Ispolkom
Engineer
In part 1, I described our trip from St. Paul to Portland. In this part we take the Cascades from Portland to Seattle, then the Empire Builder to West Glacier
We arrived in Portland on Sunday morning, August 24, and spent three days sight-seeing. Naturally, we used public transportation, including the Trimet light rail, the street car, and the aerial tram. Before we knew it, it was time for our next rail leg, the
Cascade to Seattle.
I really like Portland Union Station. It’s not enormous, like Chicago or Washington Union Station, but it’s still a real train station, with almost all of the station space still used for rail operations. If it ever suffered “modernization” like Seattle’s King Street Station, it has been nicely restored. There’s a Metropolitan Lounge for sleeper passengers, and a fine waiting room for the rest of us. We got to the station early, and tried to get our tickets. I never get my tickets printed until the day of travel, just in case something comes up. We tried to us Quik-Trak kiosk for the first time. I guess there’s on at the St. Paul station, but it seems strange to use it if the clerk is standing there doing nothing. My ticket printed out just fine, but my wife’s AGR Reward ticket flummuxed the machine. A human clerk eventually straightened things out and we were able to check our bags to Seattle.
We were last in Portland 14 years ago, arriving there on a Talgo when they were first trying them out. I was impressed by the train then, and am still. Seating in coach is 2 and 2, with comfortable leatherette seats and a earphone jack to allow you to watch the movie they show, if you like that sort of stuff. I preferred looking out the window and listening to my MP3 player. The train was pretty quiet, quiet enough that I didn’t need to use noise-canceling headphones. A nice feature was the announcements displayed on the monitors telling passengers what station was next and what river we were passing over.
We visited the bistro car, which gave us a chance to try Chuljin’s favorite hummus kit. We liked it, though there didn’t seem enough chips for the amount of hummus given.
The most interesting scenery on this leg was the last run into Seattle. First we passed various docked ships, including the battleship-gray MV Cape Victory, a navy roll-on/roll-off ship. Then there is the huge the Boeing plant and Seattle’s two enormous stadiums. Our train was a few minutes late into King Street Station.
King Street Station is far less satisfying a station than Portland Union Station. Seattle is slowly reversing the modernization that installed drop ceilings removed marble from pillars in the waiting room (how could this have seemed a good idea?), but much work needs to be done (cleaning decades of cigarette smoke from the original ceiling, for example).
Our two days in Seattle went by quickly, but we were still able to enjoy many forms of public transportation in our sight-seeing, including electric trolleybuses, the Seattle Streetcar (it’s not called the South Lake Union Trolley, we were assured), and the Elliot Bay Water Taxi. Both Portland and Seattle have free transit in their downtown areas, which certainly was convenient.
Waiting at King Street Station for our train we talked to several Texans, an older couple who had just returned from an Alaskan cruise, and a younger man who was a big railfan. I asked which railroad built the other station across the tracks, and learned that it was the Union Pacific. I then learned much more about the station than I really cared to learn, but you take the good with the bad.
For the trip from Seattle to West Glacier we had booked a roomette on the east-bound Empire Builder. We couldn’t check our luggage, as West Glacier doesn’t allow that, but there was lots of space on the luggage shelves in our sleeper car. Our sleeping car attendant on this leg was Jeff, who said that he had been an SLA for 30 years. He was outstanding, always ready when we needed someone, but not intrusive. We headed north along Puget Sound under lowering clouds, then inland. I again had the steak and baked potato for dinner. After dinner we read and watch scenary until it got dark, but were asleep by 10:00 p.m. I was surprised that I slept through Spokane, considering how knocked about I felt in the westbound Portland sleeper.
Jeff really made our day by starting the coffee pot early. We enjoyed cups of coffee and read the local newspaper (always a treat) before marching off to the first seating of breakfast. We wanted to be early as we were getting off the train in West Glacier, and the train appeared to be, if anything, ahead of schedule. Not to worry, as we had plenty of time to pack up our carry-on, and Jeff wouldn’t allow us to touch our luggage when we left the train.
We stayed at the Lake MacDonald Lodge in Glacier National Park. They sent a van to pick us up, and we were able to use free shuttle buses that ran along the Going to the Sun Road to access hiking paths. We certainly didn’t see the whole park (who could in three days), but we did see and hike a lot without having to rent a car. An additional plus for this flatlander was not having to drive the vertiginous, guardrail-less Going to the Sun Road.
We stayed in a cabin at Lake MacDonald Lodge, which was large and quite comfortable, but seemed to come without maid service. Repeated calls to the front desk failed to solve this problem. One plus for me was that many the service people were youngsters from the former Soviet Union. I was happy to practice my rusty Russian, and was amused by their shocked looks when they realized that this middle-aged American understood what they were saying to each other.
