A “Cooler” Trip Than I'd Imagined: Albany NY to Portland OR & BC by Train
Jul 4th, 2013, 12:10 PM
#21
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tomfuller-- I had not planned on doing a write-up of VIA Rail's Canadian since I'd done that trip before, but I promise to come up with a mini-version with a comparison of sleepers in the upcoming days. BTW I have taken the California Zephyr from Chicago-Emeryville and think it's one of the world's amazing train rides in terms of the beauty of the landscape seen. I'm glad that unlike me, you can manage to sleep in coach on the long-distance rides; it certainly saves you a ton of money and you get all the same scenery! 
thursdaysd-- Thanks for you blog! What an amazing trip that looked! Seems like you hit one of the biggie North American train rides that has tantalized me, the Coast Starlight! Your pictures of San Francisco were just gorgeous BTW in your blog. I agree with the importance of booking early, particularly for sleepers; my indecisiveness (booking in April for a June train) meant there was no more availability of sleepers on the Chicago-Portland route sleepers. Luckily there were Chicago-Seattle sleepers still left, but this wrench in the works caused me to arrive in Portland 8 hours after the Chicago-Portland train arrived.
chepar--Thank you. Even with the beautifully scenery you have in Hawaii, the Hawaiian woman seemed equally happy & enthralled by our tour of the Gorge. So hopefully, you'll enjoy the Columbia River Gorge as much as I did.
mms-- Even though you're specifically thanked in the body of the trip report, in case you didn't read that part, I want to express my appreciation for all advice you gave in the planning stages of my trip.
WeisserTee-- I'm glad you enjoyed. A bi-plane seems an amazing way to see the gorge, even though I'd probably be too scared to actually visit it that way.
thursdaysd-- Thanks for you blog! What an amazing trip that looked! Seems like you hit one of the biggie North American train rides that has tantalized me, the Coast Starlight! Your pictures of San Francisco were just gorgeous BTW in your blog. I agree with the importance of booking early, particularly for sleepers; my indecisiveness (booking in April for a June train) meant there was no more availability of sleepers on the Chicago-Portland route sleepers. Luckily there were Chicago-Seattle sleepers still left, but this wrench in the works caused me to arrive in Portland 8 hours after the Chicago-Portland train arrived.
chepar--Thank you. Even with the beautifully scenery you have in Hawaii, the Hawaiian woman seemed equally happy & enthralled by our tour of the Gorge. So hopefully, you'll enjoy the Columbia River Gorge as much as I did.
mms-- Even though you're specifically thanked in the body of the trip report, in case you didn't read that part, I want to express my appreciation for all advice you gave in the planning stages of my trip.
WeisserTee-- I'm glad you enjoyed. A bi-plane seems an amazing way to see the gorge, even though I'd probably be too scared to actually visit it that way
.
Jul 4th, 2013, 12:39 PM
#22
Daniel_Williams - thanks for the kind words! Turned out that having the Coast Starlight run three hours late was actually a good thing for me, as I got to see Mt. Shasta in daylight. The people planning to connect to the Empire Builder weren't so happy, as they were taken off and put on buses...
I had been a bit leery about Amtrak (my first Amtrak trip the outbound arrived four hours late and the inbound six!) but it worked out very well. But my longest train trip was 17,000 miles Scotland to Saigon. No photos, I'm afraid, but TR here: http://wilhelmswords.com/rtw2004/
I had been a bit leery about Amtrak (my first Amtrak trip the outbound arrived four hours late and the inbound six!) but it worked out very well. But my longest train trip was 17,000 miles Scotland to Saigon. No photos, I'm afraid, but TR here: http://wilhelmswords.com/rtw2004/
Jul 5th, 2013, 07:27 AM
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To Answer Tom Fuller's question regarding sleepers--
*VIA Rail's the Canadian (with Amtrak comparisons)*
All trains arrived one to two hours late in their final destination, not too bad all things considered.
For my sleepers: On the Canadian Vancouver-Toronto, I got an upper berth; on the Empire Builder Chicago-Seattle, I got a Superliner Roomette; on the Lakeshore Limited, I got a Viewliner Roomette. All my sleeping accomodations have in common that they are the cheapest sleeper option on the trains. Unlike the double-decker Empire Builder, VIA's the Canadian is single level, with the exception of the "dome cars".
