A Train Odyssey 2, Part 3: AMTRAK Empire Builder

okay it's Monday the 21st of May 2018 and I'm here at Portland's Union Station ready to board the third leg of my train out of C this'll be the Empire Builder from Orleans to Chicago which will be the end of my journey three days they had a mate of train riding and Portland's Union Station is a very attractive and apparently well maintained structure and let's go in and see if there's a lounge for first class I don't know if there is or isn't yeah huh I spot a sign down there that says metropolitan lounge I hope you're training that buster we do war make sure you and warnings so this is the Portland metropolitan lounge it's not very big wrote 25 say stop all in the normal let you guys out northbound feel this is the coast starlight that's passing through on its way to Seattle say maturing that came upon from Los Angeles a few days ago the coach passengers are now coming out and being ushered down towards the rear of the Train and the coast starlight pulls out of Portland station the consist on this train coming out of Portland is a bit different from what it has been on my other trips because the train has yet to be merged in Spokane so it's like got one locomotive at this position it's kind of a short train for this first stretch and on this train the sleepers are at the tail end so this would be I think another coach car and I don't think there's a dining car on this train I believe the dining car gets added in Spokane it's part of the Train coming from Seattle and at 4:45 in the afternoon right on time the Empire Builder Portland section departs Portland Union Station bound for Spokane Washington where we will meet up with the Seattle part of the Train and merge and become one unified Empire Builder with Chicago Union Station as its destination I was trying to guess which way the train was going to leave out of the station by which way the locomotive is pointed but since this is an unusual consists for a moment I thought maybe it was going to go the other way for a bit but as it is it's heading in this direction which is good because I think that means I'll have a good vantage point of the Columbia River assuming we're on the north side of it which is what I think it is I guess I should turn my GPS on the tracks do follow the Columbia River for a ways based on the information I've received up to this point and then branch off and head diagonally up through Washington up towards Spokane and presumably about the time that happens is about when it'll be getting too dark to do good videos so I think that'll work out well [Applause] I'm addict I met a couple from Wisconsin in my in the metropolitan lounge before boarding the train who recognized the tone of my voice from my other videos the world can indeed be small and they happen to be in the next car from or the next room it from me in this beautiful sunny Monday afternoon ah we are trained 28 so that number should come up on the scanner from time to time [Music] we're in a good-sized railyard north of downtown Portland it looks like we're just high balling our way right through it I thought we were destined to cross the river here on this lifting bridge but it appears that we're going past that well it turns out we are taking that bridge looking back at a Portland so looking at Portland on the map it's hard to see there but looking at the detailed view we started out down here and we've crossed over onto this sort of peninsula here we're cutting across it and we're soon going to be crossing the Columbia River here which will put us in Vancouver Washington not to be confused as Vancouver British Columbia about ready to cross over to aden island which is this island right here where my fingers pointing that's the one we're about ready to cross over on to [Music] now there's a beautiful view of Mount Hood there see if my camera can do it justice I don't think so relevant yardas this sure beats my last trip on the Empire Builder when it was well into the negative digits Fahrenheit it's a beautiful day here in the Portland area I hear it's raining like cats and dogs in Chicago but I think that'll be over by the time we get there in a couple of days so hate an island here I wish I could get a better view of Mount Hood ah North will be turned sharply they are turning sharply money shot now heed focus oblique angle through the window there we go I guess this is our van cougar stop I have not studied the sheet for this part of the trip all I know is the train goes along the Columbia River so now that we're in Vancouver I'm gonna presume we're gonna be just tracing the northern shore of the river up to some point where we're going to branch and head up to Spokane it seems logical it's going to go more or less along the stretch of i-90 and then 395 it may I guess it could take another row but that seems likely while we're sitting here in Vancouver I should point out that Mount Hood that I was trying to get a good picture of is the highest point in the state of Oregon at 11,000 239 feet above sea level so the train horn just sounded for departure from Vancouver not sure yeah this is the interstate 5 bridge here over the Columbia my GPS was taking its time updating as a flight parting Portland Airport across the river this bridge coming up is the interstate 205 bridge so it's the bypass bridge I am a somewhat disappointed to discover that now that we've gotten into a point where there's some good light on it the outsides of the windows were clearly not washed before this trip they're pretty dirty that must be part of the I guess the gotcha that comes from Amtrak's budget cuts that they've had to endure recently small things like whether they have somebody who can clean the windows or not apparently it's one of the things that goes by the wayside still it's not horrible it's not streaked or blotch it's just generally dirty if I hold the camera right up to the glass it's less apparent we're on a smaller channel of the river and not the main course I actually know what it looks like inside those pipes that we just went under not those exact ones perhaps the ones just like them having been inside a few myself one of the things I like about the train travel in general is that it takes you through parts of cities that have things like this that you almost never get to see it's a georgia-pacific facility that we passed by here for our passing by we're paralleling Washington State 14 just went under it and the River Valley can be seen just ahead but we're a little bit too far to actually see the water at this moment but as the old GPS shows we'll be getting closer presently I almost had a small disaster with this quite a few years old GPS while I was driving around the Portland area during my several days layer between the coast starlight train and this train my suction cup mount broke and I had to scurry around to several different stores but luckily a Best Buy less than two miles from my hotel had one in stock that would fit this which was a minor miracle I was almost going to buy a whole new GPS just to have some use on this trip interstate 84 runs along the opposite bank of the river and if we look really hard we might be able to see the occasional traffic running along it there we are trucks [Music] it's a longer tunnel than I expected very nice views along here I think this whole area across the river is part of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area [Music] marvelous cliffs they're very spectacular wish I can get a better view of them [Music] we're now in the area of north Bonneville Washington State the track is going to go a bit further from the coast of the or the shore of the river the banks of the river I think until