Dining and sightseeing
The sightseeing continued in the dining car over lunch with Jeff, the Illinois entrepreneur; and a couple from Kentucky, Bob, a math teacher, and his wife, Ellen, a nurse. The couple was headed for Glacier and points west as part of an anniversary trip.
Luncheon choices included a grilled chicken breast sandwich, a beefburger, a gourmet pizza or a grilled chicken breast sandwich. When confusion arose over whether soup came with lunch, Angie Lebron, our waitress, offered her Amtrak rule: ”Rule No. 1, there is no rule. Rule No. 2, refer to Rule No. 1.”
Lebron was typical of this Amtrak crew, spirited even when annoyed by super-fussy passengers. Amtrak, though not the perfect railroad, does a surprisingly good job and serves better-than-average meals, although served on plastic.
The train stopped at Glasgow, where the main drag included the Montana Bar, Johnnie Cafe, Thrift Shop, Old Coleman Hotel, Stockman`s Bar, Near New Shoppe and the Valley Bank.
At 2:10, the eastbound Empire Builder passed the westbound train between Glasgow and Malta. Passengers settled in the lounge car. Some read. Others listened to their Walkmans, knitted, nibbled and napped. An Amish couple looked out on the seemingly endless fields and the big sky, as did other passengers.
The sights of the West never ceased to amaze-a green school bus, but not a school in sight; a tavern, nothing within miles of it; green and straw-colored fields that stretch to the horizon; fields with checkerboard designs. Land. Land. Land.
A couple from Washington said they were enjoying their first train experience. Sylvia worked for a newspaper and Keith, her husband, for the federal government. They were on their way to a week-long driving/hiking vacation in Glacier National Park. As we spoke, the train stopped briefly at Malta, a ranching community.
Border salute
At 4:08 p.m., the train pulled into Havre, a cattle and wheat-producing area and rail center, for a service stop. Passengers were able to get out in the warm sun and inspect a well-preserved Great Northern S-2 steam locomotive and a ”Hands Across the Border” sculpture dedicated to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the U.S. Border Patrol.
And the Empire Builder continued on to Shelby, an oil boom town in the 1920s that was the site of the Tommy Gibbons-Jack Dempsey World Heavyweight Championship fight on July 4, 1923.
And then to Cut Bank, known in the 1940s as the oil capital of Montana, now known in the winter as one of the coldest spots in the nation. To the west of Cut Bank, passengers got their first view of the Rocky Mountains, streaked with patches of snow, with the Canadian border lying 25 miles to the north. From the train you could see the Cut Bank Saddle Club, grain elevators, oil wells and a display of farm equipment.
Next we passed through Browning, headquarters for the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and the home of the Museum of the Plains Indians.
The terrain and vegetation change as the train climbs into the foothills of the Rockies for its stop at East Glacier, with its rustic Amtrak station just a short walk from Glacier Park Lodge and Glacier National Park, the first stop on my trip (and the subject of last week`s cover story in the Tribune`s Travel section).
Back to the train
Three days later, I reboarded the Empire Builder, which arrived about 15 minutes late at 7:25 p.m. Some other passenger boarded just to experience the train as far as West Glacier, a little less than two hours away.
Also boarding was Howard McMillon, a U.S. Forest Service ranger who would lecture passengers about the Flathead National Forest, the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area and other features along the train`s route along the scenic southern boundary of Glacier en route to Whitefish.
Unfortunately, the train`s speaker system was not working well and what McMillon talked about was missed by passengers in the dining car, where I had headed after finding my Economy Bedroom 6 in the bi-level sleeping car.
(Amtrak contracts with the Forest Service for the interpretive lecturers as a summer bonus for Empire Builder passengers.)
The dining car wasn`t working well, either. By the time the East Glacier passengers were seated, they were told the kitchen was out of chicken, out of pie, out of cake and that there was no ice cream. Grump. Grump. Grump. ”I`m getting off at Whitefish, so it`s not my problem any more,” said a waiter.
My New York strip steak, ordered medium, arrived rare. And the baked potato came mashed. A harried dining car supervisor calmed down, smiled and apologized for being out of things. The light was waning, but the views made up for the outages: Marias Pass, the train`s route over the Continental Divide at 5,216 feet; the Middle Fork of the Flathead River; the Izaak Walton Inn
(where I dined two nights earlier while the train went by); and a great panorama of Glacier National Park.
