The Empire Builder – Chicago to Seattle

First, let’s get this out of the way;

Where the fuzzy hell was this a week ago?
I was at Union Station, looking at the display of route guides, and I would have noticed it.

Please don’t tell me that I started a trend of going to Kalamazoo.

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I’d packed up the night before, as much as was possible, so Thursday morning was pretty easy.
Naturally, I didn’t sleep well, because APPARENTLY I hate being well-rested for a trip. Or something.

Making these posts out-of-order means some repetition of content, unfortunately.
I’d gotten closer than I’d like to the end of the balance on my debit card, and was waiting for the next transfer to come through; Got the email at some appalling time of the morning, or at least that’s when it hit my phone, to say that I had money again, which … was good to know.
Not that I’d need it on the train, but it was nice to know that it was there for when I got to Seattle.

The Sleeper ticket gives me access to the Metropolitan Lounge at Chicago Union Station, so I tried to arrive early enough to totally abuse take full advantage of that. I got there slightly before the wine & cheese were brought out, though slightly after the queue formed, so I availed myself of the soda fountain, despite being unsure as to whether Chicago is ‘pop’ or ‘soda’ country; The data is unclear, as you can see here.
It was in this lounge that the picture of Discover Kalamazoo happened.
And also where a snack of cheese & vegetables happened; In hindsight, I wished I’d gone back for seconds, or taken more, as I chose … poorly … when selecting a dinner timeslot on the train.

The Metropolitan Lounge crowd is … on the older side, shall we say?
I wasn’t the youngest one there, or even the youngest adult, but the vast majority of the crowd looked to be in the retirement-age set. That said, the folks having the most trouble finding their room, on my car at least, were not in that category; They were just too busy complaining about not being able to find Sleeper Cabin “A” to do things like listen to anyone trying to help, read the sign at the top of the stairs which specifically stated which direction to turn for lettered vs. numbered sleepers (letters to the left, numbers to the right), and I’m guessing they weren’t paying attention to the Sleeping Car Attendant’s very specific instructions either.

Last time I took a sleeper was also from Chicago Union, though they’ve revamped since 2012; What was a boarding lounge back then is still just a boarding lounge, but is way more transit-oriented, and the nice stuff is elsewhere, meaning you have to navigate through the station from the lounge to get to your train.
The signage could be better.

And here’s my home for the next couple of nights.
Not wide enough to fully stretch out my arms, and changing into a pair of jeans requires sacrificing your dignity, but comfy enough.
For those wanting numbers, and maybe a virtual tour, here’s the Amtrak page on Roomette Sleepers.

The tracks seem to be more or less at river level, and the station projects under buildings, so this was the view from my room.

And the view as we left Chicago.

Here’s the thing about a multi-day train trip; Not much happens.

On Amtrak, at least, you get different dining companions with every meal, because they seat people as they arrive & fill up the 2 vs. 2 booths as best they can.

• Dinner seating was a Father & Son heading for Glacier National Park (there were originally suppose to be two more in their party, so they had reservations for four, and were attempting to have second breakfast, second lunch, and second dinner), and an Amtrak Conductor on holiday.
• Breakfast seating was a guy who didn’t talk much & was heading for Whitefish to see a nephew who builds log cabins, and a journalist who was probably heading for Glacier N.P., as everyone seemed to be.
• At lunch, a couple from Michigan who weren’t heading for Glacier N.P., and who had some advice about the Grand Canyon that I’ll need to check into.
• Over dinner, an IT Security Guy from Oxford, and a couple of (probably retired) nurses from Dallas, one of whom complained about the food constantly.
  If you’re so keen on Texas, and how awesome the Mexican food is and how great the steaks are, why the hell would you order them on a train? The dining car folks were doing a fine job, I thought, and I had no complaints about any of the food, but it’s not a steakhouse, and it won’t be farm-fresh meat, BECAUSE IT’S A SODDING TRAIN YOU FOOL.
• And at breakfast on the last day, as we trundled through mountains, I was seated with an almost certainly retried couple who were heading for Seattle to go on an Alaskan Cruise.