The accessible-by-ladder upper berth is an experience very different from the roomettes in that your bed only is pulled out at night, at which time your space offers privacy in the form of a curtain separating you from the corridor. So, it's less private that a roomette for sure where you're always separated from the corridor by a sliding door. During the day, the upper berth is pushed into the "ceiling" and there are two "booth" like seats present in "your space" (these seats during the night are pushed together so as to form the base for the mattress of the lower berth). The bathroom was down the hallway, as was the case on the Empire Builder; on the Lakeshore Limited, the toilet is incorporated as part of the roomette. Plugs to recharge phones and e-readers were in the bathroom. One shower is available per car, as was true on the Empire Builder.
The food on Amtrak I've found ranges from ok to occasionally quite good in the dining car, while the meals in the dining car on VIA Rail are often what I'd describe as "a nice restaurant dining experience" with options varying from day to day. I prefer that on VIA, the portions are not as gargantuan as on Amtrak. The Empire Builder and Canadian train offer a "start-of-an-iconic journey" mini-bottle or glass of sparkling wine as you leave Chicago, Vancouver and Jasper. Unlike VIA, Amtrak had a wine-and-cheese tasting for sleeper car passengers in Montana specializing in Washington state wines and Wisconsin cheeses; prizes in the form of a bottle of wine were given to passengers who correctly answered trivia questions. I heard there was a beer tasting on VIA though, don't know how I missed that one!
VIA's the Canadian has had the stainless-steel "dome" car for some time, an area above the train where you have panoramic viewing from the better vantage point. In the dome car, there's an activity coordinator who regales you with stories about the history and the geology you're seeing. Our coordinator is training to become a train engineer, so he also provided detail about the functioning of the trains & tracks for those interested. There's also an activity car on board with newspapers, magazines, occasional movies, trip souvenirs and games including Scrabble, Monopoly, Backgammon, Cribbage, as well as coloring books and build-from-scratch construction paper trains for the kids. I enjoyed a game of Scrabble with two nice Toronto-area nurses. VIA has added a single-level panoramic viewing car (for the Vancouver to Edmonton portion of the journey ONLY) where one is surrounded by an arch of glass throughout the length of that car... a terrific area for viewing the Rockies.
The scenery is gorgeous, especially in British Columbia along the Fraser and Thompson Rivers, as well as throughout the Canadian Rockies in Alberta as one passes through Jasper National Park. I didn't see much in the way of wildlife other than one elk for a few seconds near Jasper and some odd fluffy-tailed rodent intermediate in size between a squirrel and a chipmunk that lived in holes right by Jasper station but was too small and the wrong colour to be a prairie dog? We had about an hour stop in both Jasper and Winnipeg. I now avoid the souvenir and tourist-geared shops in Jasper and head straight to the most peaceful spot I can find near that station and read my book amidst the beautiful backdrop of mountains. In Winnipeg, I took some fellow berth-mates across the Red River to St. Boniface and showed them Fairmont's Fort Garry Hotel. I was hoping to find a pencil in a convenience store as my pencil eraser had become a stub--not good for crossword puzzles. I couldn't believe that a random 20-something Winnipeg couple (to whom my plight was told) were looking in their backpacks to see if they could find one and wanted to offer a pen to me! Winnipeggers indeed seem a friendly bunch.
That's about all I can think of off-hand!
Best wishes, Daniel
*VIA Rail's the Canadian (with Amtrak comparisons)*
All trains arrived one to two hours late in their final destination, not too bad all things considered.
For my sleepers: On the Canadian Vancouver-Toronto, I got an upper berth; on the Empire Builder Chicago-Seattle, I got a Superliner Roomette; on the Lakeshore Limited, I got a Viewliner Roomette. All my sleeping accomodations have in common that they are the cheapest sleeper option on the trains. Unlike the double-decker Empire Builder, VIA's the Canadian is single level, with the exception of the "dome cars".
