Over Memorial Day weekend, Mrs. MILW205 and I rode Amtrak’s Empire Builder #8 from Seattle to Chicago.
SUMMARY
Overall train condition: excellent
Sleeper car service: excellent
Dining car food: very good, with 1 exception
Dining car service: excellent, with 1 exception
Weather: sunny first evening; cloudy/rain entire first full day; sunny entire second day
Wildlife: yes deer/mountain goat/eagle/crane/pheasant; no bear/elk/ligers
On time performance: mostly on time first evening and first full day; roughly 1 hour behind entire second day; arrival late by 1 hour.
After a beautiful, warm, sunny day of walking around Seattle, we arrived at the station about 45 minutes prior to scheduled departure. We made the mistake of having our friends drop us off at the upper level on Jackson St., which gives the appearance that the station is abandoned, although of course we knew it wasn’t. We found a stairway down to the lower level on King St., and proceeded to the waiting room, which had an ugly dropped-panel ceiling; but apparently there is an effort underway to have the original high ceiling refurbished.
With the announcement of boarding, we proceeded to the entrance of our sleeping car, where we were greeted by our car attendant. We walked upstairs to our roomette, which was clean and functional. (While we knew the room would be small, at 6’6" x 3’6" it ends up being smaller in person than what I had envisioned. But, we had made our reservations several months in advance and got a great price on it, so no complaints justified, and hey, it was pretty comfy overall.) As we pulled out, our attendant offered us a mini-bottle of champagne. We noticed that our car was not terribly crowded, with several open rooms…but talk was that it would get crowded later, and that the WB trips from Chicago were complete