Most of the rest of the time it’s sitting and watching the world go by, occasionally seeing a place you’ve heard of.
In some cases, a place people have been coming to for centuries.

But mostly it’s places you haven’t, and at times it feels like you’re going past in their front yard.

This trip seemed more ‘lurchy’ than the 2012 one.
Lots more side-to-side motion, an actual need to keep a handhold available when walking around, and I bounced off walls a number of times.
Showering was … interesting, and not just because you can see what looks like the trackbed going by through the drain.
It’s a decently-sized cubicle, and because it’s a slippery environment, they’ve made sure there aren’t any unnecessary protrusions you could injure yourself on, which also means that there aren’t a lot of handholds when the train moves side-to-side, though there is a wee seat.
I did not bother with the seat, and bounced off the showers walls a few times. ~shrug~

Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin.

Breakfast in North Dakota.

Not sure why, but the scenery decided to get more ‘epic’ at about this point.
Or I changed a camera setting and forgot about it.

Williston, North Dakota.

Montana.
Probably.
Where I took a picture of White Truck On Otherwise Empty Road.

Only to be presented with the follow-up image, White Truck Meets Identical White Truck Going In The Other Direction On Otherwise Empty Road.

Much of the landscape has the feel of “You can’t see forever, but you get an idea of what it would be like”.

After many hours of travel, at 1611h, possible vertical geography is spotted

Shelby, Montana.

I have no firm idea about what this is, but it’s a photo I’m pretty happy with.
Looks like something from a bodgepunk SF story, I think.

Dinner In Montana, with trees.
And a new variation on my ‘photographing photographers’ thing, where I’ve managed to photograph the photographer’s photograph.

Whitefish Station, Montana.

It’s 2am somewhere, and in this case, that somewhere is Spokane, Washington.
At least, that’s what Facebook thinks.
I woke to a non-moving train, so I’m guessing it was the unexpected quiet that did it.
They split the train at Spokane, so I’m guessing that’s what happens here.

I’m also guessing that’s the reason for a very different arrangement of cars to the 2012 trip on the California Zephyr.
That train had the dining & observation/cafe cars sitting in between the sleeper cars & the ‘coach’ cars.
This one had ‘coach’ cars, then sleepers, then dining, then more ‘coach’, then cafe/observation, then … not sure. Before they broke the train to go to Seattle & Portland, there was an announcement about what would remain; Seattle got the diner, Portland got the cafe/observation.

Breakfast in misty mountains.

Puget Sound, Washington.

Took me a while to figure it out; Those are parts of a wind turbine. A really big one.
Maybe more than one.

And we arrive.

At the right, above the person in white taking a photo & beside the “3” sign, is the window of my roomette.

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Once in Seattle, I had a booking at an airport hotel (there’s a half-million conventions in town, including PAX, and it’s a long holiday weekend, and there’s a Mariner’s game – the hostels were full, so I went with a cheap-ish airport hotel, because they’re almost always easy to get to, and rarely fill up at the same time as the city ones), so I figured out which train I needed to get to Sea-Tac, and then ignored my phone GPS when it told me filthy lies about my location on the way to said train.
Like I’ve said before; It’s a tool for navigation, not a replacement for it.

The first ticket machine declined to take my money, but the second one did, and I rode the rather nice Central Link out to the airport, then ambled along the road for a mile or so to my hotel.
The Link is elevated for much of the trip, so in some places you’re looking down onto people’s houses, and at one point you seem to be bloody miles up over a shopping area; From the look of the place on Google Maps, they needed to clear an existing elevated road.

The hotel had a room for me, ready to go, so there was no hanging out in the lobby needed.
I’m not sure whether the hotel loyalty scheme played a part in this; I’ve got a bunch of points with them at this stage, so maybe they’re fast-tracking me? I don’t really know how it works, and I can’t think of a way to ask.

So, there you have it. Craig’s trip to Seattle by train.