A Well-Engineered Train Vacation in the West

It was only 11 minutes after Amtrak’s Empire Builder had left the ratty old King Street Station in Seattle that the engineer blew the familiar grade-crossing warning. You remember it--two longs, a short and a long.

In song, it sometimes is called a “mournful cry.” But as a boy growing up in the Pacific Northwest, I can remember listening to that familiar sound at night, wondering what wondrous destinations lay ahead for that train, what the world must be like in other states, other nations.

Children the world around have listened to train whistles in times past and dreamed similar dreams. It doesn’t happen so much today. The magic of television has added image to fantasy. And besides, steam engines have given way to diesels and although the grade-crossing signal is still the same in form, somehow it doesn’t sound quite the same.

View From Window

My wife and I decided to take a train trip, partly because neither of us had ridden a train for years and partly because we fear rail passenger traffic may become a thing of the past. And we wanted to know what kind of people are riding the rails these days when they can go so much faster, and often cheaper, by air. And we both believe there are glorious sights to be seen from a railroad car window that can’t be appreciated from the air.

So we flew to Seattle to pick up the Empire Builder in order to cross the mountains west to east, as far as Chicago, by way of Glacier National Park, and then back home to Pasadena by way of Denver and Salt Lake City.

It was a great trip. From the first whistle to the last, we enjoyed seeing part of the United States we had never seen, although we had crossed much of the distance by plane and car.

Still, it’s not all peaches and cream. Amtrak, which has taken over passenger travel, has a spotty record for service and care of its customers. And it’s not for the frail or the tender. The trains often go too fast on a roadbed maintained mainly for freight service.

A Jarring Experience

The jolting, swaying, wrenching ride in passenger cars too top-heavy and unsuited for such conditions can leave the unwary passenger black and blue. Walking down the aisles while traveling 80 m.p.h. can be an adventure requiring an acrobat’s agility. And trying to sleep in an upper bunk when the engineer is trying to make up time requires an awful lot of forebearance.

If you remember the old days of train travel, the gracious style of the Super Chief and the Zephyr, I’m afraid they are gone, perhaps forever. The gleaming white table linen has given way to a paper tablecloth and the rosebud in the silver vase has turned into a plastic imitation. The once-famous menu and the hovering attentive waiters are gone, but the substitutes aren’t all that bad. Just don’t count on the good life with Amtrak.

They do some things right. For instance, they schedule departures so you can see the truly scenic parts of the trip in daylight hours. Leaving Seattle at 4:50 p.m., you have time for a leisurely dinner while the train passes through the beautiful green forests of the Coast Range. And at 7:05 the next morning, the train winds through spectacular Glacier National Park. And during the afternoon and early evening, it speeds across Montana and North Dakota, with the feeling you’re on top of the world. Now you can understand why they call it “Big Sky Country.”

It’s the same way returning. You depart from Chicago’s Union Station at 2:40 p.m. in time to see the endless fields of corn and soy beans in southern Illinois and eastern Iowa before dark. And the next day, leaving Denver at 8:10 a.m., the train climbs over the Rockies, with all its inspiring scenery. Each turn of the tracks--and there are a lot of them--brings new visual delight. It’s no wonder the glass-domed observation lounge is the best seat on the train.

The Fun of It

Most passengers indicated they were along for the fun of it. They, like us, wanted to see the sights before it’s too late. Amtrak officials stoutly deny it, but a lot of passengers feel it won’t be long before passenger traffic goes the way of the steam engine.

Mike Mercure, a CPA from Mount Zion, Ill., is a veteran bicyclist who, along with others from a bicycle club, had been spending nine days seeing the scenic Coast Range in Washington state by bicycle. Now he was traveling back home by train “simply because I love to ride the train.”

Allen Hopkins, a retired Kodak employee from near Rochester, N.Y., and his wife were on their way to Reno by train because they had made the trip many times by car and now wanted to see it from the rails. But they won’t do it again, they said. The train at high speed was just too rough and uncomfortable.

Passenger Barbara Randolph of Carbondale, Ill., has a very simple reason for riding the rails: She’s afraid to fly. A remedial English teacher, she had a couple of very bad experiences on planes in 1978 and hasn’t flown since.

Some passengers use the train because it’s the most practical way to get from here to there. One woman, dressed to the nines among all us grubbies, rode from Yakima, Wash., to Browning, Mont., to keep a job interview.

At Their Mercy

Amtrak officials aboard the trains we rode conceded they are pretty much at the mercy of the freight-carrying railroads whose right-of-way they use. And some railroads maintain a smoother roadbed than others. The Great Northern stretch in Montana and North Dakota and the Burlington Pacific roadbed from Chicago to Denver were the roughest of the lot. The Amtrak people agree the double-decker Pullman cars are most unsuitable for the swerving, bouncing tracks.

For awhile in its budget-cutting efforts, Amtrak did away with individually cooked food service and tried so-called airline fare of precooked dishes heated by microwave. It was a failure. Now the dining cars are fitted with electric stoves and grills and offer a grilled New York strip steak for $10.50, or a bacon-and-eggs breakfast for $4.50. There’s a limited selection and sometimes you must wait quite awhile, but there’s always the snack bar.

‘Good Old Days’

We found that a number of travelers were railroad employees or their relatives who were attracted by discounted fares. Most were solidly loyal to rail travel, or reluctant to criticize Amtrak if quoted. Most of the fears that Amtrak was indeed trying to get out of the passenger rail business seemed to be expressed by travelers who insisted on contrasting today’s style with that of “the good old days.”

I identified with that group because I can’t help recalling the national political conventions in Chicago in 1952 and how the California delegates and press traveled by rail. I remember fondly how we looked forward to a leisurely, quiet, comfortable ride back home from Chicago so we could wind down from the Eisenhower and Stevenson nominations.

Suggestion Resented

Amtrak officials stoutly insist they’re doing everything they can in these Gramm-Rudman days to keep the passenger trains running, and one high-ranking executive said he resents any suggestion that the nation’s railroads are deliberately letting the service run down so they can concentrate on the freight runs.

In these days of deregulated airlines and cut-rate fares, Amtrak is obviously having a hard time competing. Its All Aboard America package sets the cost of rail travel from Seattle to Chicago and back to Los Angeles at $239 per person. That means you spend the entire time in a coach seat.

If you want sleeping accommodations, ranging from modest roomettes to deluxe (something of a misnomer) bedrooms, the additional cost can range from $369 to $808. But with sleeping accommodations, your meals are free. Because you can order anything off the menu and you already have paid for it, this sometimes puts your dietary willpower to the test.

For more information call Amtrak at (800) 872-7245.