We arrived in Portland on Sunday morning, August 24, and spent three days sight-seeing. Naturally, we used public transportation, including the Trimet light rail, the street car, and the aerial tram. Before we knew it, it was time for our next rail leg, the
Cascade to Seattle.
I really like Portland Union Station. It’s not enormous, like Chicago or Washington Union Station, but it’s still a real train station, with almost all of the station space still used for rail operations. If it ever suffered “modernization” like Seattle’s King Street Station, it has been nicely restored. There’s a Metropolitan Lounge for sleeper passengers, and a fine waiting room for the rest of us. We got to the station early, and tried to get our tickets. I never get my tickets printed until the day of travel, just in case something comes up. We tried to us Quik-Trak kiosk for the first time. I guess there’s on at the St. Paul station, but it seems strange to use it if the clerk is standing there doing nothing. My ticket printed out just fine, but my wife’s AGR Reward ticket flummuxed the machine. A human clerk eventually straightened things out and we were able to check our bags to Seattle.
We were last in Portland 14 years ago, arriving there on a Talgo when they were first trying them out. I was impressed by the train then, and am still. Seating in coach is 2 and 2, with comfortable leatherette seats and a earphone jack to allow you to watch the movie they show, if you like that sort of stuff. I preferred looking out the window and listening to my MP3 player. The train was pretty quiet, quiet enough that I didn’t need to use noise-canceling headphones. A nice feature was the announcements displayed on the monitors telling passengers what station was next and what river we were passing over.
We visited the bistro car, which gave us a chance to try Chuljin’s favorite hummus kit. We liked it, though there didn’t seem enough chips for the amount of hummus given.
The most interesting scenery on this leg was the last run into Seattle. First we passed various docked ships, including the battleship-gray MV Cape Victory, a navy roll-on/roll-off ship. Then there is the huge the Boeing plant and Seattle’s two enormous stadiums. Our train was a few minutes late into King Street Station.
King Street Station is far less satisfying a station than Portland Union Station. Seattle is slowly reversing the modernization that installed drop ceilings removed marble from pillars in the waiting room (how could this have seemed a good idea?), but much work needs to be done (cleaning decades of cigarette smoke from the original ceiling, for example).
Our two days in Seattle went by quickly, but we were still able to enjoy many forms of public transportation in our sight-seeing, including electric trolleybuses, the Seattle Streetcar (it’s not called the South Lake Union Trolley, we were assured), and the Elliot Bay Water Taxi. Both Portland and Seattle have free transit in their downtown areas, which certainly was convenient.
Waiting at King Street Station for our train we talked to several Texans, an older couple who had just returned from an Alaskan cruise, and a younger man who was a big railfan. I asked which railroad built the other station across the tracks, and learned that it was the Union Pacific. I then learned much more about the station than I really cared to learn, but you take the good with the bad.
For the trip from Seattle to West Glacier we had booked a roomette on the east-bound Empire Builder. We couldn’t check our luggage, as West Glacier doesn’t allow that, but there was lots of space on the luggage shelves in our sleeper car. Our sleeping car attendant on this leg was Jeff, who said that he had been an SLA for 30 years. He was outstanding, always ready when we needed someone, but not intrusive. We headed north along Puget Sound under lowering clouds, then inland. I again had the steak and baked potato for dinner. After dinner we read and watch scenary until it got dark, but were asleep by 10:00 p.m. I was surprised that I slept through Spokane, considering how knocked about I felt in the westbound Portland sleeper.
Jeff really made our day by starting the coffee pot early. We enjoyed cups of coffee and read the local newspaper (always a treat) before marching off to the first seating of breakfast. We wanted to be early as we were getting off the train in West Glacier, and the train appeared to be, if anything, ahead of schedule. Not to worry, as we had plenty of time to pack up our carry-on, and Jeff wouldn’t allow us to touch our luggage when we left the train.
We stayed at the Lake MacDonald Lodge in Glacier National Park. They sent a van to pick us up, and we were able to use free shuttle buses that ran along the Going to the Sun Road to access hiking paths. We certainly didn’t see the whole park (who could in three days), but we did see and hike a lot without having to rent a car. An additional plus for this flatlander was not having to drive the vertiginous, guardrail-less Going to the Sun Road.
We stayed in a cabin at Lake MacDonald Lodge, which was large and quite comfortable, but seemed to come without maid service. Repeated calls to the front desk failed to solve this problem. One plus for me was that many the service people were youngsters from the former Soviet Union. I was happy to practice my rusty Russian, and was amused by their shocked looks when they realized that this middle-aged American understood what they were saying to each other.
