I was hanging out in the lounge car.

In any event, I am now careful to be back onboard or at least trackside at least five minutes before our announced departure. As for beer, I now buy that in advance of the journey.