we get to the far side of north Bonneville and for those following along at home we haven't gone that far from Portland yet North Bonneville is right about there in the middle of the screen right about that where the shadow line is it says Stevenson right above it there we go that's where we are make sure that happen but you got your engines I think this is the part of the Cascade Locks system they I think the locks proper just over the rise there can't really see them from here things are a bit narrow here on the river yeah I'm not sure if that was the Cascade Locks back there according to my GPS there's a town of Cascade Locks it's coming up on the Oregon side but that may not be where the actual locks are so I'm not sure what that was back there this bridge here links highway 30 which runs along the far shore with highway 14 which runs along this Shore of course it also connects interstate 84 on the far side with the highway on this side [Music] we're now in the town of Stevenson Washington State speaking maybe only for myself but it's real easy to forget about the beauty in this specific part of the world one thinks of the beauty of the Cascade Mountains or the beauty of the Pacific coastline in the Pacific Northwest but not so much about the inland rivers [Music] Thank You path much better so will you've progressed at 6 o'clock p.m. to Carson right about here there's still quite a ways to go along the Columbia River [Music] there's a bit of turbulence out on the river there this is a river that has some flow going to it here it's as waves and little Whitecaps taking these trips I'm often marveling at things like these high tension lines that are running along the face of that rock is start mint over there anyway we're past that now but way up on this crumbly unstable steep Boulder strewn slope across the river were these high tension lines and their towers are starting about a third of the way up the slope that had to be a job just erecting those up there you know how do you get heavy equipment up there to do that drag them up on lines I don't know seems like it almost would have been easier to stick the poles on the riverbed there's some more of the poles on that Ridge over there but that's a much more accessible place and you go up and they crest over there too it hadn't been a fun job [Music] [Music] we're now at the town of Underwood Washington State a lot of people are people are parasailing out there [Music] this is the Hood River Bridge connecting the highway 14 on the Washington side with highway 30 on the Oregon side and it does have that lift bridge section in the middle [Music] now we're in the town of Bingen SDS Lumbergh s Diaz Lumber Company is what it says guess there's a station stop here anywhere there were and pinion is right there in the middle of the screen next to white salmon so we've made a bit of progress along the river and at 6:20 were pulling out of bingen one thing I should note about the cars we have or this particular car anyway is I guess it's the newer kind that doesn't have the old-fashioned control that has LED lamps and they're on swivels instead of fixed and their touch controls touch on and off the call button is that one and then there are buttons for the ceiling light thing offer in night light mode or regular mode over on this side there's also the touch on and off button and then the temperature control which seems to be pretty much normal so I'm not sure if these are older cars that have been renovated but here's another change most of the super liners that I'm familiar with have curving right down from here to here a metal rail which the outer edge of the upper berth latches on to and two or three positions there's detents on there this one has apparently the detents over on the hinge side so it's a little bit different I'm sure there are some rail fans out there who will chime in with useful information on whether these are the the original ones built by Pullman that have been renovated or if these are the ones built by whoever built the second batch I honestly can't remember who it was was it bud or I'm not sure the super liners are built by two different companies as I recall first batch and second batch and then there have been groups of renovations that have been done to various numbers of cars and I can't keep track all that stuff [Music] so the really high cliffs on the opposite side are passed now and we're beyond that Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area we're outside of that now so we're just into plain old somewhat less spectacular but still very nice or gone across the river [Music] [Music] [Music] and yes that was still Mount Hood in the distance we're right at this point where the river actually runs north and south or from south north which is this position on the map if I can get it to stabilize right there it says the Dallas so how it's pronounced anywhere we're in that position and Mount Hood is just right over here so that's what we would be looking at all this distance and we're still seemingly just as close to it as we were in Portland [Music] [Music] in just a few minutes ago my car tenant came by with my lunch or dinner what am I saying it's dinner so what goodies are there in here some sort of a cold the chicken sandwich and a little piece of cake and some sort of a coleslaw kind of thing and some orange slices and some chips not quite like diner car food but it'll suffice we passed the the locks there at the Dallas my cameras switched off right in the middle of it because the battery ran low so I didn't get it it was pretty spectacular oh well over on the far side we can see where interstate 84 is because there's a white concrete bridge but you can already see the dramatic change in the face of the river and its shoreline as we get into the more desert II part of both Washington State and Oregon yeah we were Samer Kamath in anything having anaphoric I think I'm gonna come back I'm letting this scene just play out here because unlike the more spectacular section which kept getting interrupted by trees on the shoreline there are no trees out here so might as well show the opposite shore while that's visible there's what looks like a railroad bridge crossing here this is not a road bridge that is coming up on the left but it does appear to be one of the few railroad crossings in the river at least along this stretch and the train is stopped here in the town of wish from Washington State once again i-84 is visible on the far side you had to stick them back here with that so this is Miller Island here this bridge coming up is the US highway 97 bridge which runs along the Washington side until here at which point it drops over and then runs along the Oregon side that little town over there is bigs Junction bargain I'm trying not to say Oregon which is what I always preferred to say because I heard that is not the way it's supposed to be pronounced but it still sounds kind of dumb to me to say Oregon but I'm trying once the vineyards along here and groves of various trees I don't know what kind and we're coming up on the John Day dam here which completely blocks the river the river or the dam rather is right there in the middle of the picture on the camera I don't know it seems like I've got some sort of data bearing channel on the scanner here at about 7:20 in the evening word another one of these places where the river temporarily bends and that would be right here so the town of Roosevelt should be coming up in the not-too-distant future well that was a pretty decent box lunch actually the coleslaw was quite good surprisingly the orange slices kind of bland but just fine really the sandwiches were quite good the flavor was good there was some