Grand Train Journey across USA - Day 3

[Guest]

DAY 3 – (20 June 2006) – All aboard! All aboard!

Yes, the day has arrived where we start our train journey across the United States.

As the result of the nation’s reliance on automobiles and increasing popularity of airplane travel that led to the declining use of passenger trains, US Congress passed the Rail Passenger Service Act of 1970. This legislation established the National Railroad Passenger Corporation to take over the intercity passenger rail service that had been operated by private railroads. Amtrak began service on May 1, 1971 serving 43 states with a total of 21 routes. Amtrak operates more than 300 trains each day on 21,300 miles of track with select segments having civil operating speeds of 150 mph and connecting more than 500 destinations in 46 States, in addition to three Canadian provinces.

Unfortunately, the US Government only partially fund the service and it is run as a “for profit” corporation.

Having arrived at Seattle’s King Street Station by taxi, we are ready to start our journey from coast to coast via train.

Darrin takes our vouchers to the ticket office to exchange for actual tickets. We will be taking 3 main services to get across this country and for each segment we get travel tickets, sleeper reservation tickets and tickets for breakfasts and dinners. I think we had some 30 tickets by the time the clerk had finished printing them out.

So let's take a look at where we intend travelling:

The first train, the "Coast Starlight" will take us from Seattle to Klamath Falls for a break at Crater Lake. We'll then continue on it to Emeryville for San Francisco. SF itself does not have a rail-road station.
Our second leg will be on the "California Zephyr" which will carry us east from Emeryville through the Rocky Mountains, Salt Lake City, Denver and through to Chicago.
"The Cardinal" completes our journey through Indianapolis, Cincinatti, across West Virginia and Virginia and into Washington D C.

Now, I ask you to look at this rail-road station. Station? I’m more inclined to think I’m sitting in a palace or stately home.

Before we can start heading east, we need to head south. At 10:00am the “Coast Starlight” train reverses into the station – a huge double-decked silver monster which puts the small trains in the UK to shame. We’ll leave from Platform 11 in approximately one hour.

We have baggage service which means our unwanted cases disappear into the luggage car. We won’t see those again until tonight.

Now then our compartment consists of two seats facing each other which share a small table surface between them. There are neatly designed crevices where coats etc can be hung. These seats will collapse and form the lower bunk for sleep at night. The upper bunk folds down from the wall above. You can see the base of it at the top of the picture. Toilet facilities are located at the forward end of the car and there is 24/7 coffee and water available. To the rear of our coach is the restaurant car.

We hear the conductor shouting: All aboard! All aboard! And at 11:00 a.m. on the dot the “Coast Starlight” slowly winds its way out of King Street station and past the QWest stadium heading south. I just love that long horn sound that these beasts make.

We settle into our seats and start to watch the scenery pass by. It’s pretty industrial and we pass by factory units bearing the names of Westinghouse, Nabisco and Ford. The urban landscape starts to give way to greenery.

We pass the Boeing factory just 7 miles south of Seattle – called Boeing field. You can actually tour the factory facilities here and see planes being constructed. They also have an old Air Force One (Presidential plane) that you can visit. The site is enormous – rather like two Heathrows.

We start to gather speed and follow Puget sound.

Several small stops are passed along the way before we arrived at Tacoma: Kent, which has a racetrack and Puyallup which leads us through a pine forest until the Puget Sound widens (ironically called the “narrows”). There are two bridges here – one still under construction. These replaced the famous “Galloping Gertie” Tacoma Narrows bridge which swayed so violently in the wind back in 1940 that eventually it collapsed into the water only 5 months after its opening. Here is the famous film made of the collapse:





Thankfully, there is a far sturdier bridge crossing the gap nowadays.

Tacoma was once known as the “City of Destiny” and was chosen as the terminus for the North Pacific railroad in 1873. As in the past, much of the lumber heads to this city and its sawmills. In the photo you can clearly see Mount Rainier in the background.

As we continue around Commencement Bay the train was tracked by an American bald-eagle before it soared off above the tree-line. The scenery became even more attractive as Steilacoom came into view and the bay widened further.

On through Centralia and towards Kelso, we get our first glimpse of Mount St. Helens. Given its tranquil appearance now it’s hard to think of the natural disaster that occurred on May 18th 1980. The eruption was preceded by a two-month series of earthquakes and steam-venting episodes, caused by an injection of magma at shallow depth below the volcano that created a huge bulge and a fracture system on the mountain's north slope.

