Amtrak

Previously on Perth2Perth, I was being shown around Chicago by John, an ex-railway man.

John explained that for 150 years Chicago has been the largest rail hub in the United States. As the main interchange between East and West, Chicago handles more freight and passenger trains than any other city, not just in the country, but the continent! However, as John went on to tell us, with service to 525 stations in 36 states, it’s unsurprising that over half the long-distance journeys in America start or end at Union Station (pictured below). This is where I would be starting my journey west to Seattle.

But my journey on Amtrak actually started the day before, when I got the double decker train from New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal to Chicago. Journey time: 19 hours 30 minutes!

Upon getting on, the first thing passengers were told by the conductor was there’s no WiFi. The trains he said “are 40 years old, they didn’t have WiFi when they were built”. And they wonder why the train is dying in America! Considering I was able to get WiFi in the middle of the Atlantic, it seems strange Amtrak can’t provide this, even if they have to charge for it.

What Amtrak did have instead of WiFi is good legroom, an iconic whistle, and impressive scenery. The view from the window started as a swamp, then forest, followed by small-town America, and finally a ‘Western movie’ style sunset.

The Amtrak train rocked about and blew its whistle comfortingly during the night, as the internal lights are dimmed and passengers told to “Haud yer wheesht” (or translated into American English “be quiet”). The train continued to make stops during the night picking up and dropping off passengers in the middle of the US.

We were woken at 5 am by a new more animated conductor announcing “we have arrived at Champaign”. None of us passengers were in the mood to break out the bubbly! I looked at my phone and saw a child abduction alert, then out the window and saw only darkness. As the conductor was telling us to make all seats available, I fell back to sleep and didn’t awake until Chicago.

Six hours later I was getting on the ‘Empire Builder’ train. This has nothing to do with ‘Star Wars’ and ‘The Empire Strikes Back’! On the contrary. It’s a historic train line that dates back to 1929, when it was first run by privately operated ‘The Great Northern Railway’ (a predecessor to the semi-public run Amtrak). ‘Empire Builder’ refers to the railroad’s founder James J. Hill, who restructured several failed railways into a successful operation running all the way to the Pacific Northwest. This achievement earned him the name ‘The Empire Builder’.

The Empire Builder is Amtrak's busiest long-distance route, and it shows. Even though the train departs every day, when I got on in Chicago almost every seat was booked, and passenger numbers only thinned out after Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Two trains are joined together to make the ‘Empire Builder’, the 7, which goes to Seattle, and the 27 bound for Portland. The train splits in two at Spokane, with each section going on to its final destination. Heaven help you if you’re on the wrong part of the train at the time! The staff try their best to make sure this doesn’t happen, but I was looking for the restaurant car after the split, and found it had disappeared (now attached to the Portland train)!

While the restaurant car was still attached though, I managed to get a sit-down dinner, with table service. On the menu was a salmon starter, with a roast chicken main. I was sat at a table with Cathy from Florida. She was doing a tour around America on Amtrak. Not long retired, Cathy had never been abroad, but felt it was time to see some of her own country. Dinner was so good I went back to the restaurant car the following morning. Over a breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast and yogurt, I spoke with Carol, an American who was a big fan of British TV shows.

I noticed quite a few Amish on the train. Carol explained the mid-west was thought of as flyover country by many tourists. It seemed like they were missing out, as the view was spectacular. On the journey we’d seen the Mississippi; cityscapes of Chicago, Minneapolis and St. Paul; incredibly flat land in the North Dakota plains; then the ‘Big Sky’ country in Montana (basically meaning a view unobstructed by buildings). The train helpfully had an observation car with a glass roof, to allow passengers to view this great scenery.

After trying to write up some of my recent adventures, and catching up on emails via 5G, my phone was almost out of juice. While Amtrak didn’t provide WiFi, it did provide a power source. This was when I realised I had left not only my charger, but my international adaptor, behind in Chicago. With no nearby passengers having the right power adaptor to charge my phone or computer, I looked out the window instead. I’ve heard this referred to by Americans as “raw dogging”, in the context of flying without any inflight entertainment. What term applies to the train is anyone’s guess!

It could have been worse though. In 1931 an ‘Empire Builder’ train was struck by a tornado near Minnesota. All the passenger cars were thrown off the track, some as far as 80 feet! One passenger died and 57 others were injured.

The entire journey to Seattle takes 46 hours. However, I had purposely booked a stop halfway, to break the journey. When trying to decide on my stop, a name flew off the map. “Glasgow Montana”!