Amtrak Empire Builder 3 Days On The Most Scenic Northern Train

hey guys welcome back to the channel today we are in chicago illinois getting ready for our epic 46 hour train ride this is amtrak's northernmost route it's known as the empire builder we get ready to enjoy fabulous views of the city of chicago as we head north and west on our journey across the country we'll also get to ride along major portions of lewis and clark trail as we start our adventure to the west we leave chicago in the middle of the day as we make our way towards wisconsin and across minnesota and through big sky country into montana before arriving in seattle we'll cross the mighty mississippi while there is still some daylight for us to enjoy we'll experience glacier national park at sunset we also see a bit of snow as we traverse the cascades we'll also follow along the columbia river and we catch the gorgeous views of puget sound before arriving into our final destination of this trip which is seattle washington [Music] all right so before we get to all of that let's start at the beginning when we board the train we see there are some special touches that we have not seen before at the top of the stairway our room attendant has placed these beautiful flower arrangements as well as additional waters and even magazines for our reading pleasure we make our way down the hall and to our room and get settled in right away we start the trip with fabulous views of the city of chicago as we make our way north now our very first meal on this train ride is going to be dinner and our dining car attendant has added a flower arrangements as well as white tablecloths which makes for a very inviting dinner experience [Music] okay i'm going to dig into my absolute favorite appetizer on the traditional dining plan here on the empire builder and that is the lobster crab cake so let's go for it [Music] a little bit of everything [Music] that's cheesy all right i got the flat iron steak medium well today with the baked potato and this is new i brought a1 sauce so i actually love a1 sauce i'm going to use this quite liberally let's see how that goes everybody else all right that's great [Music] [Music] that's cooked really well and that sauce does make a difference so our main entrees arrive and we both dig in and enjoy not just the meal but the views from the windows along the way we have a little time as we sit here and eat we get to watch as the city views fade away and we head more into the rural parts of illinois as we're enjoying our great meal on the train we do have traditional dining on this train which gives us a few more options so we do let our food digest a little bit before we dig into these desserts i got the carrot cake and rob got the cheesecake [Music] now after dinner we hear that the national park service rails and trails program is on board to share some information about the wildlife that we may see and encounter along this journey we also get a chance to add an exclusive new stamp to our national park service passport all right this is your life when today so this is brand new okay and um it's especially clear that's so you know it's brand new and i i have a passport book and some of my books are they look like those those are really old stamps yeah so these are brand new this is brand new we're debuting it it's like three days away so will it show up on here yes oh okay so you have to put that on right okay back and forth okay should be the this should be the top here we'll find something okay something for you okay you can test it so i don't mess it up yes okay understand is that right yes so these are the awesome yeah so i want to turn it this way no that is right no no okay this is right right it should be okay all right ready that's right here we go we test it oh that is adorable these are very coveted um national party stamps because you have to be on this train too really yeah so i'm excited you've got that too yeah i love collecting yeah i didn't happen to have my nps one but this is my one from switzerland oh here you go so i put it in the back we have stickers oh okay so as long as you're here oh so i can stick this in there oh yeah okay have you got your passport a passport book yes yes i just didn't have it with me i only had this one in my back sticker and stick it in there stick it in your bowl okay so this is the top part it should be a circle i can't see that one people have seen it it's a circle is it let's see oh yeah okay i think i got it i'm so excited that i could put it right in there then you are all so perfect thank you thank you okay guys i just got something so cool it's fresh and it's like three days old she just told me so the national park system comes onto the empire builder because we do skirt on the edge of glacier national park on this route and so they do share some things about like what you some of the wildlife you'll see along the route and different things like that and they're debuting the brand new empire builder let's see what it's called it's the mississippi i can't read what all the words said mississippi historical movement glasses river and recreation area empire builder you can only get this nps stamp on this train ride it's special with the rails and trails national park system program that they have with amtrak so if you're on here they also have the little booklets for the junior rangers if you're looking for that i was teetering on requesting one for myself because i love them so much but i did get this stamp now i didn't have my nps passport with me um and so i had my i happened to still have my swiss pass one with me and i didn't have any extra pages on here from all of the uh swiss trains that we rode so i had the stamp done on my back page and she said if you have a passport no problem if you don't have it with you they have these these are actually stickers and you can put the stamp on here and then take the sticker and put it into your passport and you won't lose it hopefully if you can keep track of it which is what i'm going to do i'm going to put that in my wallet and keep track of it but that says empire builder on it this is the only train that you can get it on so do not miss out on that listen for it when you get on the empire builder head over to the observation car and hear all about uh the wildlife and everything you'll see on this route well one man's trash is another man's treasure as they say because i was walking i was walking from the observation car back to our room and i had to walk through the dining car dining car attendant said to me hey do you want some wine i was like i already had dinner she said well we we poured some extra and we can't pour it back into the bottle she said take this back to your room with you so red wine tonight extra wine here for me tonight in the room so i