The Empire Builder to MSP

While I was having a pizza and and cold Moose Drool in the Stockman's Bar, see above, just across the road from the station I was startled by the appearance of a train about an hour earlier than I had expected. It took a few seconds to realize that it was going in the other direction toward Seattle and Portland. By the way, it looks like Malta itself might be worth a stop, especially if you are interested in dinosaurs. The museum was closed when I was there, not sure why. See below.


Boarded Train #8 in Malta MT about 3:30 Monday afternoon (about 40 minutes late) headed toward Chicago: they stopped that big thing right in front of me, the conductor grabbed my other bag and they were moving in 15 seconds it seemed like. See below.

This is a picture from another stop as I didn't have enough hands to do everything as it was when getting on the train.

This is what I see of northeast Montana through my roomette window. It stays the same until you get to Minnesota. I almost missed the wine and cheese gathering in the dining car because the train was 40 minutes late getting into Malta. The club car was not in the consist. Fortunately, I had a roomette, so had room to stretch out, fool with the computer, and make phone calls: we didn't run out of a connection until the other side of Williston. Fort Peck looks lower than ever. See below right.

Paul Roberts told me they had fixed the roadbed in North Dakota. He was wrong. What is compensable swaying and occasional bumps while you are upright and sitting becomes nasty swerving and rocking and rolling when you are trying to sleep in a horizontal position. It must have to do with the positioning of the semi-circular canals in the middle ears. I like to sleep on my side which is easy to do on the Tempurpedic bed that I have at home, but that is difficult to do on the Spartan bunk you get on Amtrak.

The shower worked great and even better, it is not in your compartment. Food in the evening (trout) was reasonable though not great. Breakfast was excellent. We started getting into the outskirts of Minneapolis about 7 am, and I saw the downtown are about 7:30, so we should come into the station which I guess is closer to Saint Paul about 8am judging by how slow we are going through the railyards. Right now I see a lot of tank cars.


Downtown Minneapolis above.

A lady rancher from near Havre is my neighbor in the sleeper car. I think a pair of roomettes might be more useful than a bedroom for two people as climbing up to that top bunk looks a little dicey these days.

Last night and this morning I met some real enthusiasts: one kid who is going from Portland to Chicago to LA to San Diego and then back to Portland, all by train; and others who are going to Washington DC like me, somebody else going to New Orleans. I'm a little surprised.