Today we arrived in Portland, Oregon. It was the end of the line for the Empire Builder ( our trip, not the future of the train.) We would continue south on the Coast Starlight. For a change, we would be running late.
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It’s day three. It’s really sort of day two but officially it’s day three. It’s after midnight. I slept through Idaho. I bet it was nice although it was dark when we got there and it’s still dark. We’re in Spokane now. Our ticket said we were on Train 27 but all along the way the engineers, conductors, and the dispatchers have referred to it as Train 7. Between Chicago and Spokane, Train 27 is a part of Train 7. Spokane is where the train is split and Train 7 goes on to Seattle and Train 27 goes to Portland. I guess I woke up during the bumping and jerking motion encountered while switching, or maybe it was the bell or horn of a train on an adjacent track. We were in Spokane for about an hour. When we left, our train was much shorter. I think there were eleven units on the train when we arrived and now we had five. They split the train between the diner and the observation car. Train 7 left with one of the diesels, the diner, and four coaches / sleepers. Train 27 left town with one diesel, the observation car, two coaches and one sleeper. We were on the final segment of this part of the trip and after two or three quick stops, we would be in Portland. I watched some of the lights and sights of Spokane fade away and it wasn’t long until I faded away into slumber land.
Ah! Daylight. No doubt about it now, this is day three. We’re still in Washington but we can see Oregon. For the next several hours we will be traveling along the Columbia River. Up close, Washington seemed to be dry and very hilly. Some of the hillsides were quite steep, seeming to go almost straight up. The railroad follows the river valley because of the relatively flat grade. We went through several dozen tunnels along the way. Some were probably less then fifty feet and others maybe three hundred feet. Meanwhile, the Oregon side of the river looked much greener and the hill were gentle. There seemed to be much more industry and many more towns on the Oregon side of the river. As we rounded one turn, Mount Hood came into view. Kirk would tell him mom that “It just looked like a big pile of snow.” It was quite impressive. We were not close enough to really see any detail but we were able to see it for well over an hour as we traveled toward Portland.
It’s 10:00 and we’re in the station at Portland. We arrived about ten minutes early. It’s the end of the line for this train today. The crew will service the train and turn it around for the trip back to Chicago. In six hours and forty five minutes they would be departing on Train 28 to meet Train 8 at Spokane and retrace their route to Chicago.
The station in Portland was an old brick and stone building with a red tile roof, built in 1896. Nothing is very modern here but everything is adequate. Since we had been traveling for a few days we headed for the restrooms, shaved, and freshened up a bit. We still had another day and night before we would be in a hotel. We had about four hours before we caught the next train. There were no lockers in the station but they did have a baggage check office. We checked our luggage and headed out to “Downtown Portland.” We walked a block or two and ask someone for a suggestion of where to go. Turned out that there was a free bus to the business district, about a half mile from where we were. When we got there we found that there was some kind of festival going on. We sort of stayed away from the heart of it and started looking for something to eat. We found “Good Dog, Bad Dog,” a gourmet hotdog shop. I think we all got something different and we all were pleased with what we had picked out. I picked up one of their “menus on a post card” and sent it to Frances, my wonderful wife that let me go on this trip. We killed a little more time and then headed back toward the station, stopping at a Subway and picking up our meal for the evening. We got back to the station about forty-five minutes before the scheduled departure of our train to Emeryville. We picked up our luggage and found a seat near the gate where we would be boarding. Turns out we had arrived earlier than necessary. Train 11, the Coast Starlight was running about an hour late. There was an additional conductor boarding at Portland and she did the best she could to calm everyone down. We were in no hurry so we didn’t care, but some people were upset. Our only concern was getting four seats together, or at least close. When the train did arrive the car attendant was assigning seats so when we said a party of four, she assigned two groups of two seats across the aisle form each other. Since the train was running late, they boarded everyone as quickly as possible. The twenty minute scheduled stop was cut short. In just a few minutes we were on our way.
We settled in for the next sixteen hours as we headed south. A new train and a new bunch of “characters.” It didn’t take long to find out that “Mr. Hey everyone, I’ve got a cellphone” was on the train with us. Why is it that a person that can carry on a normal conversation face to face has to yell when he’s on a cell phone? After a couple of hours he announced to someone that “My batteries are about dead, got to go.” He was pretty quiet after that except for his watch that beeped loud enough every hour that we all knew what time it was without looking at our watches.
Butch and Sundance were in the seats in front of me. That’s what we called them. They were two girls and they were lesbians. They were hugging and smooching all evening. Destination: San Francisco.
Traveling south, I think we went through some very beautiful country. The only problem was the fog. It was raining some and the fog was so thick you couldn’t see much beyond about a hundred and fifty feet most of the time. There were a few spots where visibility was greater but they were rare. I went to the observation car after dark and watched the movie. I came back to my seat after that for the “double feature” that was showing inside my eyelids.
NOTE: I mentioned the “bumping and jerking motions encountered while switching” early in this posting. If you watch old movies where people are jerked around when the train starts and stops and you think that’s what it’s like these days, then you’ve got another think coming. Probably 99% of the starts and stops are much smoother than what you experience in your car. When the train starts, you “might” feel a slight nudge but usually you look out the window and notice you’re moving. When stopping, the effect is more noticeable, but again, smoother than your average stop in your driveway. If you happen to be in the diner, you’re not going to spill a drop of your coffee.