The accessible-by-ladder upper berth is an experience very different from the roomettes in that your bed only is pulled out at night, at which time your space offers privacy in the form of a curtain separating you from the corridor. So, it's less private that a roomette for sure where you're always separated from the corridor by a sliding door. During the day, the upper berth is pushed into the "ceiling" and there are two "booth" like seats present in "your space" (these seats during the night are pushed together so as to form the base for the mattress of the lower berth). The bathroom was down the hallway, as was the case on the Empire Builder; on the Lakeshore Limited, the toilet is incorporated as part of the roomette. Plugs to recharge phones and e-readers were in the bathroom. One shower is available per car, as was true on the Empire Builder.
The food on Amtrak I've found ranges from ok to occasionally quite good in the dining car, while the meals in the dining car on VIA Rail are often what I'd describe as "a nice restaurant dining experience" with options varying from day to day. I prefer that on VIA, the portions are not as gargantuan as on Amtrak. The Empire Builder and Canadian train offer a "start-of-an-iconic journey" mini-bottle or glass of sparkling wine as you leave Chicago, Vancouver and Jasper. Unlike VIA, Amtrak had a wine-and-cheese tasting for sleeper car passengers in Montana specializing in Washington state wines and Wisconsin cheeses; prizes in the form of a bottle of wine were given to passengers who correctly answered trivia questions. I heard there was a beer tasting on VIA though, don't know how I missed that one!
VIA's the Canadian has had the stainless-steel "dome" car for some time, an area above the train where you have panoramic viewing from the better vantage point. In the dome car, there's an activity coordinator who regales you with stories about the history and the geology you're seeing. Our coordinator is training to become a train engineer, so he also provided detail about the functioning of the trains & tracks for those interested. There's also an activity car on board with newspapers, magazines, occasional movies, trip souvenirs and games including Scrabble, Monopoly, Backgammon, Cribbage, as well as coloring books and build-from-scratch construction paper trains for the kids. I enjoyed a game of Scrabble with two nice Toronto-area nurses. VIA has added a single-level panoramic viewing car (for the Vancouver to Edmonton portion of the journey ONLY) where one is surrounded by an arch of glass throughout the length of that car... a terrific area for viewing the Rockies.
The scenery is gorgeous, especially in British Columbia along the Fraser and Thompson Rivers, as well as throughout the Canadian Rockies in Alberta as one passes through Jasper National Park. I didn't see much in the way of wildlife other than one elk for a few seconds near Jasper and some odd fluffy-tailed rodent intermediate in size between a squirrel and a chipmunk that lived in holes right by Jasper station but was too small and the wrong colour to be a prairie dog? We had about an hour stop in both Jasper and Winnipeg. I now avoid the souvenir and tourist-geared shops in Jasper and head straight to the most peaceful spot I can find near that station and read my book amidst the beautiful backdrop of mountains. In Winnipeg, I took some fellow berth-mates across the Red River to St. Boniface and showed them Fairmont's Fort Garry Hotel. I was hoping to find a pencil in a convenience store as my pencil eraser had become a stub--not good for crossword puzzles. I couldn't believe that a random 20-something Winnipeg couple (to whom my plight was told) were looking in their backpacks to see if they could find one and wanted to offer a pen to me! Winnipeggers indeed seem a friendly bunch.
That's about all I can think of off-hand!
Best wishes, Daniel
Jul 5th, 2013, 07:56 AM
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thursdaysd-- I had a chance to check out your California Zephyr blog and you really encapsulated well what I enjoyed about that train. It seems our sleeping clocks were the same both trips, as I too slept through Nebraska waking before Denver the second day on the train and woke in western Nevada the third day. I agree that the area near Donner Pass was a highlight of the third day. What impressed me was the quality of your photos; mine had a tendency either to come out blurred due to train movement, or have Amtrak chairs and neighboring passengers in the reflection along with the Colorado Rockies, or here's a lovely view of dramatic Donner Pass with bird-poop on the window. Anyway, you really got some terrific scenic views, some of which I saw, but some of which I fear I may have napped through. Guess I'll have to do that train again one day .
.
Jul 5th, 2013, 07:56 AM
#26
Thank you so much for your good descriptions.
The latest train that i was ever on was the Canadian.
I was in Winnipeg waiting for the train to come in from Toronto.
It did not snow at all in Winnipeg but it did in northern Ontario, knocking out the signals. When this happens, all the trains stop. I slept the night on the floor of the Winnipeg station. The train arrived 16 hours late. We arrived in Jasper after midnight and I got a taxi out to the HI hostel where they had left me a flashlight and a map to my bed.