nice cheese in there I don't know what kind the cake was very nice I'm just waiting for it to settle a bit before I dive into this small bag of SunChips I do think it worth noting that this is the first Amtrak sleeper I've been on where they did not provide bottled water in the room usually there's at least a couple bottles in here I brought my own and a drink that I picked up in the store at the train station and nothing was provided with the meal either which surprised me and the character the landscape has changed dramatically it's getting to be pretty flat now and definitely more desert-like way off in the distance there you might just be able to make it out so jerky [Music] and see a tall stack with flashing lights on it in the distance that's on the bargain side of the river and Clini ways away from us at this point several miles and that would be a power generation plant called Boardman that I had a hand in designing the software that runs the pollution control systems on there or at least part of the pollution control systems that was probably about six years ago we're not I never actually went to the plant I just wrote the software and here's another likely contender it could be this one right here that might be Boardman I think this is probably the one actually because the guys who went there said of us pretty close to the water alright never mind what I said before about the the other one a bit further away when you write your software properly you don't have to go out there to fix it and it beat a clock in the evening we have reached the town of Paterson Washington and it is right there not long before interstate 82 crosses the river and I suspect that's where the train is going to depart and start going northwards we're now at Plymouth Washington State or interstate 80 to cross as the river Oh Mattila Oregon is on the other side of the river and this bridge here is going to be the I 82 Bridge I think it's kind of like it's made out of wood doesn't so you've got one direction on an older bridge and the other direction oh there's a mouth on a modern concrete bridge well we're still tracking the river at the moment and here's another bridge this is the McNary Lock and Dam I think the lock is over on this side it looks like the exit side of a lock and there's the other side of the lock well at about 8:20 at night we're still running along the shore of the Columbia River but not for long because we are doing this little curve in the river right here starting to curve up and it looks like the trains going to follow it all the way up to the Richland Kennewick Pasco area and the Train does go through Pasco that's a station stop and then the next stop is Spokane at around midnight so that is definitely the rail we're going to be taking and I suspect we're just gonna curl along with the river until we get up to this atropos here and at some point we're gonna have to cross over the river to get to Pasco because that's on the other side and now right on the curve of the river we start getting some altitude on the opposing side again the same guy who has been on each of the trains on this trip the Southwest chief and the coast starlight and now this train he's gotten yelled at each time for walking around barefoot and I can see right now he's just left his room walking around barefoot again guy doesn't learn I know I've said it before but Amtrak will jump on yes you did walk around outside of your room without shoes on first I might stepped out into the aisle since we'd started the trip [Music] if we were to go straight along this highway here Walla Walla Washington is over around here but we're not we're going north all right at 8:40 we're pulling into Finley Washington Finley's Kennewick richland etc [Music] [Music] 8:45 and we pull into Kennewick and from the looks of it we're gonna cross the river right here of course this isn't so the Columbia River here anymore it's it's a tributary it looks like we're committed to that track [Music] and it looks like it's gonna be this lift bridge we're on and everything of it and with fat hello ready for you Ben yeah I think we can arrange that here so just before 9 p.m. we're in Pasco Washington our last stop before Spokane which should be another three or so hours so it is very clearly a very short train compared to most of Amtrak's long distance trains and that is because it's only about a third of the total Empire Builder got the one sleeper car and immediately a coach car in front of it and another coach car and a lounge car and then immediately the engine I don't even think there's a baggage car or a transition car on here I don't know how they do that maybe they don't need it for such a short trip I don't know [Applause] so the bed's been made it's time to start thinking about sleeping so I made an inquiry of my car attendant here at the Pasco stop about whether there was a transition car on here and he said no it's the lounge car and then the one locomotive which means that the crew conductor doesn't matter who it is cannot get to the locomotive while the Train is rolling normally they'd be able to use the transition car to get to the lower level and then go through the baggage car and then into the locomotive our locomotives and pass through those all the way up to the front but without a transition car the only way to get into the locomotive from a Superliner is to stop the train and get off and walk up to the locomotive and then climb the ladder up into the cab so they are somewhat compromised and the ability to get around but as he pointed out the only person who would go into the locomotive would usually be the conductor and there isn't usually a need to do that and if there was they can stop the Train briefly to let it happen well it's 6 a.m. on the second day of the trip Tuesday the 22nd of May 2018 and overnight the train has managed to get from Spokane Washington through the top of Idaho and into western Montana we have been following the river here but now we're taking our leave of it and on the map it's right in the middle of the camera there reposition right in the middle of the camera image now we're starting to go down towards where the green TP symbol is so just a bit east of whitehaven and the kutenai National Forest and I presume we're going to be heading very quickly for the bypass around Glacier National Park but it is now time to see about getting breakfast hopefully it's open now [Music] [Music] I which gave me [Music] at 7:10 in the morning we're paralleling highway 93 so I can hold this steady enough we are paralleling highway 93 here right around where it says whitefish paralleling highway [Music] we have a station stop coming up there in 15-20 minutes from now after which I suspect will be fairly highly - there to go around the south end of Glacier National Park we've been going through the Kootenai National Forest and the Flathead National Forest you can really see the dirt on the outside of the windows when you catch the light at an angle I would consider this worthy of a strong comment to Amtrak it's in the last year I've really seen a big change where they're just not doing things like cleaning the windows I think half what you're selling here people is sightseeing trips that windows have to be reasonably clean at least some effort put into it and no other plans you look there everywhere you look at every other plan every rock was sacred books that like there was white fish lake I tried to get some videos of whitefish like which is along the other side of the car but the Sun is coming in often that side there's just a ton of glare and I couldn't get more than a few seconds of usable video so I'm trying to concentrate on my own side of the car as much