On the Coast Starlight to KFalls

The view in one direction from King Street Station in downtown Seattle. Above is Quest Field (American football) in the open position. Below looking in the other direction are some skyscrapers of downtown Seattle.

The Coast Starlight on Monday 20 April glided gracefully out of King Street Station Seattle right on time at 0945 hours. We were in a surprisingly comfortable coach heading south.

The amount of space is a lot more than on an airplane plus you can easily get up and walk around, and there is a nice lounge car with snacks and good seating for viewing Puget Sound.

As you can see, we were very close to the water here. There were 3 coaches at the end and 4 sleepers at the front with a lounge car, a dining car, and the Pacific Parlour Car, peculiar to the Coast Starlight in between. The water of the Sound seems very clear at least in this part of it.


The above picture is taken in Seattle before we got underway. The King Street Station is supposed to undergo extensive rehabilitation as there appear to be some architectural wonders underneath some incredibly ugly coverings courtesy of that generalized architectural ugliness back in the late 50s and 60s. Below is a better picture taken at one of the stops in Washington, I forget exactly where.

We arrived in Portland and Eugene on time, but then I wandered off before I realized the train was rolling out of Eugene, so I had a little adventure in problem solving on vacation.

Fortunately, I found a taxi willing to drive 150 miles to Chemult. Apparently when I left the train they started having power problems so it was no problem for the car to catch up with the train. No problem as long as I had some cash in my wallet that is. So maybe old dogs can still learn some things. Here is the station sign in Chemult OR. I got there about an hour before the train arrived. It was deserted of course, but fortunately others started coming as they reckoned the Starlight was getting close.


We finally got into Klamath Falls or KFalls as they say here about 2230 hrs, only 40 minutes later than advertised. There were a surprising number of people getting off and on at KFalls.