- Joined
- Jan 15, 2012
- Messages
- 44
We decided we wanted to visit a dear aunt who lives in Salem, OR, plane tickets were prohibitively expensive (plus my parents don't like to fly), and driving just sounded plain exhausting (I would be doing the vast majority and this was supposed to also be a vacation). So with that in mind I convinced everyone that the train was the best course of action.
There were six of us who made the trip, my 10 month old son, 3 year old daughter, my wife and I, and my parents. We would like to have taken the sleepers but the cost would have ended up greater than flying (by a large margin) so coach it was. We're all pretty low frills people so we weren't concerned, additionally we generally approach things as adventure as well as with a good dose of humor (we still laugh about running across the Atlanta airport on our honeymoon as an example).
We all live in Central/Northern Indiana, it was decided that rather than grab a train in at Elkhart or Lafayette we would all meet in Glenview, this would give us a little later in the day starting point as well as not necisitate schlepping our luggage around Union Station, or having to entertain kids there. We rolled into Glenview about 30 minutes ahead of the train arrival, stopping at Jimmy Johns for sandwiches to carry on. After arriving at the station we talked to the attendent who gave us stickers to put in our cars, she also directed us where to be on the platform. Unfortunately this would prove incorrect, which combined with some serious overpacking resulted in some f-bombs from the crew (maybe assitant-conductors, funny hat and all that) while we loaded. This seemed to bother my parents, I'm a programmer, people are rarely happy with us (think about the amount of times you get mad at the computer vs. the amount of times you say hey that's awesome!) so it was no sweat off my back. Although frankly I was surprised as in the customer facing positions I've been in dropping f-bombs were they to be reported could result in some rather serious punishment and/or a firing.
We got the luggage on board, and off we went. We were in the last coach (not including sleeper or addon coach at the rear). We were positioned one row from the front. The trip out was mostly uneventful except for my daughter coming down with a cold. She would sleep on the floor at night on a make shift bed of blankets, my son would sleep in his carseat, and the rest of us would sleep as best we could. Since my wife and I had bought seats for each kid we actually had an extra seat since neither slept in it. My father tried to sleep across two seats but the attendant moved him. He did say he slept better the second night, though he does have a bad back.
We lost time across Wisconsin/Minnesota at one point being an hour down because of slow orders but we made that back by the time we arrived in Portland. The views were fantastic, I really enjoyed seeing all the oil work up close, I've read about the various boom-times in history books but it was very neat to see it up close and in person. Though some may find North Dakota boring I enjoyed all the scenery, but then I've always enjoyed looking out the window. The mountains were fantastic, we even saw some mountain goats. The kids really enjoyed it, my daughter could walk around, we could take her to the restroom (we're still potty training) or the observation car, she could change seats and Grammie got the vast majority of her time. As a rule we try to be concentious of others, though facts are a 10 month old and a 3 year old are never going to act 30. However, if one would start to fuss we would take them downstairs to settle. Our coach car was the combination coach baggage so downstairs really worked well, in fact if traveling with kids I think I will always try to either be in this car, or know where it is. My wife even made use of the dressing room area as a further wall between upset child and other passengers.
We ate only breakfast in the dining car on the way out, packing snacks otherwise. Breakfast was good, my daughter liked her pancakes, with the rest of us either having scrambled eggs or oatmeal.
The service on our outbound trip was marketedly worse than our inbound. Our attendant couldn't be found, or (as was the case when the coach's door seemed to be getting stuck open) was uninterested in fixing or even looking at the problems. The bathrooms were never cleaned. When she could be found it was often in her seat on her phone with headphones in. Now I realize being a coach attendant is a hard job, being on all the time, I have know idea what the pay is, but still for appearances sake I think limiting visible phone usage might aught to be considered. It's unfortunate but people see that and assume the worst (when I was a cook we were not allowed to hang out in the dining room because even if we weren't involved with cooking on the line people would see us not working and be frustrated by their meal times even if their meal was prepared quickly). The lounge car attendant was very relaxed, often times coming over the speaker to remind us of booze available in the lounge car, this might have contributed to what was quite the party by the time we hit the mountains, to the point that they came on the speaker to remind people about their language, not drinking private stock, and in general to not just get smashed. I drink, heck I brew beer, but in general I did find the observation car to not be enjoyable by the time we got to the mountains because it was so loud, additionally the conversations were generally quite adult in language, didn't bother me, but did my parents.