On the taxi ride out to the hostel, I saw the most spectacular Northern Lights I have ever seen.
I have another Amtrak trip planned in coach for December.
The latest train that i was ever on was the Canadian.
I was in Winnipeg waiting for the train to come in from Toronto.
It did not snow at all in Winnipeg but it did in northern Ontario, knocking out the signals. When this happens, all the trains stop. I slept the night on the floor of the Winnipeg station. The train arrived 16 hours late. We arrived in Jasper after midnight and I got a taxi out to the HI hostel where they had left me a flashlight and a map to my bed.
On the taxi ride out to the hostel, I saw the most spectacular Northern Lights I have ever seen.
I have another Amtrak trip planned in coach for December.
Jul 5th, 2013, 11:03 AM
#27
Daniel - glad you liked the photos. I think the trick is to get the lens as close as possible to the glass. I got better shots in my roomette than in the observation car as there was less going on behind me. My biggest problem was shooting trees and telephone poles I didn't want - I junked a LOT of shots but happily with digital that's easy to do.
Jul 6th, 2013, 06:57 AM
#28
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tomfuller-- I'm impressed to know you still like trains after that 16 hour wait and sleeping on the floor in Winnipeg! Worst for me has been 4 1/2 hours late arriving in Chicago on the California Zephyr. Some passengers missed their ongoing connections; I wisely had planned to overnight in Chicago. I too have a train ride planned for December... Silver Meteor to Florida!
Thursdaysd-- I know; I hate it when you think you've got the perfect shot and in that split second between your being happy with the picture and the moment you press the button on the camera, some trees whiz past and you end up with a worthless leafy and barky green and brown blur instead.
Thursdaysd-- I know; I hate it when you think you've got the perfect shot and in that split second between your being happy with the picture and the moment you press the button on the camera, some trees whiz past and you end up with a worthless leafy and barky green and brown blur instead
.
Jul 8th, 2013, 05:49 PM
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I love that whenever I visit a city for the first time I discover something I'd never heard of before. For example, in Charleston SC, I discovered "joggling boards"; in Savannah, "hoecake" and liriope grass"; in Vancouver "monkey trees"; in Chicago "pushing a button to switch the toilet seat cover" and "a fountain with constantly changing human images spewing out water", etc, etc... Sometimes it IS something unique to a city, sometimes just something new to me.
So what did I discover in Portland: "Benson Bubblers"! (Google it if you're curious!) They *are* a style of water fountain (almost) unique to Portland, which makes sense why I'd never seen them before! I wasn't even sure if it were ornamental or if you were supposed to drink from them at first!
So what did I discover in Portland: "Benson Bubblers"! (Google it if you're curious!) They *are* a style of water fountain (almost) unique to Portland, which makes sense why I'd never seen them before! I wasn't even sure if it were ornamental or if you were supposed to drink from them at first!
Jul 8th, 2013, 05:59 PM
#30
Are you referring to the "Monkey Puzzle" tree? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Araucaria_araucana
The first and only place I saw one of these was on the Capitol grounds in Sacramento.
I once saw a large Oak tree growing on top of a building in Vancouver.
I'll have to look for the Benson Bubblers in Portland the next time I'm there.
The first and only place I saw one of these was on the Capitol grounds in Sacramento.
I once saw a large Oak tree growing on top of a building in Vancouver.
I'll have to look for the Benson Bubblers in Portland the next time I'm there.
Jul 8th, 2013, 06:34 PM
#31
Lots of monkey puzzle trees in South America, it turns out. Looking much bigger and happier than the occasional specimen I saw in England growing up. See, for example: http://smu.gs/12efIX2
Jul 9th, 2013, 05:50 PM
#32
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My friend in Vancouver called a certain tree a "monkey tree"; I have no idea if that was the actual name of the tree I saw. Perhaps it is the same as the Monkey Puzzle Tree since the shape of the branches resembled thursdaysd's picture except it was much denser with these shaped branches; unlike the pictures of the "Monkey Puzzle" tree in the Wikipedia post, tomfuller, there were branches from top to close to the bottom of the tree.
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