as possible although sometimes that's all you get as a rock wall and lots of trees so the GPS has shown the tracks along the west side of the lake and then east from Whitefish I think we're in today outskirts of the town of whitefish and this is Whitefish Montana and it's a statement stop [Music] like this Gohan breakfast he makes pancakes or what I mean unlit and this is my room right there 7:45 in the morning we're pulling out of whitefish montana HR 735 and 745 out it they should ask or run here now you can see there's a little bit of snow still left up near these particular peaks these aren't very high they're just big Hills [Music] there are several small rivers in this area one of these might be the Flathead River that's the only one that shows up on my maps so maybe that's what this is on so we were just pulling into the West Glazer station [Music] so now that we've passed West glacier I think we're technically within the boundaries of Glacier National Park and we are stilling still paralleling highway 2 and actually right up there I've just shifted over to the vacant room on the other side of the aisle from my own room the people who are in here got off at West glacier it's still Iowa to there we're gonna be paralleling that for the rest of the day segmentation and at about 855 we're coming up on the town of Essex which is the second station stop for Glacier National Park that means we're roughly halfway across the park [Music] [Music] and you can see there's a much larger train we have now than we did yesterday good morning ladies and gentlement this announcements coming from our camp a lounge car well before highway 2 again in a river I'll point to the tech nerd now [Music] station stop deceased Glacier Park Montana about 20 minutes away so we're nearing the end of our passage through Glacier National Park we're quickly coming up on the border and the town of East Glacier Park I think it's called East Glacier Park or East Glacier Park village on the map should be just outside the boundaries a little bit probably about where the highway goes off the top of the screen so we are right there were the red highway crosses from the green to the brown we're pulling into East Glacier Park no and 9:50 we get the call to highball out of here or on a trestle here going over the river oh thank god I didn't get the camera going quick enough but they're ready the engineer was telling the conductor that he hit three cattle with the locomotive that area we just went by they were right up next to the tracks and there was no offence so he said he got three of them and then the conductor was saying looking out the rear of the Train II hadn't seen their bodies come through yet that sounds like the engineers calling the dispatcher to have them you know advise whoever needs to be advised at ten o'clock we've just passed south browning Montana at 10:20 in the morning we are we are just west of where it says cut bank at 1036 we're pulling into Cut Bank Montana obviously we're in a trestle either that or the train is able to fly first McDonald's sightings since leaving Portland it's a cappella highball time to leave marks pulling out of Cut Bank not much of a station or maybe this is the station here it seems to be in better shape at 11:00 a.m. we're on the outskirts of Shelby Montana which on the map is right there we've pretty much covered the border of Montana past glacier and then over here - she'll be in five hours we're but read across interstate 15 some clear stations I don't know why we don't have those anywhere around where I live maybe they're only in the western states now Jane didn't pull quite far enough ahead for us to get off without climbing on rocks so we had to go into the coach car in front of us in order to step off very comfortable temperature out here not sure what it is but I imagine it's somewhere in the 70s you're supposed to be able to tell the the brand of Superliner car based on the design of the trucks for example this front design [Music] as this pervy piece it goes like that and the coil spring arrangements contrasted with this design it looks very different I don't remember which one is better one of them is supposed to be considerably smoother riding and better for maintenance and so on [Laughter] I'm too late there was a beautiful dust devil going across this field and then it collapse just before I got my camera up and turned on when long at 80 miles an hour long highway to east of Shelby at 12 noon were just on the west side of the town of Galata or Gallatin which on the map is right there in the middle of the screen probably about where the number 5 is on the map at this moment [Music] that roof doesn't look so good [Music] [Music] Oh gotcha okay I didn't know you didn't know my no more that one coach hi I'm Paul John to meet you there is person famous hockey [Music] so it's 1244 and just finished lunch it seems like most of the sleeper rooms in my car anyway are empty now I think the other sleeper cars at the front end of the Train the ones coming from Seattle might have more people in them because it's a apparently a busier part of the route but back here it's almost like a ghost town [Music] now we're rapidly sneaking up on the town of guilford Guilford not my right here on the map there's a just below those clouds out in the distance appears to be a range of decent-sized hills okay so this is Guilford here yeah so let's see if I can get these girls like the track rock y'all playin hell yes so those dark hills in the distance so that's to the south of us on the map looking in that general direction I don't see anything except right about here there's this area and it's part of the upper Missouri River brakes National Monument so right now I'm just gonna guess they're part of the Missouri Breaks but that could be totally wrong coming to a stop for a no apparent reason I haven't heard anything on the scanner there is water flood it up on either side but we're up enough high higher up enough around it I wouldn't think it'd be due to that this is the town of Kremlin nod name to have out in the middle of northern Montana I finally got somewhere where there was some data reception on my phone so I could look up the Missouri Breaks and it does indeed have substantial elevations as part of it so I pretty sure that range of Hills on the horizon was part of the Missouri Breaks National Monument okay Evelyn just on the outskirts of Harbor yeah 140 in the afternoon Havre Montana [Applause] camera shutter why's that correct that we're gonna cross over breaks Roger that bus so we're dumping all the charms over okay Hannibal Network after several Border Patrol officials strolling around the platform here so this engine here and s-two steam locomotive built by Baldwin locomotive works is one that actually pulled the original Empire Builder in the 1930s this is the last of the 14 engines that were bought for that purpose the Baldwin works describe this model as the finest most powerful steam passenger locomotive ever built up to this time after the Empire Builder was streamlined and diesel-powered in 1947 these engines were converted to freight service here's the horn toot [Applause] [Applause] yeah that's what yeah yeah okay I'll pick your life through your way if you want to cut away your power down some technician lined into this stuff okay back Colin Norman jr. turn to check both for me 24 this is the milk river here which runs parallel to highway 2 or meanders parallel to hardly time knock it out for me junior mentor Jack vote for me 27:54 on the November subdivision to the Amtrak 89 West to the limits of three 59.4 and 358 to the debenture red flash at milepost three 59.4 come on thrice meatless otherwise restricted