It’s finally here! After
planning since October 2011, I was more than ready to get this trip
underway. It’s been a long year and I’m
hoping this vacation will provide me with some much needed rest and relaxation
as well as allowing me to combine two of my extreme passions – music and
travel. With this trip I will be adding 3 brand new states to my list of states
visited, bringing me up to 8. Only 42
more to go! In addition, I will be
seeing 25 drum corps compete in one of the newest college football stadiums in
the country, the University of Minnesota’s TCF Bank Stadium. This promises to be an amazing trip!
Tuesday, 4:00 PM (PST), 07/10/2012 – Onboard the Cascades #506,
North to Seattle
Basically, this trip is one of the weirdest I have ever taken on an
Amtrak train as far as delays go. Luckily I do not have to worry about missing
my connecting train, the Empire Builder, in Seattle. But it is quite unusual
for a regional service like the Amtrak Cascades service to go so far off time.
At the moment, we are currently running one hour behind schedule due to a
combination of track work speed restrictions and being sided on numerous
occasions so that freight trains may pass us by. Even the conductor admits to
being bewildered about our current late status, but apologizes for the delays
nevertheless.
Tuesday, 4:45 PM (PST), 07/10/2012 – King Street
Station, Seattle, Washington
The Empire Builder is a cross-country train that begins in Seattle,
Portland and Chicago daily. The Portland
and Seattle sections join each other and become one train in the middle of the
night at Spokane before continuing eastward on its journey. When the
Portland/Seattle section reaches Chicago, it is turned around, re-stocked and
used the next day as the westbound train departing out of Chicago. On its way
west, the train is split into two parts, again in Spokane. One section
continues on to Seattle, and the other section continues on to Portland. Both
sections arrive in mid-morning, IF (and that’s a big “if”) they are on time.
And therein lies the rub. The two sections that arrive in Seattle and Portland
in the morning are turned, stocked and re-loaded to depart later the same day
going eastbound. Therefore, if the trains are late arriving in the morning, you
can sure bet that they’re going to be late in departing from Portland and
Seattle later that same afternoon. This is the quandary I found myself in while
waiting for my eastbound Empire Builder out of Seattle.
Now I’m sure some of you are wondering, “If the train departs from both
Portland AND Seattle, why did you go all the way to Seattle when you could have
just departed from Portland?!?” There is an answer to this quandary, I promise
you. Since the Empire Builder is in two parts at the beginning of its journey,
there are two different routes you can take to either start or end your
journey. Thusly, by beginning my journey in Seattle going eastward and ending
my return trip in Portland going westbound, I can experience both sections of
this route! Now with the exception of the 418 miles of track between Chicago
and Minneapolis, I will be able to say I have experienced the entire Empire
Builder route. I plan to get that mileage on a different trip in the years to
come.
One of the most interesting parts of any travel experience is the
people you meet along the way. Although I tend to be completely open and
sometimes downright goofy when I am around people I know, I have a higher inclination
to be reserved in situations where I don’t know anyone. This trip has been no exception so far. I
have no problem making small talk; I just prefer not to do so in most cases. However, I did have some delightful
conversation while waiting to board the Empire Builder with an elderly couple
named Vernon and Mary Lou, who are from Puyallup, Washington. In addition to
these lovely people I was also fortunate to meet an older gent named Andy from
Toronto, Ontario, Canada. With these
three charming folks as my company we were able to pass the time quite quickly,
mostly by cracking jokes about the lateness of our train.
At 7:15 PM, the train was finally brought in from the freight yard and
we were allowed to begin boarding. Weary passengers who are looking to get
settled in quickly helps to expedite the boarding process and the train is
underway just 9 minutes later at 7:24 PM, running 2 Hours and 44 Minutes late. Under most circumstances I would have been highly annoyed at such a
delay. However upon boarding, I was just happy to be moving! When the
passengers for sleeping car number 830 got to our car, we were greeted by our
car attendant, Kelly.
Kelly greeted each of us cordially at the door to our sleeping car,
introduced himself and described how we could get to our accommodations. Once
we were rolling, Kelly personally came around to each room and made sure to
give a little personal tour on how everything works and where all the switches
were and whatnot. Although I am already familiar with all of these things since
I’ve been on Amtrak before, I usually try to listen to each Car Attendant as
they give their little spiel. Sometimes they will put a new and interesting
twist on explaining how to use the equipment.
