My trip to Williston - getting there
The following post was mostly written on the train there and back, with some updates after I uploaded the photos and had some time to add them in.
So, after I made it onto the Empire Builder ( in spite of my best efforts), the actual trip to Williston went fairly smoothly.
Now, as I wrote in the original post, I booked a coach trip in both directions. The cost of buying a sleeper, even the cheaper Roomette, is more than three times the price, and more than on Anna's gift card. But, during the pandemic, Amtrak introduced something called BidUp. In order to encourage more riders to book sleeper rooms that would otherwise go empty, they invited coach passengers to submit a "bid" for a roomette or a sleeper, and it could be lower than the regular price. At the height of the pandemic, takes abounded of Amtrak travels being able to submit double-digit bids (the catch is that the bid comes on top of what you already paid for a coach ticket, so it's not quite as much of a bargain as it may seem, but still - savings!)
As the pandemic subsided, pulling off that trick got harder. But when I went to Meadville, Pennsylvania last May, the bid worked. I tried again this time for the Chicago-to-Willison trip, not expecting to get anything - especially since I set the bid even lower. But, to my surprise, it worked.
The trick seems to be to use it when booking tickets for less traveled destinations.
Now, around this time last year, I had a full-time job and enough money that I didn't have to second-guess it too much. In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have done it in the first place. I had the money - I still have savings - but it was not the wisest way to spend them. But what's done is done - and I consoled myself that, thanks to the Double Points promotion currently in effect, this will translate into quite a few Amtrak points, which would put me so much closer to having enough Amtrak points to pay for a Chicago-New York or Chicago-Washington D.C. round trip (I currently have enough points to go one way, but not quite enough to go back).
The Sleeper experience
With that out of the way, let’s talk about what it was like to sleep in a Superliner Sleeper.
My first experience was with a one-story Viewliner, and I only really experienced it during night time. Lake Shore Limited left Chicago at 9;30 PM and arrived in Erie, Pennsylvania a little after 6:00 AM the following day. This meant that, when I got into the sleeper, the beds were already folded down, and I had to leave the train before I could take advantage of the complimentary breakfast. This time around, I got to experience the sleeper in both “sit-down” and “bed-down” modes, and I got have complimentary dinner and breakfast.
There were some similarities with the two sleepers. In both cases, I BidUp for the Roomette, the smaller of the sleepers, the ones without built-in showers. There is basically one shower for all Roomette passengers on board that’s on first-come, first-serve basis. Unlike VIewliner Roomettes, they didn’t have a built-in, fold-down sink, either, which was less convenient, but nothing nothing to get upset over. In both cases, you get complimentary towels and soaps (used towels get dropped in a shower hamper)
Now, I was hoping that my Roomette would be on the top level. I even went up there and fully looked around for my room number until the sleeping car attendance pointed out that, no, I got one of the first-level ones. I didn’t get the second-story views to wake up to, but, again, given that I was playing below regular price and the Sightseer Lounge car was still available, that was, once again, a minor quibble.
What was a bit more of a quibble was the fold-down table. Both Roomettes have two chairs which get pulled together to become the lower bunk, and a fold-down table with a chessboard in the middle. While, in theory, it would be a good place to put down a laptop, I discovered that, in practice, it was too low - even lower than the coach car fold-down tables, which are less ideal. Which meant that, if I was going to write anything, I’d have to go to the Sightseer Lounge and hope that a table is free.
Another, even more significant quibble, was that the Superliner Roomette had fewer power outlets than its Viewliner counterparts, by which I mean I had one. Nothing I couldn’t navigate around - Lounge car has two outlets per seat - but in this age when many riders have a laptop and a phone charger, this seems like a weird oversight.
Our sleeping car attendant, Beyonce - and yes, that was her real name - was nice and helpful. When my Roomette (and, as it turned out, other Roomettes) felt a bit toasty, she tried to fix the problem. She responded to calls pretty promptly, and tried to work with people when it came time to switch the rooms to the bed mode. Even though I had no intention of going to sleep until after the train left Minneapolis-St. Paul a little after 11:00 PM, but I figured I might as well get it out of the way around nine. Again, there was always the Sightseer Lounge.
For anyone curious about what it’s like to sleep on a horizontal bunk, as opposed to be a seat that leans back more than an airplane seat but which is still, in the end of the day, a seat… It’s better. I still sometimes woke up when the Empire Builder stopped at a station, but it wasn’t at all stations, and I usually went back to sleep pretty quickly. Other riders have said that the train’s sway rocks you to sleep, and while I’m not sure I agree, it doesn’t interrupt sleep or anything like that, either.
During the Meadville trip, I took the shower early (because I had to disembark early), and it felt like it took forever for the hot water to kick in. This time around, I ended up taking a shower at around 6:30 AM in hopes of beating the morning rush. Maybe because it was later in the morning, maybe it was the difference in the train car models, but hot water kicked in pretty quick. And it turned out I didn’t have to worry about the shower - most of the other passengers didn’t bother until another hour.