on the main is that correct over EMF detectors mile post 34.0 no no high temperature regarding the black crud that gets on the insides of the windows on the trains a commenter on one of my previous videos where I was showing how much crud I was getting off the windows with a alcohol wipe one of the commenters said that this isn't just normal dirt this is actually soot from the diesel exhaust of the locomotives being brought in through the the fresh air intakes in the cars and not being adequately filtered deposits itself on everything basically of the place you notice it most is on the windows I suppose that could be true probably I would have thought that they would have had filters that would have collected that stuff before it gets into the ventilation system but the guy might be right look at that all the seeds off the trees long past like snow there for a moment so we're in Malta now this is the town of Malta highway that's US Highway 191 intersects going north and south with highway 2 going east and west both of them US highways Malta's right there we've managed to come that far still quite a ways of Montana to go though we've only done maybe 2/3 the width today and it's 3:15 in the afternoon we're definitely building up to some storm action there there's rain falling over there quite a bit falling over there it looks like maybe we'll get our windows wash at nine over it's about 340 in the afternoon and we're just west of the town of Seco sa CEO highway 2 is just on the left side of the Train and at 4 o'clock in the afternoon we pass through the busy burg of Hinsdale Montana well we've been sitting stopped for at least 15 minutes just on the east side of Hinsdale I heard the engineer speaking with the dispatcher regarding some codes but I don't know what they mean and apparently it means stop and wait for something but I don't know what that is I'm not sure if they're doing some track maintenance up ahead or if we're just waiting on another trainer what but this is a double track here so I wouldn't think we'd have to wait on another train necessarily this is just outside ven daily in Montana well after about half an hour sitting here we finally started moving again hopefully for good this time and 5 p.m. we roll into Glasgow Montana or state highway 24 intersects US Highway two right there amtrac three yeah 5:30 going through Fraser Montana at 5:50 in the afternoon we pull into wolf Point Montana which is where state highway 13 intersects with us I weigh - more or less it's actually slightly to the left of that intersection right there so maybe an hour or so from the North Dakota border yet with all this track repair stuff I keep seeing spread out along here you'd think by now they'd have really smooth rails but maybe they're just gearing up to do the work well at 7:23 I just returned from having dinner and we're following the Missouri River here and according to the old GPS we're really close to the North Dakota border specifically there's this big loop in the river right there and that is this one that's right there in the middle of the image so yeah we should be across in a minute or so welcome to North Dakota we just crossed the state line and that is a I think that's port buford there or reconstruction thereof [Music] so the trains gonna take the rest of the day and all night and part of the morning or the early morning to get across North Dakota and Minnesota I believe it's supposed to pull into the Minneapolis station sometime mid morning 9 o'clock 10 o'clock something like that so we're not gonna see much of North Dakota before it gets dark I suppose we have another hour or so before it's fairly dark out here which is a bit different from taking the Empire bill or the other direction in which case you miss a chunk of Wisconsin and all of Minnesota at night but you see North Dakota here we're going to miss most of North Dakota you can see some white bluffs which I believe are going to be associated with the Missouri River Valley or Basin whatever you want to call it because that's exactly where it is often the right and we come back in sight of the Missouri River here this Bend brings it close to the tracks and this is actually only a little that the river the river is quite wide in this particular location you can see the main channel off to the right and then there's this little side channel which is what we're sitting here I believe this is a flooded area that does not normally have water here low-lying area off the main channel but they've had a lot of water here as evidenced by other flooding I've seen on this trip so I think this is not an area that's usually wet this bridge we're coming up to here didn't see that the water is higher than it normally would be under a bridge of that sort awesome sort of flood stage here that's the u.s. highway 85 bridge and here we are in Williston short stations stop here in Williston and of course Williston is right there in the middle of the picture hey Marty I'm all up back here oh you're I can't always hear the blasts on the horn being at the opposite end of the train like this usually when I'm in sleeper coaches I'm much closer to the front of the Train and it's very apparent when they sound the horn but way back here at the tail end of a long train that's sometimes very faint [Music] they just said over the radio that they have a straggler who was running down the platform after the train but my understanding is they don't they don't tolerate that they made an announcement saying this was not a good place to get off unless you were you know disembarking permanently and that if you did get off you had to stay right next to the Train and get on as soon as they called it and sometimes people don't listen they wander off into the station or something and there's other YouTube videos about our if they call and they take off and somebody comes popping out of the station running after they don't stop for them they just sorry you know we can't be doing that you know you have never-ending holdups and sometimes they have to get out at the specified time in order to get in front of a couple other trains that would give them huge delays and you know you really have to not wander off you need to stay close to your car unless they say this is a long stop we're gonna be here for an hour you know 45 minutes stretch your legs otherwise you know you disembark the Train and wander off at your own peril they do not do a headcount for who has re-entered the train at a stop like that so even your car attendant doesn't know that you didn't get back on that's approach oh man [Music] this is the town of Springbrook at about 8:20 we're just north of the town of Rea North Dakota we're just outside of Tioga North Dakota which is where state highway 40 runs north and south [Music] [Music] at about 8:30 we have just passed through the tiny little burg of white earth North Dakota and very shortly it's going to be too dark to take any pictures at 8:50 in the evening it's just about dark we're still paralleling highway 2 and we're rapidly approaching the town of Stanley North Dakota and Stanley is where state highway 8 intersects with us highway 2 okay here we are in Stanley and that will conclude my video shooting for tonight we've still got day 3 of the trip which is going to be pretty much the whole day so we'll resume in the morning well it's now 6 a.m. on the third day of the trip the 23rd of May 2018 and we're somewhere in Minnesota I just finished my shower and the Sun is up the GPS says were near the town of Staples wherever that is well Staples is right there in the middle of the picture it's along Highway 10 it's US Highway 10 so overnight we've come across North Dakota paralleling highway 