Ispolkom
Engineer
After three days of hiking and not encountering grizzly bears, we were shuttled back to the West Glacier train station for the last two legs of our summer vacation. Here’s an interesting note: if you collect National Parks passport stamps, the two for Lake MacDonald Lodge and West Glacier are at the Glacier Natural History Association bookstore in the West Glacier (Belton) train station.
The Empire Builder pulled into the station a few minutes ahead of schedule, and we had to wait while it stopped first the front half of the train, and then the back half at the short station platform.
We had booked a roomette for our next leg, the twelve hours between West Glacier and Minot, even though this was a day trip. We had gotten tickets early enough to get the cheapest bucket (we were roomette 2), and I figured that we would almost break even just on meals. The privacy and quiet were just gravy.
Unfortunately we found that our fellow sleeper passengers had already filled the luggage shelves with suitcases. Hey, we would have checked luggage if we could have. Instead, we had to put our two suitcases with the half-dozen others in the vestibule, and Mrs. D, our sleeping car attendent, had to move them from side to side at station stops.
After dropping our carry-on luggage in our roomette we immediately went to the diner to sign up for breakfast. We were in a Seattle sleeper this time, so it was a much shorter trip. This morning I forewent my usual French toast for the oatmeal, which was pretty good. It didn’t have the wallpaper paste consistency you often get with instant oatmeal, making me think that they use quick oats. Nice to have a fiberous meal for a change.
The day went quickly, as we read, napped, and visited with a couple we’d had dinner with on the Seattle-West Glacier leg. They were returning to Massachusetts after traveling west on the Canadian. They described Via Rail as having much fancier service, but wretched time-keeping. Apparently you have to get used to constant waits for freight trains.
That wasn’t a problem on today’s Empire Builder. I was impressed to see several freights waiting at sidings as we overtook them.
The day’s low point was the reason I’ll avoid roomette 2 in the future. By late in the morning the upper-level toilet began to stink. It’s not surprising, since there’s only one toilet on the upper level, where most of the passengers in a sleeper are, so that one toilet gets lots of use. Still, it was quite unpleasant for us in the roomette closest to toilet. Mrs. D earned her tip when she made the train late out of Havre by demanding that the toilet be drained. End of smells.
The high point of the day was the wine tasting. Same Washington state wines and Minnesota cheeses as we tried on the west-bound Empire Builder, but this time I won one of the left-over bottles by correctly answering the question “What were the seven characters on ‘Gilligan’s Island’ based on.” I immediately thought Ginger -- Lust -- the seven deadly sins. We enjoyed the wine with dinner (another steak for me, the roasted chicken for my wife), but on further reflection I think that there really isn’t a congruence between the seven deadly sins and the characters. Sure Gilligan is sloth, Ginger lust, the Professor pride, Thurston Howell greed, I guess. If you stretch a point, maybe Mary Ann is envy. But Mrs. Howell really isn’t anything, and the skipper is both gluttony and anger. Maybe I’m analyzing too much here.
We arrived in Minot on time and were met by my mother at the station.
After several days in the Magic City we returned to the train station for the final leg of our trip, traveling in coach between Minot and St. Paul. I enormously prefer traveling by sleeper, but almost never do on my regular trips between St. Paul and Minot. The only meal you get in either direction is breakfast, and your bed is already made up when you board the train. I can never go to sleep immediately after boarding, so I lie there forever staring at the ceiling.
Still, it was a let down to be back in coach after several days in a sleeping compartment. We had the foresight to bring ear plugs and our new noise-canceling headphones but I still was grumpy about people talking late into the night. I was even grumpier about fellow passengers bellowing into their cellphones at 6:00 a.m. to announce that they didn’t know where they were, or when they would arrive in St. Paul, but wanted to call to… I don’t know why they wanted to call. Oh well, if we wanted quiet we could have gotten a sleeper. In any case the train arrived in St. Paul on time on a beautiful September morning. We retrieved our bags and took a taxi home, where we were happy to see our house still standing.