An earthquake at 8:32:17 a.m. caused the entire weakened north face to slide away, creating the largest landslide ever recorded. This suddenly exposed the partly molten, gas- and steam-rich rock in the volcano to lower pressures. The rock responded by exploding a hot mix of lava and pulverized older rock toward Spirit Lake so fast that it overtook the avalanching north face.

An eruption column rose 80,000 feet (15 miles ) into the atmosphere and deposited ash in 11 U.S. states. At the same time, snow, ice and several entire glaciers on the volcano melted, forming a series of large lahars (volcanic mudslides) that reached as far as the Columbia River, nearly 50 miles (80 km) to the southwest. Less severe outbursts continued into the next day, only to be followed by other large, but not as destructive, eruptions later that year. Today the south face of the mountain bears a massive half crater where the eruption took place.

We pop along to the observation car and watch the scenery glide by:

Passing through through Vancouver (not to be confused with Vancouver in Canada) and cross the Columbia river, leaving Washington State and into Oregon.

Our train pulls into Portland for a short break and whilst more passengers boarded the train Darrin and I got off and by arrangement wave eastward towards White Salmon and our friends Lana, Don and family.

They’d need pretty good eye sight to see us from 60 miles away though! We later learned that they did wave back.

(** Sadly, Don passed away in 2015 as a result of mesothelioma, caused by asbestos in his early days as an electrician. He was a true gentleman devoted to his family.)


We are invited to the dining car for a wine tasting with cheese. I would forever go into the annals of Salt history by declaring later that it was “average wine with very average cheese!”

By Teatime we’d passed through farm and lumber country and were pulling into Eugene. Now despite the lumber business that goes on in Tacoma Eugene claims to be the "lumber capital of the world". It's also the most western city served by Amtrak trains. This region s famous for its mild climate and for fishing and boating on the McKenzie River.

After dinner, the train started to climb upwards into the Cascade Mountains – slowly at first. At Salt Creek Canyon you can see tracks below and above along this 30 mile climb. The view of the falls is amazing.

The incline increases and the pine-trees become denser.

We pass Lookout Point reservoir, with snow-capped peaks in the distance and then head towards the Willamette Pass, source of the Willamette river.

At this point, the train is running about 1 ˝ hours late and we are holding for a freight train just outside of Chemult. Freight always takes priority on the American railway system – indicative of the fact that freight services pay for the infrastructure. We have more hold ups to come.

Our train starts to descend toward Chemult, gateway for Cascades ski resorts, and then onward towards Klamath Marsh. We pass through Chiloquin, before arriving at Upper Klamath Lake, one of the country’s largest freshwater lakes and source of Klamath Falls, our next stop.

We had dinner around 7:30p.m. - burgers and fries. This is followed by Philadelphia cheesecake. Cheesecake will come to play a major part of our train journeys. We chat to our fellow travellers over a bottle of wine of a somewhat better quality than we had at the tasting!

The various hold ups caused by waiting for freight trains has put us some 3 hours behind and instead of arriving at Klamath Falls at 11p.m. it’s more like 01:50 a.m. as we creep into the station.

We have luggage to collect from the baggage car and then we have to join a queue for the two taxis still operating at this time of night. It’s getting on for 2:30 when we finally check in at the Best Western – Olympic Inn. I don’t think I even got undressed…………………….


INDEX: http://DIBB.in/11466192

[disney20042012]

Wow that station wouldn't look out of place at the GF. Love the report so far.

[Eeyore rocks]

Wow, a long day... boy, isn't that station stunning?

Thanks for sharing.

[Mr Tom Morrow]

Geoff. Loving it - I havent posted on your previous trip reports in this series.
But both you and I know I have a head start on everybody else ref whats taken place and whats to come!

That will have some Dibbers pondering what I mean!

As always a lovely but above all else an informative report - Well done!

[P&S]

What a long but enjoyable day for you both
Scenery is lovely.

[Lillie]

Wow what an amazing station! Lovely scenery too.

[Melvin Pearce]

We must go to Seattle sometime and definitely visit the Boeing Factory with our son who is an engineer with British Airways.

Love the station

Must be great to see Mt Helen, always remember the news when that happened.

Looking forward to Day 4

Lesley and Melvin

[disney owl]

a long day but beautiful views from the train