2 just like this to Grand Forks and then we drop straight down along the interstate to Fargo did that at some wee hour of the morning and then I think we've pretty much followed highway 10 since then past Detroit Lakes I think there would have been a stop there but I didn't notice it and come down here to staples where we are now and I suspect we're going to follow along here all the way along 10:00 Pest Little Falls and on into our major station stop of Minneapolis and then down along the Mississippi and then across Wisconsin and back to Chicago this is of some interest to me because even though I've taken the Empire Builder before and I know we've gone along this route it's always been late at night and when I was a little kid and we used to go visiting my grandparents of my maternal grandparents we always drove up along this stretch of highway 10 between Saint Cloud and Little Falls after which we'd head west and there was a set of railroad tracks along there and they had the Burlington Northern logo with the mountain goat and they had freight trains running along there and I used to watch those for that stretch and my father used to say oh they run passenger trains along there too and I always thought well I wonder if I'll ever get to drive take a train along that stretch of track so this morning not too long from now we're gonna get to do that maybe while I meant breakfast anyway so when I got up it was completely overcast and it actually looked like it was going to be raining or maybe it was raining but now as the sun's coming up it looks like it's clearing at least partially so we might have a decent weather day we're paralleling us highway 10 just north of the town of pushing soda [Music] Randall I'm starting to accept the one commenters opinion that the dirt on the insides of the windows was suit from sucked in through the ventilation system from the locomotive exhaust I've started wiping the insides of the windows with Kleenex and every day I get this in places where I didn't the day before you know I would clean it then it would get to the point where subsequent cleaning would reveal a clean Kleenex and then the next day I'd get this just from a quick white so I think maybe there is a rapidly accumulating layer of soot that's forming on these windows and that may be the major culprit for the dirt on the inside at 6:30 in the morning it's time for me to go to breakfast but the GPS shows that we're coming up to Little Falls here which is right here in the middle of the map and this is where highway 10 becomes even more Northwest or in north/south down towards st. cloud and a bit further what room are you in and you're in the 830 car highway 10 on the left coming through the town of Royalton that's Royalton where do you live this is the town of rice Minnesota Microsoft just sucks yeah all those jobs in five we're in st. Cloud Minnesota yeah seven o'clock [Music] this is passing through st. Cloud Minnesota it's 7:30 in the morning had breakfast some of those videos preceding this which are probably out of focus and blurry going through a couple of towns like Royalton and rice and little falls along Highway 10 those are just there because when I was a little kid we used to drive up along that highway and I used to while away the hours looking at the adjacent railroad tracks and all the big Burlington Northern freight trains that were running along the tracks and my dad would be telling me that they also ran passenger trains along there sometimes that when all the ways the Pacific Ocean and I had this romantic notion in my head about what that must be like and even though I've taken the Empire Builder before and knew that it went along those tracks it was always at night and so I decided this time I was going to try to take a video of what it looked like going the other the other way from the the tracks back at the same highway kind of silly but it was one of those things that's been nagging me my whole life and of course I had a dirty window and I was looking into the Sun and the camera didn't want to focus but I still tried we're just now going through the town of Big Lake which is just north east of Monticello there's big lake right in the middle of the picture so we're just outside of the Twin Cities outer reaches Elk River Minnesota when we went through Elk River there was a river just off to the side of the train and that was the Mississippi River it's easy to forget and I've done so a couple of times that the Mississippi although it flows between Minnesota and Wisconsin once it gets up close to the Twin Cities Minneapolis and st. Paul it's the st. Croix River that continues up between the two states and the Mississippi branch is off and runs through central Minnesota through towns such as Minneapolis and st. cloud and Little Falls at which point it's obviously a much smaller River but I have to laugh when there's a town called milk River and it's right on the Mississippi River there's probably a smaller river that runs into it called Elk River there or something but I've noted that in the past this is still us highway 10 right and we're in Anoka Minnesota I remember once getting pulled over by a state or county I think it was a County cop on Highway 10 right along here because I passed him four-lane highway and he was going 50 in a 55 so I slowly gained on him and passed by him and all of that is perfectly legal but as soon as I passed him on came the lights and he pulled me over and he was red-faced angry and asked what was my offense and he said your offenses that you've passed the police officer I asked if that was against the law and he didn't answer he just got even more upset with man and he went back into the car and I could hear him on the radio the window open and he was practically yelling into the radio he was trying to get the dispatcher or somebody to find something on me so he could give me a ticket for something I don't know what kind of mood he was in that day but everything a particularly bizarre incident and then I could hear somebody on the radio it sounded like his supervisor somebody was ordering him to return my license to me and bid me get on my way you know quit bothering me basically and every time I think of Anoka Minnesota that's what I think of and at 8:00 in the morning we're passing through Fridley Minnesota which is just on the north side of Minneapolis we are in Minneapolis now you can see downtown Minneapolis off on the right there's just a whole series of rail yards and things along the river here that we're inching our way through well it's about 9:00 in the morning we've been sitting here this rail yard in Minneapolis for quite a while now they're having some trouble with one of the coupling knuckles on the train and they're trying to get somebody to come out there with the right tools to fix it it looked like they decoupled and then they slammed into it pretty hard and the whole train lurched like they were trying to get at the couple again or something I'm not sure exactly what was going on and then I think they decoupled again because the cars lost power so I think they were decoupled from the locomotive and so I'm not sure if they're nearly resolved on that or not but I suspect that's why we don't have powers because I think at some point along the line were decoupled from the head end of the Train [Applause] and we're rolling again at 9:52 [Applause] so now we're coming up with the st. Paul I'm not sure maybe that's where the station actually is I was thinking it was in Minneapolis robber but maybe it's in st. Paul it's now 10:05 a.m. well we've been sitting here along the shore of the river for a while it's now 10:25 not able to pull into the station for some reason we will