As was said we arrived in Portland on time.
There were six of us who made the trip, my 10 month old son, 3 year old daughter, my wife and I, and my parents. We would like to have taken the sleepers but the cost would have ended up greater than flying (by a large margin) so coach it was. We're all pretty low frills people so we weren't concerned, additionally we generally approach things as adventure as well as with a good dose of humor (we still laugh about running across the Atlanta airport on our honeymoon as an example).
We all live in Central/Northern Indiana, it was decided that rather than grab a train in at Elkhart or Lafayette we would all meet in Glenview, this would give us a little later in the day starting point as well as not necisitate schlepping our luggage around Union Station, or having to entertain kids there. We rolled into Glenview about 30 minutes ahead of the train arrival, stopping at Jimmy Johns for sandwiches to carry on. After arriving at the station we talked to the attendent who gave us stickers to put in our cars, she also directed us where to be on the platform. Unfortunately this would prove incorrect, which combined with some serious overpacking resulted in some f-bombs from the crew (maybe assitant-conductors, funny hat and all that) while we loaded. This seemed to bother my parents, I'm a programmer, people are rarely happy with us (think about the amount of times you get mad at the computer vs. the amount of times you say hey that's awesome!) so it was no sweat off my back. Although frankly I was surprised as in the customer facing positions I've been in dropping f-bombs were they to be reported could result in some rather serious punishment and/or a firing.
We got the luggage on board, and off we went. We were in the last coach (not including sleeper or addon coach at the rear). We were positioned one row from the front. The trip out was mostly uneventful except for my daughter coming down with a cold. She would sleep on the floor at night on a make shift bed of blankets, my son would sleep in his carseat, and the rest of us would sleep as best we could. Since my wife and I had bought seats for each kid we actually had an extra seat since neither slept in it. My father tried to sleep across two seats but the attendant moved him. He did say he slept better the second night, though he does have a bad back.
We lost time across Wisconsin/Minnesota at one point being an hour down because of slow orders but we made that back by the time we arrived in Portland. The views were fantastic, I really enjoyed seeing all the oil work up close, I've read about the various boom-times in history books but it was very neat to see it up close and in person. Though some may find North Dakota boring I enjoyed all the scenery, but then I've always enjoyed looking out the window. The mountains were fantastic, we even saw some mountain goats. The kids really enjoyed it, my daughter could walk around, we could take her to the restroom (we're still potty training) or the observation car, she could change seats and Grammie got the vast majority of her time. As a rule we try to be concentious of others, though facts are a 10 month old and a 3 year old are never going to act 30. However, if one would start to fuss we would take them downstairs to settle. Our coach car was the combination coach baggage so downstairs really worked well, in fact if traveling with kids I think I will always try to either be in this car, or know where it is. My wife even made use of the dressing room area as a further wall between upset child and other passengers.
We ate only breakfast in the dining car on the way out, packing snacks otherwise. Breakfast was good, my daughter liked her pancakes, with the rest of us either having scrambled eggs or oatmeal.
The service on our outbound trip was marketedly worse than our inbound. Our attendant couldn't be found, or (as was the case when the coach's door seemed to be getting stuck open) was uninterested in fixing or even looking at the problems. The bathrooms were never cleaned. When she could be found it was often in her seat on her phone with headphones in. Now I realize being a coach attendant is a hard job, being on all the time, I have know idea what the pay is, but still for appearances sake I think limiting visible phone usage might aught to be considered. It's unfortunate but people see that and assume the worst (when I was a cook we were not allowed to hang out in the dining room because even if we weren't involved with cooking on the line people would see us not working and be frustrated by their meal times even if their meal was prepared quickly). The lounge car attendant was very relaxed, often times coming over the speaker to remind us of booze available in the lounge car, this might have contributed to what was quite the party by the time we hit the mountains, to the point that they came on the speaker to remind people about their language, not drinking private stock, and in general to not just get smashed. I drink, heck I brew beer, but in general I did find the observation car to not be enjoyable by the time we got to the mountains because it was so loud, additionally the conversations were generally quite adult in language, didn't bother me, but did my parents.
As was said we arrived in Portland on time.
