Astoria, Oregon: The Empire Builder
Astoria, Oregon: The Empire Builder
The ride on the Empire Builder was good, and with a little more effort by Amtrak could have been better.
The route follows that of the Great Northern Railroad, north to Milwaukee, northwest to Minneapolis, and then west to Seattle parallel to the Canadian border. The journey takes about 46 hours, beginning in Chicago at 2:15 p.m. and ending in Seattle around 10:30 a.m. two days later. We were on schedule almost all the way and arrived in Seattle an hour early.
The flatness that began in Ohio continues all the way to western Montana. Whenever I travel through the American West I think of the settlers who walked it and of the shock the Rocky Mountains must have been after two thousand miles of flatness
I had not previously been to Minnesota or South Dakota and had only touched Montana in the south near Yellowstone National Park.
The view from the train is of mostly empty farm land, covered in April with stubble from last year’s crop, and broken only by a few trees and even fewer widely scattered small box houses, where it seems that people are still leading hard-scrabble lives.
The scenery changes quickly late the second afternoon when you reach the mountains, and the views of glaciers, valleys and peaks were impressive from the dining car that evening as we passed through Glacier National Park.
The Rocky Mountains are not wide there and we crossed the Continental Divide and reached the western side of the park before sunset.
The next morning found us past Spokane in the heart of Washington’s apple country. The orchards were beautiful, filled with rows of trees covered in white blossoms. Near Wenatchee, the self-proclaimed ‘Apple Capital of the World’, were huge stacks of empty crates, and a brief glimpse of a camp for migrant workers that looked like something from GRAPES OF WRATH.
The train reaches the coast at Everett, a logging port, before following the shore of Puget Sound to Seattle. Islands and ships and fishing boats were dimly visible through coastal mist; and then we entered a tunnel and were in downtown Seattle.
Most of our fellow passengers, with whom we shared tables in the dining room, were my age or older and were returning from a tour from Seattle to Branson, Missouri. A considerable number were so large that they could not pass anyone, much less one another, in the train corridors. There was a lot of backing and filling. Everyone who had been to Branson enjoyed their time there but expressed disappointment that the Andy Williams Show had been cancelled due to his ill health.
I was not aware that Andy Williams is still performing. He is now 80 years old. I cannot imagine that he needs the money, so presumably he just loves being on stage. I find the idea of singing “Moon River” for half a century disheartening.
The food on the train was better than I expected. As is common in most restaurants, the portions were too large, which helps account for many of the passengers being so.
The service overall was about what I expected and can charitably be described as adequate. The server in the dining car got orders wrong three of five meals. The general level of cleanliness in public areas progressively deteriorated during the ride west and the crew didn’t do much beyond the necessary minimum. If someone at Amtrak really cared about service, it wouldn’t take much to change this; but I don’t think they do.
Overall we enjoyed the trip and are glad to have done it once. We would recommend it to those who have the time, like trains, and want to see the country unfold from a different perspective. This huge slice of America was opened up and shaped by this railroad.
In Seattle we picked up a rental car and drove south to Astoria, Oregon, where I had made reservations for one night at The Cannery Pier Hotel, which I had found online.
The photo above is looking upward from the lobby.
We were in our room for less than a minute before we changed plans and decided to stay a second night.
The place is just about perfect.
I’ll write more in the next post.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007