For those of you not familiar with just exactly what being an Amtrak
Sleeping Car Attendant entails, think of it this way: the Sleeping Car is kind
of like a moving hotel, and the Car Attendant is the only employee! The Car
Attendant must be a doorman, receptionist, cleaner, server, and concierge all
rolled into one. Spend 48 hours watching a good one and you’ll have a real
appreciation of what a demanding job it is.
On the Empire Builder, there is one thing that is done only on this
specific Amtrak route which I consider to be an extremely nice touch. After the Car Attendant goes around to each
sleeping car occupant and gives the tour, he or she then offers each adult passenger
a small, 8 oz. bottle of either sparkling cider or champagne to drink while
beginning the journey. Having never had
champagne before, I chose to have that rather than the cider. I was even fortunate enough to make a toast
to a friend while I was drinking it. I’m not sure I particularly liked the
champagne that was served and probably would much rather have had the sparkling
cider. But, at the very least I can now say I tried champagne for the first
time on my first cross-country Amtrak journey!
Rolling by while I enjoyed the scenery and sipped on my champagne were
the towns of Edmonds and Everett. From here, we turned eastward and began our ascent
into the Cascades. As we rolled along, I
couldn’t help but be awestruck by the beauty and grace of the Skykomish River
Valley. There were many winding, trickling waterways that bubbled along on
their quest to reach the Pacific; above the tops of lush Evergreens stood the
majestic, snow-capped form of Mount Index.
The only downside to all of this was the fact that because we were so
far behind schedule, there wasn’t a sufficient amount of daylight to experience
all of the beauty this area has to offer.
One thing I was excited for on this part of the trip is to go through
the Cascade Tunnel. At a whopping 7.79 miles long, Cascade Tunnel is the
longest railway tunnel in the United States.
Alas, by the time we get to it the sun has gone down, so it doesn’t
matter much that I can’t see anything upon entering or exiting the tunnel. Just before we were allowed to enter the
tunnel, we pulled onto a siding and came to a complete stop. As our train
conductor explained, only one train is allowed to pass through the tunnel at a
time. Because of the length of the tunnel, it has to be cleared of all diesel
fumes by a gigantic fan at the east end of the tunnel. Before we can travel
through the tunnel we must wait for all the diesel fumes to be cleared. We lose
another 41 minutes here while waiting on this siding and eventually pass
through the tunnel at 10:35 PM.
We continue to run very, very late through Eastern Washington,
departing each stop more than 4 hours after its scheduled time. One thing that made us lose so much time were
some electrical problems that occurred when we reached Spokane. Most of these problems had to do with the
private railcars that were attached to the back of our train in Seattle. Most people would not bother with the extra
hassle of adding more cars at the end of a passenger train, especially when
these cars are not necessary to the function of the passenger route. Amtrak,
however, uses these cars as a boon to their ever – floundering business. Amtrak charges $2.10 per mile, per car, plus
additional charges for switching, coupling, or storing these cars en
route. Since we had 7 extra cars
attached to the end of our train, Amtrak was making $2.10 per car, per mile by
having these cars attached to the end of the train. After awhile, that adds up
to quite a bit of money!
The hassle, however, is sometimes not worth it. When hooking up private
cars with an electrical system unlike the ones Amtrak uses, electrical problems
can and usually do ensue. Since there were so many electrical problems with the
cars we had attached to the back of the train, the Conductor finally decided to
ditch the private cars when we got to Spokane in the middle of the night. Unfortunately
this move ended up costing us more time, and we pulled out of Spokane at 6:30
AM running 5 hours late.
There is one advantage to being so late on this particular route, and
that is the opportunity to see some of the country in Northern Idaho and
Western Montana. When the Empire Builder is running on time, it passes through
these regions in the very early hours of the morning. Since we are running in
excess of five hours late today we were able to see all of this countryside.
Among the most impressive of this landscape is Lake Pend Oreille, which is
crossed just before the Sandpoint station.
The sun rose this morning while we were still parked in Eastern
Washington and provided spectacular views as we crossed into Idaho and across
Lake Pend Oreille to arrive in Sandpoint at 7:36 AM running 5 Hours and 1
Minute late.
