Video Views of Glacier national park via Empire Builder

[scutterbear]

Howdy there everyone.

Well, being back home now, I am finally settled and had a chance to go through all of my photo and video footage that I took while on the trains. I was actually impressed that I was able to get as good footage as I got. I was thinking that it would be too blurry or the train would be too rocky/bumpy to turn out, but what I got was fairly decent I thought.

So for anyone who is interested in seeing what the glacier national park through montana looks like in winter whilst riding the EB, below are some links for ya to enjoy. I added some music to them to kinda give them a little more personality.




Hope you folks enjoy. I was just so excited about my trip, I wanted to share it with the rest of the world.

I am already looking at making plans to go back in the summer hopefully and I usually only get to go every few years. But now that I have discovered trains, that may change. :lol:

 

[An Amtrak Canadian]

FANTASTIC!!!

 

[DET63]

Actually, you don't see Glacier National Park until you get to West Glacier, and then it's on the left side of the train.

Beautiful country, regardless, though.

 

[scutterbear]

Actually, you don't see Glacier National Park until you get to West Glacier, and then it's on the left side of the train.
Beautiful country, regardless, though.

Really, because I stayed in kalispell for a month and we drove up through part of the park, and it was the same part that the train runs through. My mom was born and raised there, lives there now so I am fairly certain she knows whats the park and what isn't.

The park is kinda weird though, the way the land lines run. We would be going up the highway and one minute you would be in the park and the next you wouldn't. Kinda strange.

I also found out that Burlington Northern owns millions of acres out there in montana. I thought that was a neat fact.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Great job, thanks for sharing! Ive ridden this route twice, can't wait to go when theres snow and clear skys!

Dont hesitate to share more, the members here love good pics and trip reports!

 

[greatcats]

Thanks for sharing the beautiful videos. Good choice of music - and I am finicky on that subject.

 

[Rail Freak]

Really enjoyed the videos!!!

Thanx

RF

 

[DET63]

The Google maps showing Glacier Park are useless, because they use the same color for the Flathead National Forest, and don't show where the boundaries between the two entities are. I believe that U.S. 2 and/or the railroad track mark the southern boundary of Glacier (unless it's been expanded in recent years). I don't know if the western boundary is delineated by anything as obvious as a road or a river.

The railroad would own a lot of land as it (or its predecessors) were given a certain amount of land for each mile of track laid. I don't think the Great Northern (GN: an "ancestor" of the Burlington Northern—now BNSF) was built that way, however. The Northern Pacific, a competitor with the GN (and also "ancestor of the BN), however, was built that way (I believe), so the BN/BNSF probably got the land that way.

 

[scutterbear]

thanks! I am really glad you folks enjoyed the vids. I am thinking about going back up there in the summer so if I do, I will try to remember to take the camcorders with me so I can get some summertime footage of the park and mountains. I've never been there in the summer so it will be a sight for me to see as well!

 

[Ispolkom]

The railroad would own a lot of land as it (or its predecessors) were given a certain amount of land for each mile of track laid. I don't think the Great Northern (GN: an "ancestor" of the Burlington Northern—now BNSF) was built that way, however. The Northern Pacific, a competitor with the GN (and also "ancestor of the BN), however, was built that way (I believe), so the BN/BNSF probably got the land that way.

The Great Northern got no land grants. The Northern Pacific's land grants were much further south (alternating sections forty miles either side of their line), and the two railroads weren't integrated until 1965, thanks to the Northern Securities case (1904). The Great Northern had to buy their land the old fashioned way -- in a hurry before anyone else noticed where their survey crews were. They surveyed different routes to confuse speculators. But they bought the land they built their railroad over as honestly as any rail baron of the nineteenth century did, and more than most.

Not that they were particularly savory. I just read John Hudson's "Plains Country Towns" and it's a far more exciting book than you could expect for an academic geographer's take on the settling of the northern half of North Dakota.

Sorry, I grew up in a Great Northern town, and for all their warts, there's a lot to be admired about the line.

 

[Long Train Runnin']

Really liked the music and the videos.

I spent a week inside the park over the summer. You can find those pictures here