Word spread fast among train fans that a refurbished Empire Builder would hit the rails. When it debuted in August, Amtrak said the passenger liner’s run from Chicago to Seattle and Portland would feature sleeker, spruced-up coaches. More like the good old days–in the best possible sense.
So, why not check it out?
The Empire Builder follows–roughly–the trail blazed by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark during their 1803-1806 exploration of the Western Territories. Lewis and Clark and their Corps of Discovery band of stalwarts overcame a lot of hardships–from suspicious Indians to treacherous mountain passes to tedious diets of undercooked elk. President Thomas Jefferson deemed their project well worth the effort.
Of course, a passenger train is considerably easier on travelers, even luxurious if they don’t get picky and hold the train up to Orient Express standards.
Amtrak promised the new Empire Builder would offer clean and comfortable upholstery, fresh paint, brighter lights, modern toilets and showers, and about the only halfway-decent dining you’re likely to get on any regularly scheduled cross-country conveyance these days.
I have to admit I’m not much of a train person. I don’t commute that way, unless the el counts. I try to take planes anywhere more than 200 miles. So when I arrived at Union Station, I had no idea which door to use. My cabbie gladly showed the way. Head for the entrance on Canal Street and descend one floor to the Amtrak waiting rooms, he instructed.
There I found ClubAcela, the First-Class lounge. Amtrak (short for “American Track”) says Acela stands for “acceleration and excellence.” We shall see.
And while we’re straightening out the nomenclature, Empire Builder refers to James J. Hill, the Great Northern Railway chief who pioneered the northerly route that the Empire Builder follows today, boosting the economies of formerly isolated 19th Century towns.
I was entitled to wait in ClubAcela because I had booked–instead of a mere seat–a sleeper compartment for my two-day, two-night trip to Portland, Ore. The lounge wasn’t quite at the level of the more ambitious airline clubs, but it did offer complimentary juice, soft drinks, coffee and baskets of snacks. .
Around 1:40 p.m., an attendant called Empire Builder passengers to gather near an anonymous-looking double door by the exit sign. Soon she opened the door to reveal . . . railroad tracks, a darkened train shed and the 10 cars of the Empire Builder itself. No metal detector, no shoe removal.
I was guided to the last car, where I could stow my bulkiest bag in the space provided and ascend a tiny stairway to the second level, toting the case that ordinarily serves as my airline carry-on.
The car’s attendant, Pat Johnson, showed me to my compartment. “We have coffee and juice at the top of the stairs, where you came in,” she said. “I’ll come back in the evening to make up your bed.”
At 2:15 p.m., right on schedule, the train began to move, eventually cruising through parts of Chicago and suburbia I had never seen before.
I dwell on these preliminaries because anticipation remains an exciting component of train travel, arguably the highlight of almost any trip. “Getting to Portland in a sleeper car should be very restful,” a friend said just before I left. I thought so too. I had a big window all to myself, and soon it would be filled with scenery. I had two dark-blue plush chairs to lounge on and a curtain to shut out the bustle of corridor traffic outside my sliding door. I would read, jot a few notes, take my meals in the dining car and enjoy the next 2,000-plus miles.
Only in the extreme First-Class categories of air travel might someone board with that much enthusiasm for the ride ahead. The average flier must struggle through security lines, squeeze into a cramped seat, eat a bag of snack mix and think, “Just get me there ASAP.”
The cars had been stripped to the bare walls and reassembled with new fixtures, seats, drapes–the whole works. It really did feel like First Class.
On one armrest (which also serves as part of the stairway to the upper bunk, should two people be sharing the sleeper), I noticed a small cardboard box dressed up in Amtrak blue.
Inside were a tube of Nivea Restorative Night Hand Cream, an All-In-One energy bar with green tea, Quaker Oatmeal Breakfast Squares, a tiny packet of Eclipse mints, Planters NUT-trition Lightly Salted Heart Healthy Mix and–even more inexplicably–a compact disk called “Elvis by the Presleys.” Of course, long before anyone on that CD recorded the King’s old tunes, Elvis had left the planet.
Amtrak, like Hollywood, evidently welcomes product placements.
Shortly before our stop in Milwaukee, a voice blared over a speaker hidden near the compartment ceiling. “Dinner this evening will be by reservation only. We will be serving prime rib, pork shank, lemon-peppered salmon, half a roasted chicken and chicken-fried steak. I will be coming through the train to take your reservations.”
Soon, a blue-uniformed man knocked on my door. I told him I’d like dinner at 7. He nodded and moved on. The menu didn’t sound promising, but dinner surely would trump an All-In-One energy bar with green tea. Besides, meals were included in my $674 one-way fare.
