Imagine that there are only 300 passenger trains daily in the whole US. Rails are not so popular for travelling and cargo trains is given priority over passenger trains any time. Often, there are only single tracks for both directions, or one track is reserved for cargo trains. If the temperature rises above 27 C, the Empire Builder has to slow down from 80mph to 60mph, because the tracks may bend or lift due to heat expansion (if you ever have seen tracks in India, who may know what I’m referring to). Having said all that, it does not come as a surprise that the trains are often late.
Luckily, my train in Seattle departed with a delay of only about 75 minutes. Although at some point, the train gained some time and was late only 30 minutes, somewhere between North Dakota and Minnesota we lost some more time, making the train two hours late when I arrived in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Two days later leaving the Twins, my train had a full three hours delay departing. We will see what it will have when I’m in Chicago.
The Empire Builder runs 3550km through eight states (Oregon/Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois) and passes through the beautiful Cascade Mountains (lots of tunnels and the train ascending to 4000ft) and by the spectacular Columbia River Gorge through Glacier National Park or the awfully boring plains of North Dakota. And two time zones.
I had my own little roomette for sleeping and gladly, I didn’t have to share it giving me a lot more space and I wouldn’t have to sleep in a top bunk. My attendant, Timmy, brought me a bottle of complementary champagne, while I already was drinking a glass of my red wine I had bought in San Francisco (but no chance to drink it before). In a bend, the champagne bottle started shifting and rammed my glass of red wine, spilling it over the edge of the table onto my fresh trousers within the first hour of my ride. That’s what you get from late-roman decadence. (But then again, it’s perfect to wear trousers with zippers so you can actually go wash and dry the lower part without needing to walk around naked.)
One of the first noteworthy stops of the train is Leavenworth in Washington, a Bavarian themed village with its own Oktoberfest. Somehow, every country seems to have some sort of german village, huh? By the time we passed this village, it unfortunately was already dark outside.
The scenery was very interesting (especially in the mountains) that evening and during the next morning. From Spokane on, they added the lounge waggon with nice big windows to get a better 360 deg view of he scenery. And the best thing are actually the meals (included in the (expensive) ticket price) where you share the table with other people and get to know some more people. I enjoyed it a lot. And the food was okay, too! So in the end, the 500 bucks for the two nights and the meals were very decent (spare ribs, steak, etc.). Still, booking it in advance would have only cost me half of it.
In North Dakota, the landscape was a bit too flat and boring. I saw a few oil pumping stations but that was about it. Only in Minnesota, it started being covered with little lakes, much like the 10,000 islands in Ontario, Canada, but inverse.
Time went by quickly. I didn’t even manage to read my book, but I was able to reply to a few emails. I had problems getting them out though — for the most of the time, I didn’t have network or internet coverage.
So how did it compare to other rides? The scenery from Greymouth to Christchurch in NZ was definately more spectacular, the ride was less shaky. But the food and accomodation was much better on this train. And really, it might have been only a third of the price taking a plane, but I wouldn’t have seen anything then. In the end it’s not about travelling to get from one place to another in minimum time. In that sense, the Empire Builder helped slowing down the pace a lot and gave some time for relaxing.
And that’s a good thing.