guess i didn't want to turn it down all right we just pulled into our first fair fresh air break we are in winona minnesota minnesota so we've already zipped through wisconsin and through illinois we weren't in there very long were we the first fresh air break is quite a ways after you board on this uh yeah so be ready for that yeah but it is great here a lot of fresh air temperature feels great yeah it does feel nice loving minnesota one cool thing we noticed at this stop it's a little dark out here but we do have a special 50th anniversary locomotive on the front of this train and we think it's the phase one version so uh we can't really go down there right now it's way down there and we only have a couple minutes at the stop so tomorrow we're gonna go check that out and let you guys see what that looks like pretty sure it's going to be pretty cool looking though okay so we were preparing for bed but um we just got an alert emergency weather alert that said there's a tornado warning in the area until 10 pm it is 9 30 and it is lightning out um we've seen that for a little bit here but didn't realize we had storms out there so we'll be taking the train is still moving pretty quickly here so i don't know if we're going to be moving out of that but we'll stay up for a little bit longer and see all right you can probably hear the hail now hitting um we can hear it we're still watching we're still moving and we're making our next stop so we're still progressing wow all right the storm has subsided thankfully for us and we have got our bed made up i'm about to head up here to the upstairs and we're gonna go to bed wake up in the morning and we will see you in the morning good night good morning slept pretty well even though it was raining outside and came down for breakfast both got the eggs i got uh sausage and now i got bacon so we're gonna dig in and get the seat and get our day started right told her snow on the ground she said you're dreaming [Laughter] chipped in the damn head with the parachute god knocked me out i said that's great man to back me off this train [Music] ah we're so excited so we've got the phase one um painted delivery of the new engines from siemens on the amtrak train so we're kind of cool we're up here checking it out taking some pictures of it but we are in minot north dakota and it's a little bit chilly although someone told us it was tolerable where i come from this is cold [Music] okay so we've gotten the burger lots of times but this time around um they offered us bacon on the burger so we're having a bacon cheese burger look at that that looks really good and it smells really good it just came off the grill so i'm going to doll this thing [Music] good it's good with the bacon [Music] that's very good with bacon a lot of times people ask us what we do while we're on the train for so long and we do try to spend as much time as possible relaxing and taking in the views of the country one of the best places to do that is the observation car which is also known as the sightseer lounge this car is open to all trained passengers to enjoy [Music] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right guys you know what time it is it's time for a room tour we start out here with the lower seats where we spend most of our time sitting and these two lower seats we use this these two bars down here at the bottom for it to recline you recline each side and that's what makes your bed for at night there are several amenities here in the room there is a nice armrest and there's also the air vents on the side right by the window there is also a push to call attendant button and then there's also the light button and that does control the ceiling light and the night light you can also have it all the way off there's also the music control which doesn't really control the music it actually controls the announcements made overhead you do have a reading light on this side which you control and you can also move it up and down for a little direction now on this side move my bag here you will see these are the steps to go up to the upper bunk which we'll look at in just a minute there is a trash bin on this side as well down below nice big trash bin and they do they can empty that if it gets a little bit too full for you but these are the steps that rob is going to use to get up to his upper bunk we also have a nice big mirror here which is very helpful for getting ready in the mornings there is also a night light or an extra reading light for up above if rob wants to read from up above and then right next to that are is the air control or the air vent and there is a little black tab control right here where you are going to be able to close the vents if you pull it on one side there's still a little bit of air that comes out but then if you push it then it'll be full blast so if you're up above and you want to be a little bit cooler then you're going to want to have those opened up we also get washcloths and hand towels provided to us and the shower towels are provided in the actual shower stall this hook here they do provide a couple of hangers you can use this coat hook or the other hook to hang things from if you like on the hanger or just on the hook if you want and then on this side you also have this strap here if you want to put any bags or anything like that to kind of hold back now this area here um is kind of open and you can store as we you see we've stored our toiletry bags in there um and it's just a real thin kind of small area so there's not a lot of time a ton of room for storing things then on this side you'll see the push so you push that down and then you lift and pull for reclining the seat there is storage underneath both of the seats down below so you've got plenty of room there to store your things on this side it's an identical seat except for the amenities that are on the headrest over here you do still have a reading light here as well just like you do on the other side but then on this side you've got this air control switch this black button here and you're going to turn that either cooler or warmer or just leave it on normal it's not going to change the temperature a ton but it is going to give you a little bit of a difference there there's also one outlet here so as you can see we have our handy dandy four usb adapter here we use that all over the world and it's perfect we've got blackout curtains as well down below and up in a super liner like this there's only windows down below not windows above like in a view liner but you can black out the room with those curtains and just kind of close those up now if you're looking to either do some work or you want a table in your room or you want to eat a meal in your room like we do sometimes you've got this nice table that folds out now they do have these