Greetings, one and all! I mentioned in my last travelogue that I would be writing a travelogue about the first time I ever took a train. The events from that day have somewhat faded into memory since it has been over a year since that first trip. I will try to recall the events as best as I can, but I am only human. :- )
With that being said, here is the travelogue from my first Amtrak trip.
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AMTRAK CASCADES TRAIN 500 – SALEM, OR TO SEATTLE, WAFriday, 6:00 AM (Pacific Standard Time), 11/12/10, Salem, OregonI have been a train enthusiast since childhood, so you might think that I would be excited for my first journey on the rails. However, the purpose of this trip is not a happy one. My sister and I are on our way to attend my Grandmother’s funeral. She passed away at home, 4 days after her 65th Birthday. The plan is for my sister and I to ride the train to Seattle, Washington, arriving at Noon; take a taxi over to the Colman Docks and then take a ferry over to Bremerton, where my grandparents live. We will then meet my uncle and go see the rest of the family. Soon, we find out that these plans are for naught. When riding an Amtrak train, it is best not to plan to adhere to a strictly set time schedule.
It is a cold November morning here at the Amtrak Station on 13th Street in Salem, OR. My sister and I are about to board Amtrak Cascades route 500 to Seattle. Neither of us has ever taken a train before, and although neither of us is thrilled about the circumstances it is still kind of exciting to ride the train! After leaving home at about 5:30 AM (after having been up since 3), we arrive at the Salem Amtrak station just a few minutes before the station opens at 6:00 AM. After the station is opened for the day, we promptly went inside. There were quite a few of us waiting to get into the station; there are maybe 20 people, with most of them taking the train and a few people there just for a send-off. Upon trying to print our tickets via the Quik-Trak Ticket Kiosk, I find that the machine is out of order. I then went over and spoke with the station agent (who was rather discourteous and snide), explained the situation about the Quik-Trak machine and requested to have her print our tickets for the approaching journey. Irritated, the station agent went over to the kiosk, slapped a hand-written “Out of Order” sign on it, came back to the desk and reluctantly took care of my request. After tagging and weighing our baggage, we are ready for travel!
Friday, 6:45 AM (PST), 11/12/10, Salem, OregonAs I have come to find out from my other trips on Amtrak, trains are rarely exactly on time. This is the case today; we are all on the platform for the scheduled arrival time of 6:42 AM when we are told that the train is running a few minutes late. Fortunately, it really is only a few minutes. The train arrives at 6:47 AM. The conductor meets us at the door to our car, checks our tickets and identification, and instructs us on how to get to our seats. Little did we know that these would be our seats until 6:00 PM that evening, nearly 12 hours later! The train does not stop for very long at the Salem station; after making its 6:47 stop we are under way one minute later at 6:48. After taking our seats in our coach car, we began to experience some of the thrill of riding the rails for the first time!
Although the sun is beginning to come up, it still appears to be quite cold outside. We speed past the towns that dot the I-5 Corridor along our route as it meanders in a northerly fashion to Portland. Along the way we make a stop at Oregon City. To people outside of Oregon, Oregon City is known as the end of the world-famous Oregon Trail. To most Oregonians, it is known simply as a suburb to the much larger Portland. We stop here at 7:31, about 7 minutes behind the scheduled arrival time of 7:24. We sit in this station for what seems to be less than thirty seconds, as no one is apparently boarding or detraining here today. As we continue towards Portland, it is quite clear that the train is making excellent time. We have yet to be pulled into any sidings by dispatchers, and there have been no other trains to pass us on the adjacent tracks. I estimate that we will arrive into Portland ahead of schedule; this estimate turns out to be correct as we glide into Portland’s historic Union Station, 9 minutes before the scheduled arrival time of 8:05 AM. It would appear that there is quite a bit of padding built into the schedule between Salem and Portland!
Friday, 8:15 AM (Pacific Time), 11/12/10, Portland, OregonWith an extended layover in Portland, my sister and I take advantage of the time by going to the Bistro Car to get some breakfast. On most long distance Amtrak trains, the Bistro Car is normally referred to as the Café/Lounge car. I’m not sure why it is referred to as the Bistro Car on this particular route; perhaps it is simply because this is not a long distance train. The corridor in which the Cascades trains all operate is only 466 miles long between Vancouver, BC and Eugene, Oregon and the trip takes just 10 hours. Perhaps this is why Amtrak has not labeled it as a Café Car. We are greeted in the Café Car by the attendant, a hearty fellow with a red goatee named Jeff. We exchange a few pleasantries with Jeff as we wait for our food.