be underway so I didn't realize it that we were actually at the station here I thought we were outside the station but we were here so finally at 10:28 we're playing out of the Minneapolis st. Paul station this is all just down on the southeast corner of st. Paul and we're right up alongside the Mississippi here southeast of st. Paul there's been some flooding around here water levels high looks like a brought ready to cross the river here right here where it says Cottage Grove in highway 61 crosses the river that's right where we are now and see this area was very recently underwater that's the highway 61 bridge over there previously unbeknownst to me but notes now there is now a car following us I just heard the conductor referring to that they picked up a private car which is along for the ride at 11:20 we pull into Red Wing Minnesota all in black at about 11:30 we're paralleling highway 61 and pretty close to the town or the place it may be unincorporated of Frontenac which is right here on the map and we finally come back to the shore in Mississippi at 11:50 were just Norfolk Wabasha it's 12 noon and or here in the McCarthy lake state's wildlife sanctuary or Preserve for just a ways off the river so it's not at the site at 12:15 we're here where it says Minnesota City just next a good view and just before Winona the river is just a little bit away from us at this point at 12:20 we've entered the northern end of Winona Minnesota ladies and I've been up here many times for musical performances with a couple of different groups and also when I travel up into Minnesota this is the most common way I come these days if I'm driving so Winona is not a strange location to me plus I have friends who live here [Music] so it's 12:30 now and we're about ready to pull out of Winona that rock outcropping up there which is gonna be hard to see for all the trailers he's called sugar low iconic local geographical or geological feature and we're back along the Mississippi south of Winona for anybody who's in the cycling US Highway 61 is right here runs all the way down along the Minnesota side of the river and it has really white shoulders on it it's not too apparent from this vantage point but this is a good road for cycling even though it's a four-lane highway that shoulders are plenty wide you can be it's almost one lane wide on the shoulders so if you ride along the edge of the the shoulder you're far enough away from traffic where it's not really an issue and it's just very gently rolling here not at all difficult right along here beautiful views of the river that's all the way from La Crosse to Winona at least that it's like that I've done it many times before actually it right from lacrosse you can't get on the shoulder like that you have to wait until high 90 which comes over at lacrosse it runs up along the shoulder or the side of the river and because of that it's merged with 61 and you can't write on the shoulder of the interstate but there is a bike path which runs alongside that and you can ride the bike path up past a couple little towns and then right where I 90 splits away from the river and goes up heading westwards then at that point you can get onto the shoulder of 61 anyway it's a great bike ride along here very scenic and this is some of what you would see I'm deliberately delaying lunch here because with my luck they would stick me on the wrong side of the car to get good views of this so I'm holding off until we get down closer to lacrosse and hopefully they'll still be serving lunch over here on the Minnesota side this is all great River State blood our Great River Bluff State Park something like that and there are some fine bluffs along this side of the river as well as the opposite side is not so apparent when you're driving or riding along here you can't really see them properly but it is very scenic on this side as well back at the Winona station the car attendant said he didn't think it was likely that we were going to get into Chicago before 7 o'clock and maybe not even then so that would be considerably late since it's supposed to be in at around 3:30 or 3:45 so we're definitely running late we just passed through the town of Dakota which is a little one street town really it's almost not there but it's right here on this map and that's the point where I 90 branches away from the highway and heads west and that's the point where it's possible you can see the white road going alongside that's the point where one can start navigating up the river by bicycle or whatever since I was already talking about that and this is the town of drehs Bach again I'm pretty sure it's unincorporated and here's another lock and damn although it's not across the entire river it's just across this one narrow branch of the river the Mississippi here is very wide you can see the bluffs in the distance at the far side of it that's where the other side is way off there in the distance it just divides up into a bunch of narrower streams and with these long islands in between kinda looks like that coming up on the cross you can't actually again on the subject of bicycling which sort of intrudes into this train video you can't cross the river on the interstate 90 coming across here instead you have to cross at lacrosse proper which is just a bit south of here and then you can right up the shoulder of highway 14 plus there's I think it's got a there may be a bike trail there I can't remember now it's been a few years since I did this but certainly it's a a writable shoulder on the highway up until the point where you get to where the interstate comes across then there is definitely a proper bike trail next to the rail line and next to the highway well it's one o'clock and we've stopped or just stopping here for no apparent reason just a little bit north of the rail tracks across the river looking at the GPS here's where I 90 crosses on its bridge and just up here is where the road bridge crosses not counting the interstate and then right across here is where the rail bridge crosses so we're right there at the end of it okay we're rolling again about ready to cross the Mississippi here Crewe's zoom this is a pretty busy bridge since it's gonna be one of the few railroad crossings in this area I'm sure it gets used by lots of freights boom jab punch not yet I want to go and have fun that's right no Jean Rogers that's right sign over to me huh lacrosse station is making copies where I'll teach you nothing big drops gonna load over the back now I didn't get some didn't quite click enough but that was the the normal Road bridge across the river Oh so we came down the river to La Crosse and we've been more or less paralleling by ninety here and now we're at Tomah and after this we go down diagonally here past the Wisconsin Dells and past Portage and past Columbus and then Watertown and then into the Milwaukee area and then south straight down to Chicago so we still have I would imagine two to the three hours yet before we get into Milwaukee I wouldn't imagine where you get there much before 5:00 at this point maybe later at 2:30 we're pulling into the town of New Lisbon Wisconsin which can be found here along i-90 and i-94 right in the center of the screen there [Music] we're sailing along here just having passed through the town of Mauston and there's a point here where the road should go under a bridge any second now I think yeah right here I used to run bike rides out of Austin and we always left mauston on that bridge right there many a time we'd ride over there and be watching the freight trains go underneath us the track is bumpy [Music] it's another road I know well good cycling around this area and now we come into the outskirts of linden