To anyone wondering if the sway of the moving train makes it harder to shower… maybe it’s because I’m so used to doing things like brushing teeth and shaving on a moving train, but it didn’t really bother me all that much.
(Bit of a friendly Amtrak rider tip for anyone who might want to follow in my footsteps. If you have room in your luggage, bring slippers, or rubbery sandals, or something. They’re going to come in handy when you’re going from your room to the shower).
Another potentially useful tips - Viewliner and Superliner sleepers both offer unlimited coffee. Well, limited to how much they brewed, but you can pour as many cups as you want until they run out. I just found myself thinking about my mom, and how planes don’t offer unlimited free coffee.
The first day (Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota)
As you might have guessed, I went to the lounge as soon as I got situated in my sleeper. My original plan was to jot something down for this blog post. But as I bought a cup of tea (as you may recall, buying a cup of tea after getting onboard is my Amtrak tradition) and went back up to sit in a swirly chair, I just found myself looking out the window and relishing the bliss of doing nothing. I decided to enjoy it. I could always write later.
For the first hour or so, there was a nice, novel feeling of experiencing a familiar Hiawatha route from a second-story perspective. Sure, the windows on the east-facing side were dirty thanks to the rain and mud, but honestly, I didn’t even mind that much - especially when I got to see the rainbow. None of the photos actually captured it, but I saw the rainbow. In the end of the day, that’s what counted.
Once we cleared Milwaukee, I got to see some new sights - the highway overpasses, the city’s western suburbs, including the place where McKaylee Thayne from one of my Chasing New Dawn side stories lives (but I didn’t realize it until we passed by the town’s historic train depot).
I got to see the much-heralded Wisconsin Dells for the first time in my life.
Alas, by the time we reached Mississippi River, the sun already went down - but, since there would be plenty of daylight on the way back, I wasn’t too worried.
Now, as long-time readers of this blog know, Amtrak long-distance routes have something called “smoke stops” - trains stop anywhere between 5-10 minutes to give smokers a chance to light up and passengers in general a chance to get out and stretch their legs. Westbound Empire Builder’s first smoke stop was in Winona, the first Minnesota stop of the westbound trip. It was one of those smoke stops that serves a dual purpose - in this case, a minor crew change. By the time we arrived, it was almost completely dark. I decided to stick to the platform and see what I could see from there - which wasn’t much. The one thing that did strike was the cement blocks that blocked off most of the tracks except for the small walkways connected to the second track.
As I would later discover, both inbound and outbound trains stopped at that second track. No idea why.
10:00 PM to 7:00 AM the next day is basically lights out for Amtrak. Lights dim, there are no announcements over the intercom (conductors and car attendants walk around to warn people about the stations coming up, waking them up if they need to). Passengers are encouraged to keep quiet. So sitting in the lounge car with lights dimmed, nothing but darkness outside the windows and people around you whispering is wonderfully surreal.
The Twin Cities station, the Saint Paul Union Depot, was a more generous smoke stop - 15 minutes. There was a lot of wait as quite a few passengers disembarked, and a smaller, but still substancial number of passengers boarded.
I could have theoretically ran up to the station, checked out the building, at least. But with the experience of getting to Glenview still fresh on my mind, I decided not to chance it and stick to the platform. I figured that, at least on the way back, it would be morning, so I could see more.
The Dining Car experience
Now, before I talk about the breakfast next morning, let me talk about the dinner, and the current state of Amtrak dining experience.
Free dining car meals have been a sleeper car passenger perk since the 1980s. But while coach car passengers used to be able to get dining car meals if they paid for them, But part-way through the Trump administration, Amtrak made several changes that were widely speculated to be in response to Republican-dominated Congress’ demand to cut costs. Routes with trip lengths of less than about 30 hours got dining car service yanked, switching from meals cooked on board to pre-cooked meals that sleeping car passengers could either eat in their rooms or in the dining car, which functioned more like a sleeper-only lounge. While longer routes didn’t lose the dining car experience, it became a sleeper car only experience.
Since then, some (but not all) of the routes got their dining experience back, but it being a sleeping car passenger perk seems to have stuck.
(Note from the future: Or so I thought when I wrote this. On the way back, I found out things are more complicated than that - but I'll write about it when we get to it)
Now, coach car passengers have always been able to buy cheaper meals from the lounge car - things like headed sandwiches, cups of noodles, coffee and tea. Even when I was able to buy dining car meals, I tended to treat it as sort of once-per-train ride indulgence. Usually, it was either breakfast or lunch, very rarely dinner, because dinner stuff could get pretty up there. And I made a point to avoid the more expensive options.