check this checkerboard kind of built into it i wish they provided the pieces as well so you can play some checkers while you're here but this table is nice and big gives you plenty of room for both people to use if you wanted to both have computers or ipads or whatever out you could both use it and it still stores fairly easily back into that slot now quick peek here up above this is the upper bunk you just pull on the latch bring it down and it locks into place you there's another coat hook up here so there are two of them up in this area and then we'll also take a look here at this little netting back here um does uh provide a space for you to store snacks like you can see rob has got here his snacks if he wants to have something after i've gone to bed and there's also a little bin back here a little basket where he keeps his glasses and his cell phone at night so he doesn't roll over onto them if they're stored in that netting up against the wall so there is just enough room up here for him not a ton of room to move around if you've seen our other videos on the channel with all the measurements and all the information you'll get a little bit more if you want a deeper dive into this room tour this right here is kind of like a seat belt for the person in the upper bunk the trains do rock around uh quite a bit so you're going to want to have these in place so that you do not roll out of that upper bunk that is going to hurt if you fall out we're going to go downstairs here and we're going to take a look at one of the restrooms now in this style uh in this view liner too we're going to have a little bit smaller bathrooms than you have in the view liner one so in the viewliner 2 the bathrooms do have a call attendant button just like in the one but as you can see it's a much smaller more confined space there are bars to hang on to which is always smart to do there's also a baby changing table you've got paper towels available as well as tissues in here and an outlet there is somewhere to hang a towel and a coat rack if you need to use that as well and there are seat covers too don't forget to lock the door or someone's going to walk in on you there's also the water doesn't stay on for very long you do have to press it in order to get the water to come out so just remember to keep pressing that and you can get more water out and if you need cups for brushing your teeth those are provided as well now let's take a look at the shower which they also call a dressing room but it's mostly a used as a shower i think for the most part i'm going to walk right into the shower area here it's a good enough space again do not forget to lock that door or someone's going to walk in on you it's just enough room to do what you need to do here in the shower there's just enough pressure and you also are able to change it to cold or hot water there is a curtain that you pull a big thick curtain that you pull and there is a bar in here and it is highly recommended that you hang onto that bar if you are showering while the train is moving they do provide you in these boxes you will find um bars of soap and there is extra wash cloths in there as well as the towels to to use in the shower and of course there is an attendant call button should you slip and fall or anything like that [Music] do [Music] it is about 8 20 on the second day of the trip now p.m and we are about 15 minutes from east glacier montana and that's something that we wanted to be able to see glacier national park now the sun is not supposed to set until 903 p.m so if we don't have any more delays it's a race against time but we may be getting in and see just a glimpse of glacier national park now it is not out our window here we are facing south and the views will be to the north so if we get there in time we're gonna have to try to run down the hallway and look out maybe a side window of the train so if we get there we'll go do that and show you what it looks like [Music] do [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh we just got to see glacier national park we did walk down to the other a hallway kind of where the bedrooms were there's a lot of people in the hallway just taking pictures it was great we got there just as the sun was setting and we kind of got that afterglow moment so it was just perfect so in this instance it was kind of nice that the train was two hours late [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay everyone's excited because we stopped here for a fresh air break in wenatchee i'm not 100 sure if that's right but wenatchee and um we've lost part of our train on purpose we dropped them off in spokane and they're off to portland and we're off to seattle so we've got we're down to one engine and they took the sleeper car from the back and some coach cars as well so we're down to a much shorter train about half the size right yeah [Applause] [Music] so not too far away from seattle and so we are in washington state and it's snowing i was not expecting to see snow in the middle of may in washington [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right just hopped off the empire builder checked into our hotel room and usually we stay over by the station but because we're not leaving from the station tomorrow we thought we'd explore a little bit more of the city so we are staying at the hyatt uh olive eight i'm going to give you a quick peek around the room here uh this is the bathroom nice big bathroom very spacious huge shower and then you've got this nice little closet area here gives you a good space to store some things and even have the drawers right there and then there's a little bench here [Music] and you've got a little fridge which i like and coffee bar area we are of course in seattle so there will be coffee provided right and a nice we got the king room so the bed looks great that's perfect size and we've got a really nice big tv if we were going to watch tv desk area is huge looks like a nice ergonomically shaped chair and a nice comfortable chair if we wanted to sit and read and enjoy and a little bit of technology in the room here as well so all in all it looks like pretty good room for us to rest in before we keep going on the rest of this journey

Channel: Grounded Life Travel

Views: 110,668

Keywords: amtrak, empire builder, amtrak empire builder, amtrak vacation, amtrak vacations, amtrak train, amtrak overnight, amrtak sleeper, amtrak roomette, amtrak bedroom, amtrak coach, amtrak union station, best amtrak routes, amtrak tips, amtrak mistakes, amtrak tips and tricks, amtrak phase 1, amtrak vlog, amtrak food, amtrak traditional dining, amtrak map, amtrak guide, amtrak faq, roomette, amtrak sleeper car, amtrak observation car, amtrak chicago, amtrak seattle

Id: WVf1tEaAo0w

Length: 37min 0sec (2220 seconds)

Published: Fri May 27 2022