After dinner, passengers in the Sightseer Lounge witnessed a spectacular lightning show en route to Whitefish. By the time the train arrived and McMillon got off, it was pouring rain, but the downpour was welcome in drought-stricken Montana.
Views from bed
Through the picture window in my snug bedroom, I looked out at the rain-swept streets of Libby as I tried to find some music on my Walkman. Somehow, I picked up an FM station in Cove, Ore. As we sped through the night, there were other small towns and empty streets, but we moved too swiftly to see names. During the night between Libby and Sandpoint, Idaho, the train also entered the Pacific Time Zone.
The next time I peeked out, it was 6:15 a.m and the Empire Builder was stopped at Wenatchee, Wash., known as the ”Apple Capital of the World,” an area that grows more than 15 percent of the nation`s crop. All I could see were warehouses and crates.
The train continued on through Leavenworth, Icicle Canyon, the 7.79-mile Cascade Tunnel through the Cascade Mountains and Skykomish with its famous pine and fir forests.
Three buttermilk pancakes were the order of the morning as the Empire Builder glided through (and partially, via a tunnel, beneath) Everett, a lumber and fishing port.
For some 40 miles, the train skirted Puget Sound, where blue heron and clam diggers were the only visible life on the beach at low tide, then through Edmonds, a bedroom community of Seattle, until finally we reached Seattle`s King Street Station, hard by the Kingdome. The Empire Builder slipped in at 10:25 a.m., on time.
”I see it`s raining outside,” announced Joel McGee, chief of on-board services. ”Cover up and have a nice day.”
Seattle was the second of my three stops, allowing time to visit the city, drive to Roslyn where TV`s ”Northern Exposure” is shot and cross Puget Sound by ferry to see Port Townsend.
The last leg
The last leg of my rail journey was on the Coast Starlight, which operates between Seattle and Los Angeles via Portland, Sacramento and Oakland, a 31-hour, 1,389-mile trip, some of it along the Pacific. The train departed Seattle at 10:35 a.m. and arrived in Portland, my final destination, at 2:45 p.m.
As the Coast Starlight pulled out, a voice reminded passengers to use hand rails when walking through the cars and to wear shoes at all times.
”Please monitor your children,” the voice urged. ”There will be no horseplay on the train. And no profanity. This is a family train.”
Just minutes south of Seattle, the train passed Boeing Field and the airplane manufacturer`s first plant as well as American Avionics, Aero Copter, Flightcraft and Wings Aloft on this high-tech aviation strip. At Puyallup, the train wound through a heavily forested area en route to Tacoma, a lumber and shipbuilding city, then on to Centralia, a food processing and logging town
(and home of the Centralia Hotel, which advertises, ”Our hack meets all trains”), and Kelso-Longview, known as the ”smelt capital of the world.”
Like the Empire Builder, the Coast Starlight had its own personality, characterized by Steve Lee, who ran the lounge car snack bar. He made frequent-eventually too frequent-announcements, hawking ”cold beer from Siberia, hot and cold sandwiches and hot dogs made in the U.S.A.,” and making sightseeing observations such as, ”If you look out the right, lots of Tacoma. If you look out the left, lots of Tacoma. If you look at me, lots of food.”
And, while the Empire Builder used plastic table covers and dinnerware, the Coast Starlight had table linen and china. Lunch companions included a semi-retired woman from Chicago who runs Newberry Library book sales, a Mexican seaman who just completed a stint on the container ship President Jackson and a retired chemist from Providence, R.I.
The Coast Starlight was now running about 20 minutes late, reaching Vancouver, Wash., on the Columbia River at 2:30 p.m. Signs welcoming travelers to Fruit Valley, the United Grain Corp. and Port Vancouver Plywood Co. tell the story of this town. Logs, boards and ships are part of a gray seascape.
Then, minutes later, Portland, the final stop-the City of Roses still smarting from the Trailblazers` loss of the NBA championship to the Chicago Bulls.
There would be four days to savor the Oregon city before concluding this rail-air package with a flight to Chicago, a flight like so many others that leave you wondering what`s below on the ground. If nothing else, Amtrak puts you in touch with the country, offering landscapes of junky, backyard America as well as the country`s majesty.