We had a wonderful time and were confirmed in our dislike of flying. When you take the train the vacation really begins when you step on board. While traveling in a roomette is perfectly fine, traveling in a larger compartment is even more fun. And spending a night in coach, as we did our last leg of this trip, is still better than spending all day behind the wheel of a car.
The Empire Builder pulled into the station a few minutes ahead of schedule, and we had to wait while it stopped first the front half of the train, and then the back half at the short station platform.
We had booked a roomette for our next leg, the twelve hours between West Glacier and Minot, even though this was a day trip. We had gotten tickets early enough to get the cheapest bucket (we were roomette 2), and I figured that we would almost break even just on meals. The privacy and quiet were just gravy.
Unfortunately we found that our fellow sleeper passengers had already filled the luggage shelves with suitcases. Hey, we would have checked luggage if we could have. Instead, we had to put our two suitcases with the half-dozen others in the vestibule, and Mrs. D, our sleeping car attendent, had to move them from side to side at station stops.
After dropping our carry-on luggage in our roomette we immediately went to the diner to sign up for breakfast. We were in a Seattle sleeper this time, so it was a much shorter trip. This morning I forewent my usual French toast for the oatmeal, which was pretty good. It didn’t have the wallpaper paste consistency you often get with instant oatmeal, making me think that they use quick oats. Nice to have a fiberous meal for a change.
The day went quickly, as we read, napped, and visited with a couple we’d had dinner with on the Seattle-West Glacier leg. They were returning to Massachusetts after traveling west on the Canadian. They described Via Rail as having much fancier service, but wretched time-keeping. Apparently you have to get used to constant waits for freight trains.
That wasn’t a problem on today’s Empire Builder. I was impressed to see several freights waiting at sidings as we overtook them.
The day’s low point was the reason I’ll avoid roomette 2 in the future. By late in the morning the upper-level toilet began to stink. It’s not surprising, since there’s only one toilet on the upper level, where most of the passengers in a sleeper are, so that one toilet gets lots of use. Still, it was quite unpleasant for us in the roomette closest to toilet. Mrs. D earned her tip when she made the train late out of Havre by demanding that the toilet be drained. End of smells.
The high point of the day was the wine tasting. Same Washington state wines and Minnesota cheeses as we tried on the west-bound Empire Builder, but this time I won one of the left-over bottles by correctly answering the question “What were the seven characters on ‘Gilligan’s Island’ based on.” I immediately thought Ginger -- Lust -- the seven deadly sins. We enjoyed the wine with dinner (another steak for me, the roasted chicken for my wife), but on further reflection I think that there really isn’t a congruence between the seven deadly sins and the characters. Sure Gilligan is sloth, Ginger lust, the Professor pride, Thurston Howell greed, I guess. If you stretch a point, maybe Mary Ann is envy. But Mrs. Howell really isn’t anything, and the skipper is both gluttony and anger. Maybe I’m analyzing too much here.
We arrived in Minot on time and were met by my mother at the station.
After several days in the Magic City we returned to the train station for the final leg of our trip, traveling in coach between Minot and St. Paul. I enormously prefer traveling by sleeper, but almost never do on my regular trips between St. Paul and Minot. The only meal you get in either direction is breakfast, and your bed is already made up when you board the train. I can never go to sleep immediately after boarding, so I lie there forever staring at the ceiling.
Still, it was a let down to be back in coach after several days in a sleeping compartment. We had the foresight to bring ear plugs and our new noise-canceling headphones but I still was grumpy about people talking late into the night. I was even grumpier about fellow passengers bellowing into their cellphones at 6:00 a.m. to announce that they didn’t know where they were, or when they would arrive in St. Paul, but wanted to call to… I don’t know why they wanted to call. Oh well, if we wanted quiet we could have gotten a sleeper. In any case the train arrived in St. Paul on time on a beautiful September morning. We retrieved our bags and took a taxi home, where we were happy to see our house still standing.
We had a wonderful time and were confirmed in our dislike of flying. When you take the train the vacation really begins when you step on board. While traveling in a roomette is perfectly fine, traveling in a larger compartment is even more fun. And spending a night in coach, as we did our last leg of this trip, is still better than spending all day behind the wheel of a car.
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