As we waited for our food, I barely noticed a tip jar at the far end of the counter. I get the feeling that Jeff purposely put the tip jar in an out of the way place so that it was not noticed, an act that speaks volumes about the character of our cheerful car attendant. When the service is as good as Jeff provided, I have no problem leaving a robust tip! After receiving our food, I make sure to leave a few dollars in the inconspicuous and almost unnoticeable tip jar for Jeff as we return to our seats. Just about the time we finished our breakfast, the conductor announces that we are underway and that our next stop is a short jaunt across the river in Vancouver, Washington.
We arrive in Vancouver right on time at 8:45 AM, and continue on our way to the next stop, Kelso, Washington. We arrive at Kelso at 9:36 about 16 minutes late, and sit at this stop for several minutes for no apparent reason. No announcement is made regarding why we are stopped, and nobody seems to have an idea of what could be causing the delay. Right about the same time I notice some train inspectors from Burlington Northern walking past outside our car, a voice comes over the train’s PA system. It is the voice of Duncan White, the Conductor for our trip to Seattle. Duncan explains that the engineer running the train was experiencing a loss of air pressure in his brake system. Officials from Burlington Northern were walking the train to check hoses and try to locate the source of the problem. Little did we know that the announcement Duncan made was going to be the most detailed and informative notice us passengers would get all day.
Friday, 9:45 AM (Pacific Time), 11/12/10, Kelso-Longview, WashingtonAfter the brake check, we are cleared by the Burlington Northern crew to continue on our journey. We go along at a steady pace for a bit as we clear the freight yards of Kelso and make our way back out onto the BNSF mainline. We go at a quick clip for the next several miles. It is then that I start to notice a substantial amount of slowing in our speed. Just as many of the other passengers are finally starting to pick up on this decrease of speed, we glide to a stop. We are stopped here for maybe 5 minutes, and then continue on at a very slow speed, maybe 30 miles per hour. After less than two minutes, the train once again comes to a stop. At this point we begin to back up, going about the same speed of 30 or so miles an hour. The reason for this is that the train is being pulled onto a siding, or an adjacent track to the mainline. It is here that we will sit for the next 8 hours right outside the city of Vader, Washington, which is about halfway between Kelso-Longview and Centralia, Washington.
Friday, 1:15 PM (Pacific Time), 11/12/10, Vader, WashingtonWe’ve officially been stranded in the same location for 3 hours now. Conductor Duncan made an announcement right after we pulled into the siding that we had lost all pressure in our air braking system and that the brakes were not able to be applied when the train was in this condition. That assessment seems quite silly to me as we were able to go forward, stop, back up and stop again to get into our current position. Either way, the engineer called for a Burlington Northern crew including a mechanic in from Portland, an hour and a half drive from where we are at currently. The work crew showed up at about 12:30 and has been working since then. At least, we have to assume that they have been working, because there have been no further on board announcements.
Around 11 o’clock, I supposed that the Bistro Car would eventually run out of supplies since we were stranded. I saw many people going back and forth to the Bistro Car, and I figured that if my sister and I wanted something for lunch, now would be the time to get it. I am glad we went when we did, because not long after that Jeff came across the PA System to let us know that the Bistro Car was out of supplies and that he had nothing left to sell his passengers in the way of food. He did mention to us that he had plenty of Amtrak souvenir items left to sell, but advised us that they would not make the tastiest of meals. Boy, does this guy have a sense of humor! I imagine that if more passengers weren’t irritated with the situation, they would have found the situation quite comical.
Speaking of comical situations, there is always much to be said about the people who are travelling around you. A young gentleman named Huey was sitting across from my sister and I. When he boarded the train in Portland he had been quite talkative, but had since gone to a back and forth position of being on his cell phone and listening to an iPod. Across the aisle from us, the situations were no less comical. Seated next to each other were an older lady (whom I believe was named Mary) and two college students. One of the college students seemed like he must have been exhausted, because I only ever saw him leave his seat to use the restroom or to go to the Bistro Car. Otherwise, he slept quite soundly in his seat.
The other college student in the seat next to the sleepy passenger deserves a paragraph all of his own. This young man was quite honestly the most entertaining thing happening on board the train for the first few hours of our marooning. Although he was asleep until Kelso, once he awoke he was nothing but entertainment for us. I don’t particularly find public displays of foul language to be something that is appropriate, especially in the company of those who are older than you. Apparently, this young gent never got that memo! From the time he awoke in Kelso, he was on his cell phone. I’m not sure who he was talking to, but every other word out of his mouth was the “F” word. Normally in these kinds of situations, the Conductor would be told and the person would be put off the train. In this case, however, it didn’t matter much; it’s not like he’d be going anywhere any faster than the rest of us! Overall the entire scene grew less funny and became wearier as the day progressed.
