Over Memorial Day weekend, Mrs. MILW205 and I rode Amtrak's Empire Builder #8 from Seattle to Chicago.
SUMMARY
Overall train condition: excellent
Sleeper car service: excellent
Dining car food: very good, with 1 exception
Dining car service: excellent, with 1 exception
Weather: sunny first evening; cloudy/rain entire first full day; sunny entire second day
Wildlife: yes deer/mountain goat/eagle/crane/pheasant; no bear/elk/ligers
On time performance: mostly on time first evening and first full day; roughly 1 hour behind entire second day; arrival late by 1 hour.
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After a beautiful, warm, sunny day of walking around Seattle, we arrived at the station about 45 minutes prior to scheduled departure. We made the mistake of having our friends drop us off at the upper level on Jackson St., which gives the appearance that the station is abandoned, although of course we knew it wasn't. We found a stairway down to the lower level on King St., and proceeded to the waiting room, which had an ugly dropped-panel ceiling; but apparently there is an effort underway to have the original high ceiling refurbished.
With the announcement of boarding, we proceeded to the entrance of our sleeping car, where we were greeted by our car attendant. We walked upstairs to our roomette, which was clean and functional. (While we knew the room would be small, at 6'6" x 3'6" it ends up being smaller in person than what I had envisioned. But, we had made our reservations several months in advance and got a great price on it, so no complaints justified, and hey, it was pretty comfy overall.) As we pulled out, our attendant offered us a mini-bottle of champagne. We noticed that our car was not terribly crowded, with several open rooms...but talk was that it would get crowded later, and that the WB trips from Chicago were completely full all weekend. The conductor came on the P.A. and explained that there would be no lounge-observation car until the Portland section joined up with us at Spokane. This was a pity, as I was looking forward to the views that evening...but since our section had the dining car, if we'd also had the lounge car, the poor folks on the Portland section wouldn't have had any food service.
Nevertheless, the view from our room was still very nice as we sipped our champagne. After a couple of hours, we walked to the dining car. We had trout with a white wine and butter sauce (very good), and the flatiron steak (fair: somewhat chewy and not particularly flavorful). Service was friendly and prompt. Next, we retired to our room and wanted to watch a movie on our DVD player prior to going to sleep. However, we were concerned about keeping our attendant up too late, since he would need to convert our room to bed mode. He came up with an elegant solution: he offered to let us to watch our movie in an unoccupied roomette, which would allow him to convert our room in the meantime.
Waking up the next morning, in contrast to the previous sunny weather, we found the sky a dull, overcast grey. For breakfast, we had omelets (good), then returned to our car to shower. I was afraid that there would be lines for the shower, but we did not encounter any during the trip. The shower room was modern, functional, and clean.
Next, we spent several hours in the lounge-observation car that was now part of the consist. Here, we could appreciate how much higher up we were now, and there was a beautiful ocean of green conifers below us. The Flathead River was swollen with snow runoff and was a turbid brown. Continuing on, I was amazed at how abruptly the land changed from mountains to mere hills just east of East Glacier Park. After a while, it was time for lunch, so we walked back to the dining car. We had an open-faced turkey sandwich with gravy (excellent) and a bacon cheeseburger (very good).
We gathered some reading materials from our room and returned to the lounge-observation car. Around mid-afternoon, we attended the wine and cheese tasting, featuring four Washington wines that were actually pretty good. During the afternoon, we witnessed several signs of the routes GN heritage, from display steam engines to old, de-trucked boxcars that were now being used as storage sheds.
That evening, we went to dinner and both had beef Bourgogne, which we both agreed was positively fantastic, the culinary highlight of the trip. At all meals, one ends up getting paired with others; this particular one featured a couple traveling home to Minot, ND. The track conditions -- which had previously been smooth -- started to get a bit jumpy, at which point the woman declared that "the conductor is doing a bad job of driving" [sic], giving me a nice chuckle inside.
We retired for the night, then woke up the next morning bathed in brilliant sunlight. However, during the night we had managed to fall an hour behind schedule, a status we would retain for the reminder of the trip. For breakfast, we had French toast and an omelet (both good). However, in contrast to the friendly service we had received from the other wait staff, the waitress we had this morning was just going through the motions and didn't seem like she wanted to be there.
I then hurried to get showered and changed in an attempt to grab some seats for us in the lounge-observation prior to us stopping at St. Paul/Minneapolis. I was successful, and indeed, the train became the most crowded it had been all trip. I was happy to get good views of the vintage Alco and GE motive power of the Minnesota Commercial railway just after departing St.P. As a bonus, there was what appeared to be a rare CP GP40X at Hastings, MN.
The sunny weather was appreciated as we viewed the Mississippi River coastline. After getting past LaCrosse, when the scenery is not as nice, we went to lunch and both had bacon cheeseburgers (very good). During the next few hours, with the trip beginning to wind down, we played cards and read. Arriving in Chicago, we tipped and bid farewell to our fine, friendly car attendant and agreed that we would definitely enjoy doing the experience again.
The Empire Builder used to be my favorite Amtrak train and then it seemed to go downhill for along period. The last time I rode I said I would never do it again. But your trip report has changed my mind. I was going to go to Vancouver and take the Canadian as I have in the past but your trip report has changed my mind and I will try the EB to Chicago. I will then fly to Toronto.
Al - in - Stockton
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