After a pleasant afternoon rolling through Chicago exurbia, Wisconsin farmland and Milwaukee suburbia, we pulled up in a dark, gloomy part of Milwaukee’s station. Just my luck to have chosen that moment to explore the Sightseer Lounge, the Empire Builder observation car. In half of it, people gathered at tables to play cards, eat snacks purchased at a tiny refreshment counter and work on their puzzle books. (As I walked through the coaches and the lounge car, I noticed crosswords and acrostics books were at least as common as novels and magazines.) Here and there, people chatted on cell phones.
The other half of the Sightseer Lounge offered sideways-facing seats, so riders could enjoy the scenery as it appears in the high, curved windows (only slightly smudged). These, too, were part of the renovation, because the freshly upholstered, dark blue seats are now arranged in a more pleasing way and separated by handy little trays and cup holders. .
At 3:55 p.m., our 10-minute “smokers’ stop” came to an end. Because the Empire Builder is smoke-free, nicotine lovers could light up only when they stepped outside at longer stops like this one. That should help keep the cars pristine for awhile. At some stations, that also allowed time to find a newsstand or purchase a non-Amtrak snack.
In the waning light around 5:50 (this was early October before the annual demise of daylight-saving), I tried to snap a picture of the Wisconsin Dells as we crossed the beautiful Wisconsin River. For a moment, the stippled sandstone banks appeared, and in a flash they were gone.
The dining experience would be, I supposed, one of those things that makes Amtrak swell with pride, at least so far as the Empire Builder is concerned. The renovated kitchen, for example, got a thorough cleaning and a new dishwashing machine.
A uniformed dining room attendant assigned four of us–all men traveling alone–to a table nicely set with linen, china and a vase of flowers.
Our server introduced herself by announcing, “We’re all out of the prime rib.” I ordered the salmon with lemon-pepper sauce, and it proved far superior to the little fish crackers that a flight attendant might have tossed my way, surprisingly tender with a nicely tangy accent.
Still, I couldn’t help thinking that a plane would have landed me in Portland by now.
I introduced myself to my dining companions. Two of them–a young man headed for Williston, N.D., and an older man on the way to Minneapolis–nodded politely and declined to reciprocate. I began to think that there really might be a mystique involving strangers on a train.
The third man, gray-haired and wearing tasteful sportswear, said, “I’m George.” That would be George Nedved of Dahinda, Ill., near Galesburg. He was heading out to Seattle to visit his son. His wife, Maureen, would fly there. “I figured this would be more relaxed–and it is,” Nedved said. “I’m retired, so I have plenty of time.”
During the rest of the meal, the four of us made small talk about national parks we had seen, why we were taking the train (“relaxing” seemed the operative word) and the occasionally non-relaxing bumpiness of the ride.
“Those fast trains in Europe have their own special tracks,” George pointed out. “Amtrak has to use the same rails as all the heavy freights.”
And that was the extent of the train talk. During a few other railroad experiences around the country, I always seemed to fall in with buffs who know all about sidings, switches, locomotive configurations, dispatchers, Wabash Cannonball lore and hot boxes. George revealed later on that he operated an elaborate model railroad layout at home, but if he burned with railroad-buff fever, he showed no sign of it.
After dinner, I wished the other two men well (they planned to disembark early the next morning) and assumed I’d see George again. The two lounge-car televisions played “Bewitched” with Nicole Kidman and Will Farrell. I yawned at the very thought of an evening watching the tube, so I strolled through dimly lit coaches to my roomette.
Pat Johnson met me with a bottle of sparkling cider and two small bags of trail mix. “I’ll make your bed whenever you want,” she said. But I dozed off while she was still working on other roomettes and I pretty much slept through Minnesota.
Around eight the next morning, I served myself some coffee from the communal urn and orange-juice-from-a-box.
When I strolled back to the rear window, I saw snow on the ground beside the tracks. Snow in early October could mean only one thing. We had reached northern North Dakota. In fact, our next stop would be Rugby, N.D., geographical center of North America.
“Snow? Oh, sure,” Cynthia Schoening said during breakfast in the diner, where we had a choice of omelets, eggs to order, juices, pancakes, cereals and meats. “Last week we had a big storm,” she said. “The highway was closed. Deep snow.”
Cynthia had been out in Buffalo at the time, visiting friends, but her husband at home near Missoula, Mont., kept her informed. Schoening said, “This is pure pleasure. The land is beautiful. And the idea of refurbished cars is what initially attracted me.”
I couldn’t quite agree. For the next 24 hours or so, I succumbed to a sort of rail-travel enervation, jotting random notes as hundreds of miles of Great Plains unreeled and Sightseer Loungers passed a lazy day with novels and puzzle books.