station I'm Isabel 2:45 I'm sure you heard these words before so I merely repeat what's been said before he will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy do you think I am referring to Mos Eisley perhaps no I had in mind something a little closer to the place we are now approaching well I refer not to Mos Eisley of course but to Las Vegas in Wisconsin better known as the Dells actually I have nothing at all against the fine people of the city or the generally attractive surrounding area it's just the glut of resorts and casinos and so on which have unfortunately become the apparently as you drive through at the the main focus of the town that's the Wisconsin River down there at 316 we pull into the town of portage right there in the middle of the screen and the town was called portage because there are two rivers two river systems actually that come very close to each other though they foxes around the north and the Wisconsin River on the south and that was a point where people using canoes and smaller trading craft on the rivers could Cottage them over from one river to another system and of course a town built up around that there's not much point going over to the other side because I've learned by now that being at the tail end of this long string you almost always have to walk forward to get off especially Oh I'm ready to copy yeah it's just about 4:00 in the afternoon we pull on to Columbia Columbus Wisconsin which on the map here if I can get rid of the stroboscopic lighting he's right there in the middle of the screen right below Fall River so the train has been coming down more or less along highway 16 and now it's gonna jump down diagonally to Watertown continue to follow 16 more or less all the way into downtown Milwaukee the train had stopped three times here due to the small size of the station platform stop once pull ahead let some more people off pull ahead do it again there will do any time meanwhile we're holding up the local traffic well we've got it lined up for about two blocks back there and at 4:20 in the afternoon we're in Watertown Wisconsin we're about to cross business highway 26 The Rock River and some of my viewers know that I'm a member of the sabor group the first Brigade band and its headquarters is just down there a couple of blocks south of here and I commute up to this area once or twice a week and I usually take a nice country drive to get from where I lived up here and that involves coming in on county highway II from the southeast which we are about to cross [Music] right here this is just east of heartlessness dancing well it would be if we could see it there we go so now we're in the outer Milwaukee area at 5:15 we're pulling into the vicinity of the Amtrak station in downtown Milwaukee right under the big spaghetti bowl of interstates coming in and maybe Oh and we still have that private car help behind us which I haven't gotten a look at yet really and next track Skykomish River way over in Washington State and at 5:20 we're pulling out of the station another thing about the Milwaukee station is I can get my camera to focus is immediately upon leaving the station the tracks turn a sharp corner and go over an old steel bridge heading south just off to the left where we are now is the terminal for the Lake Express which I have a separate YouTube video on [Music] trainers approaching the Illinois border at 5:55 in the afternoon pthen - train was supposed to arrive at 3:45 and then delayed to 4:45 so it's more than two hours late past the original schedule there's the Illinois border showing that there's a dotted line train usually goes about 80 miles an hour through here today is no exception there are no stops really for quite a ways between Milwaukee and Glenview Illinois [Music] oK we've crossed over into Illinois now going through the wooded area that's part of the Illinois four or Lake County Forest Preserve unfortunately the Sun is coming right in through this window so I can't get very good video well I was going to cross over to the MP room across the way for better video but one of the conductor's is sitting in there so I'm stuck here looking up the flooding due to the Des Plaines River but ready to cross highway 41 here all right there this is Miranda Avenue and Ernie Illinois that's Washington Street also and gurney this is Ron Daleks Illinois near Libertyville this is the site of a famous Train Robbery now it's the site of a scrapyard at 6:55 that's the Kennedy Expressway coming into Chicago by this time we're past the suburbs and we're into the actual city of Chicago it's almost 7 o'clock so roughly three hours and change later than originally scheduled and roughly two hours and change later then the revised arrival time we were told to expect when we boarded the Train three days ago and of course Union Station is right down next to the Sears Tower that's in the middle picture which is technically the Willis Tower now but not that many people call it that so that's what we're aiming and this is the first time I've taken an Amtrak train into Chicago I've always left on trains and then flown back or taken some other means to get back home so this is my first time returning to the city on an Amtrak train of course this is the same route that the commuter trains have often taken come in so I'm not unfamiliar with the Rowett it's just not used to coming into it this way looks like I'm gonna have to go straight from my commuter train once we get off here in a few minutes figure out which track it's on I'm gonna have to buy a ticket too because I usually buy commuter tickets on the train because I come from the outside and that buy a round-trip and they sell them on the train but if you come from the city then they penalize you for not buying one on the station I have to remember the Chicago River now on [Music] another train tonight or even a hotel to train in Chicago obeisance calories yukata basic rules like to take something but you'll never use most transportation those eternal other destinations my Queensberry safe travels though they stand in Chicago area I'm very good week again we are coming to Chicago everyone what is a train everyone make a right make a right to go inside Elia station if you want require redcap service please make sure you're grooving there's no we can put another attempt for you on the platform thank here's our sharp bend going from eastbound to southbound and the rivers just on the other side they're just a little bit beyond that wall so our Southwest chief that departed a week almost two weeks ago left from the South concourse of Union Station but we're coming into the North concourse now so opposite side of the station and as usual and start up notice and we're bypassing we're taking the bypass track past the station proper and we're gonna come in to the South concourse all right [Music] so here we are at 7:16 p.m. and we have arrived end of trip [Music] and ticket in hand looking for track 15 well with a quick walk through the station only one person in line in front of me at the metro ticket booth and another brisk walk have actually got 10 minutes before the next train to my neck of the woods departs yes I'd like to order a cab I'm sorry say again and the I don't know the actual street address it's the metro train station in Grayslake you

Channel: youtuuba

Views: 846,391

Keywords: AMTRAK, Train Odyssey, Portland, Oregon, Roomette, Superliner, sleeper car, Columbia River, Washington, Montana, Glacier National Park, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Chicago, Union Station, Metra Rail, Mississippi River, Minneapolis

Id: fJ_6sFcUPNg

Length: 237min 57sec (14277 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 31 2018