Empire Builder

I've wanted to ride the Empire Builder for as long as I can remember. The name itself demands respect, and I always imagined that the scenery along this northernmost route would be outstanding. Furthermore, as a southerner, the Great Northern always held a certain allure as a railroad with which I had no direct contact but in which I had great interest. My last transcontinental trip was way back in the 1980s when my parents and I rode the Sunset Limited back from Los Angeles all the way to New Orleans. Thirty years ago now, I was long overdue for an overnight trek to the west coast on Amtrak.

My opportunity to board the Builder came when my church denomination chose to hold its national meeting in Portland, Oregon. No sooner had that announcement been made and I was making plans in my head to ride this route. My wife, daughter, and I boarded the Capital Limited in Pittsburgh late on a Tuesday evening, riding coach overnight to Chicago. That's a leg I've done several times, and I was grateful that the inbound Capital did not lose too much time in the freight congestion of the Windy City. My mother flew in from New Orleans and met us at Union Station on Wednesday morning. After breakfast at the famous Lou Mitchell's diner just down the street, we boarded #7/27 early for an on-time afternoon departure toward Milwaukee.

Our destination being Portland, our sleeper was on the rear of the train. This was a pleasant surprise. I knew the westbound Builder was split each night at Spokane, but I did not know how that was done. Turns out the rear half of #7 -- a lounge car, several coaches, and one or two sleepers -- is actually #27, the Portland section of the Builder. My daughter and mom landed in a downstairs roomette, but my wife and I landed upstairs in roomette #9 -- the last room of the last car on the right side of the train. Perfection. This location made for easy access to the trailing door for rearward viewing. I've said it for years: If you can't ride up front, then the next best place is on the rear.

#7/27 is an impressive train, making use of the basic Amtrak long-distance setup for rolling stock but adding some additional coaches and sleepers to accommodate the two sections west of Spokane. Two Genesis units were on the point, in the standard paint schemes, followed by a brand new baggage car, transition crew sleeper, Seattle sleepers, dining car, Seattle coaches, lounge car, Portland coaches, and then our Portland sleeper. The Superliner equipment is really showing its age on the inside. Outside, the stainless steel is holding up very well; long trains still look good rolling by. But inside, despite maintenance and interior renovations, you can tell in most of the coaches, sleepers, and lounges that this equipment has been at it for some time. Even so, most of the cars rode well at 79 mph ... although I was surprised at the number of stretches of rough mainline trackage on the otherwise modern BNSF.

But it was the scenery, not the Superliner equipment, that made the trip. I had never travelled to or in the northernmost states along our Canadian border. North Dakota and eastern Montana were amazing: long stretches of flatlands followed by rolling hills. The sunset leaving Minnesota and the sunrise in North Dakota were wonderful. Glacier National Park in western Montana was a great treat: Great Northern snowsheds, mountain moose, and mainline switchbacks going up and over and down the divide. But I think my favorite section was, for us, Friday morning -- the last day of the ride. We woke up running at a full on sprint along the Washington side of the beautiful Columbia River. Early in the morning hours we had lost the front two-thirds of #7, so as #27 now the lounge car was right up against our lone Genesis unit. This meant you could stand at the upstairs exterior door and see right down the roofline of the P42. Despite the diesel fumes, it was a great ride at 79 mph along the river -- passing tugboat barges on the water and BSNF freights on the rails. We ran like that all morning, until the speeds gave way to the city limits and we inched our way through the trackage and down into the amazing Portland Union Station -- one of the nicest throwback American railroad stations I have ever seen.

All in all, it was a great ride. Amtrak's future as a railroad empire is not quite as bright or expansive as James Hill might have imagined his legacy, but the Builder lived up to its reputation as a great trip across a impressive and rugged part of the continent.