It was 1:45AM when we left Seattle, only nine hours late. It has it's good points.
Just a little update here. We left Seattle nine hours late. One small repair lead to other problems. Then they had to switch through the yard again and reconnect to the train. That took about an hour. Then there was the ten minute break test. You can’t do it any quicker. Then the host railroad couldn’t put the train on the correct station track without running past the station on one track, backing past on a second track, and then pulling up on the third track where passengers could board.
We arrived in Spokane at 10:00AM. It’s a stop where they service the train and connect to train 28 that came in from Portland. I’m sure those passengers were surprised to arrive at 12:28AM and find that they were going to have to wait for our part of the train to catch up. Spokane is a forty-three minute scheduled stop. We got rolling after thirty-five minutes this time.
This is a rare treat for some people that ride this train often. They are going through areas in the daylight that they normal pass through in the dark. Looking ahead at the schedule, we should have daylight for the most scenic part of the trip through the western parts of Montana.