Friday, 3:15 PM (Pacific Time), 11/12/10, Vader, WashingtonWe’ve been stranded at the same spot just outside of Vader for just over five hours now at this point when an announcement comes across the intercom: They’re sending busses from Portland to ship us to Seattle and all intermediate points! This is the good news. The bad news? They have just now ordered those busses, and they have to come all the way from Portland. Best case scenario, they will arrive at 5 PM. During all this, the Conductor attempts to take a head count. We have one of two options: We can either take the chartered busses to Seattle and all intermediate points; OR, we can stay onboard the Amtrak Cascades in its current position until the northbound Coast Starlight arrives, around 6 PM. My sister and I make a quick decision to wait for the northbound Starlight. It seems as if many people are taking the busses, and at this point we won’t mind an hour wait on an emptier train.
Friday, 6:30 PM (Pacific Time), 11/12/10, Vader, WashingtonThe charter busses from Portland arrived at around 4:45 PM. Since it is November, it was completely dark outside by this point in time. The busses leave at about 5:15, once it is confirmed that everyone who wants to take the busses is on them and those of us that are left want to wait it out for the Coast Starlight to show up. Thankfully, the Coast Starlight shows up right at the quoted time of 6:15 PM. It stops directly aligned next to us on the adjacent track. We all grab our baggage and step off the Cascades and onto the Coast Starlight. Since it is early November and the train is usually pretty empty this time of year, the Car Attendant puts us upstairs into a roomette. I am seated in a roomette with Huey on the west side of the train, and my sister is seated in a roomette across the hall from us with a young college girl named Taylor. We are all thankful to be on a train that is moving!
Friday, 7:15 PM (Pacific Time), 11/12/10, Centralia, WashingtonWe have been quoted an arrival time of 9 PM into Seattle’s Union Station. Unfortunately, we are pulled into a siding by the BNSF dispatcher and told to wait until a southbound freighter has passed us. All in all, we waited almost 25 minutes until this freighter finally passed, and started moving again at 7:40 PM. We manage to lose some more time between Centralia and Seattle.
Friday, 9:45 PM (Pacific Time), 11/12/10, Seattle, WashingtonAfter this harrowing and exhausting day, the Coast Starlight glides us into Seattle at 9:45 PM - Nearly 10 hours after our scheduled arrival time of Noon, and merely an hour late from their own scheduled arrival time of 8:45 PM. For a train going from Los Angeles to Seattle in the course of a day and a half, an hour late isn’t bad! Completely exhausted, my sister and I are both fed up with Amtrak and emotionally drained at the further stress of this trip -- not counting the stress of the original reason for the trip -- remember, this trip was for my grandmother’s funeral to begin with…not really an avenue for relaxation! That being said, my sister and I opt to just go straight to the Washington State Ferry terminal at Colman Dock and decide to not even deal with Amtrak’s Customer Relations Department. Being a person who gets somewhat hot under the collar when I’m irritated and under stress, I figured this would be the better option.
I didn’t expect to get any of the cost of my trip refunded by Amtrak, and in that instance I turned out to be right. I heard a person being turned away by an Amtrak employee with the explanation, “It’s not our fault; we don’t have to guarantee an on-time connection.” This person obviously missed a connecting train, and Amtrak should be at fault for that despite whether or not the person was connecting with a train that is a guaranteed connection. Normally I would side with Amtrak on this, since the Cascades is not a guaranteed connection train; however, under the special circumstances of this trip I think Amtrak should have made the concession of refunding some of the passengers’ money.
My sister is quite disappointed with the events of this trip. It would turn out to be her only trip to Seattle, a city she loves dearly. I had hoped to show her around the city a little bit, but arriving 10 hours late doesn’t afford many opportunities for sightseeing. We had originally decided to take our first taxi ride ever in Seattle, but by the time we got to the station neither of us had the energy or patience to deal with more public transportation. Being a Friday night in Seattle, it was quite busy; however, this did not hamper us in our decision to walk from King Street Station to the Ferry Terminal. It is about a one half mile walk, and we did it in just under 15 minutes. We waited about 45 minutes in the Colman Dock Ferry Terminal before our 10:45 PM ferry to Bremerton. After taking an hour ferry ride across Puget Sound we are picked up at the Ferry Terminal in Bremerton at 11:40 PM by our father, and finally got to bed at around 2 AM. At this point, I had been up for 23 hours and was more than ready for a good night’s rest! Thankfully, we had not paid for round-trip tickets on this journey as we would be returning to Oregon with my other sister, who was driving up early Saturday morning.
All in all, my first Amtrak journey was not the greatest although it did afford me the opportunity to take two trains on one route, which is quite rare. I can look back at this trip now and make jokes about it, having ridden more than 1,000 total miles on Amtrak. It is definitely a story I will never forget, and hopefully it will have been the worst experience I ever get to have with Amtrak as I plan to travel with them again in the future!