Notes:
Minot, N.D. A chilly stop but worth a walk amidst the smokers. After the “all aboard,” a woman smoker climbing the stairs ahead of me remarks, “Got a little light-headed on that one. That’ll teach me.”
Mesas, the turrets of Ft. Buford, lunch in the lounge car–salads, sandwiches, nothing exceptional. “Herbie Fully Loaded” that day’s movie.
We paused at Malta, Mont.(this sentence as published has been corrected in this text). The informative Empire Builder in-transit magazine says Malta inspired famous Western artist Charles Russell. Looking out the window at the plain Malta station and immediate environs, I wondered why.
More notes:
Midafternoon: Only the Bear Paw mountains in the far distance, flatness everywhere else. At Havre, Mont., an old Great Northern steam locomotive stands on display (this sentence as published has been corrected in this text). It was one of the first to pull the Empire Builder, a year after the passenger line started in 1929. Walking toward the front of our train, I noticed the Builder now requires the power of two diesel locomotives.
First Class has its privileges. At 3:25 p.m., passengers from First Class were invited to an exclusive wine-and-cheese tasting in the dining car. An attendant told me to take a seat across from a scowling middle-aged man. “One thing they lack here is manners,” he said. “No one asked me where I wanted to sit, or if I wanted company. Nothing against you, of course.”
That led to some stilted, uncomfortable conversation over plastic goblets of California red and cubes of cheddar.
Later, in the Sightseer Lounge, all chairs were filled in anticipation of the upcoming Rockies. By 6 p.m., the sun lowered directly into our eyes.
Dinner with George and a couple from Minnesota. Same menu as the night before but prime rib now available–probably because it proved stringy and almost devoid of flavor. George’s pork shank and sides were handsomely arranged on the plate, a restaurant-worthy presentation. “It’s really very good,” he declared after a few bites.
We stopped briefly at West Glacier, Mont., where we could just barely make out the outlines of the magnificent vistas I know are there.
Double feature tonight: “Mr. & Mrs. Smith” and “Batman Begins.” I passed.
I did stay up long enough for Pat Johnson to transform my two seats into a bed, a somewhat complicated process that results in a very comfortable place to sleep.
Clicking rails, occasional train whistles and sweet rest through the Western night.
I awakened when the conductor announced over the p.a., “That’s the Columbia River on our left. We’re having a good run.” From my window I saw steep, basalt bluffs, imposing dams, river traffic and those famous Northwest Pacific clouds that never seem to quit fighting with the sun.
I found the downstairs public shower empty and clean, so I freshened up for the imminent disembarkation.
Overnight, we had reached the state of Washington. Now we were drawing close to Vancouver, Wash., really a suburb of Portland.
Beside the river, a nice panorama of vineyards and rows of narrow trees–a touch of Tuscany.
The conductor came on the p.a. again at 9:05 a.m. “Half an hour ago, we were ahead of schedule. Now we’re a half hour or more behind.” He blamed a lot of pokey freight traffic on the track ahead. When the track ahead did look clear and we still crept along, he could only tell us, “Well, the dispatcher works in mysterious ways.”
Then we moved again, briskly, through tunnels, past vineyards and immense sawmills, into Vancouver and then over a bridge across the Columbia and on into Portland.
It was 11:35 a.m. when we reached Portland’s impressive Union Station, an old-fashioned, red-brick wonder worthy of an Empire Builder. Only an hour and 25 minutes late. No one seemed to be in a hurry. This was the end of the line, but for some of us, at least, the journey was the destination.
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IF YOU GO
A Chicago to Portland, Ore., round trip on the Empire Builder for the arbitrary dates departing Dec. 12 and returning Dec. 18 carries a basic Coach seat fare of $308. Adding a roomette as described in the main article raises the round-trip fare to $1,112, a substantial saving over the $674 one-way fare I paid. On the above dates, two passengers sharing a roomette would pay just $1,380 round trip. Prices could change without notice and may vary depending on the travel dates chosen.
The Empire Builder leaves Chicago’s Union Station at 2:15 p.m. daily and is scheduled to arrive in Portland at 10:10 a.m., approximately two days, or, more precisely, 45 hours and 55 minutes later. On the return, the Empire Builder departs Portland’s Union Station daily at 4:45 p.m. and arrives in Chicago at 4:40 p.m. two days (44 hours, 55 minutes) later.
For reservations and more detailed information, contact Amtrak at 800-872-7245; TDD/TTY 800-523-6590; www.amtrak.com
— Robert Cross
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bcross@tribune.com