But this time around, money wasn’t an object - so I ordered some stuff I never ordered before. For dinner, I ordered the full free-course meal, with fried pearl tempura shrimp, an Amtrak signature flat iron steak and a chocolate spoon cake. Also, a Sprite and the tea to go with that cake. The Amtrak steak was perfectly fine. I don’t regret ordering it, but it wasn’t anything special, honestly.
For breakfast, there were fewer opportunities to be indulgent, so I just ordered what used to be one of the more expensive meals - an omelets with chicken sausages on the side, plus coffee and milk (ordering milk has become another Amtrak tradition).
The reservation process still works the same as when I first started taking Amtrak. Breakfast is on first-come, first-serve basis, but for lunch and dinner, you need to sign up for a certain time slot. The way seating traditionally worked is that, unless you’re traveling with a group of three or more, you get seated wherever seats are available - which usually meant sitting with complete strangers. Personally, I like it - it’s part of the whole Amtrak comradery, a chance to talk to people you’d never quite be able to talk to. During dinner, I thought this was something they’d done away with - but during breakfast, I realized that I simply misunderstood where the crew member was pointing when told me where to sit. They were still seating people together - it’s just that, now, there were more empty tables than I was used to.
During breakfast, I ended up talking to a United Airlines employee who was taking a cross-country trip on the train - his first Amtrak trip ever - and a systems admin who took Amtrak to Illinois to catch the April 8 eclipse and was now heading back to the Seattle area. Turned out that he was an avid cyclists, and, when he found out that the tickets to Carbondale (which was in the path of totality) were sold out, he simply got a ticket to Urbana-Champaign and biked to Centralia, Illinois.
Since it was first-come, first serve basis, I joined the two when they were already mid-conversation. The United employee left and the cyclist and I chatted for a while. Eventually, I left, and another duo sat at the table. The cycle continued.
North Dakota
While much of Illinois is cornfields as far as the eye can see, and the Wisconsin west of Milwaukee was a lot of hills and rivers, my first impression of Dakota was a different kind of flatness - the prairie occasionally interrupted by farms with grazing cows, grain elevators and small towns. And there were quite a few junk yards. I didn't get a good picture of any of them, so you just have to, once again, trust me on this.
Our second major stop was in Minot, North Dakota. It was no mere smoke stope - this was a place where Empire Builder’s diesel engines got refueled, the crew ran mechanical tests and, as I discovered, take out all the garbage that accumulated over the past few hours.
As it turned out, the train would stay there for 50 minutes, and, I could have walked into town, but I was nervous about the train leaving earlier than that, so I mostly stuck around the platform.
The train station was actually fairly nice. One of those old-school buildings with a spacious, wood-lined waiting rom and a nicely decorated ticket office.
There were used books - lots of kids’ books, but plenty of stuff for adults as well. It didn’t occur to me until I was back on the train that it would be fun to take a book, read it on the train and then drop it back off on the way back. Oh well.
As I walked around, I saw a man stretching and doing push-ups. Which, after being on the train for several hours - fair.
As the train kept going, the terrain got hillier. But I was also reminded of Meadville, where I was impressed by the tall hills, only to realize that they were nothing compared to actual mountains in Pittsburgh. The real hills, and then mountains, would be waiting in Montana, after I disembarked.
I saw a handful of oil rigs here and there - not as much as I expected, honestly, but they were around.
And there were definitely other signs of oil extraction
Empire Builder didn't have onboard wi-fi - most long-distance trains don’t - but I figured that, if I needed to connect to check my e-mail or something, I’d used my phone hotspot. Except it turned out that there were many, many spots where the phone couldn’t get a signal at all. Not even to send text messages. It wasn’t a big deal, since I didn’t have anything pressing I needed to check or send, but I realized that it was a bit annoying when I wanted to send a text and I couldn’t.
A novel feeling in this day and age, but also kind of a reassuring one. The mobile phones still aren’t ubiquitous.
What I could still pick up was local FM radio, thanks to CAT s22 Flip phone (it can pick up FM radio frequency with wired headphones serving as an antenna). It was mostly Country and Gospel.
Empire Builder was scheduled to arrive at Williston at 11:59 AM, but at around 11:30, the announcement came over the intercom that it would be arriving early, in about 10 minutes. While I previously entertained the possibility of getting lunch extra early and maybe eating it quickly (because hey, free lunch) that clearly wasn’t going to happen. I bolted to my Roomette, gathered up the few things I didn’t already have packed and ready to go,
As the train approached Williston, I realized that I forgot one thing in my Roomette - a battery charger for my smaller Canon camera, complete with a spare battery I was charging. Like, forgetting it wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world - I have two chargers and several compatible batteries at home. But I did notice that, and, since my Roomette was on the first floor, it was a simple matter of running over there in a few meters, grabbing the charger and getting back by the door.
Because of the size of the platform, the train actually had to make two “stops” - one to drop off passengers from the Seattle section and one to pick up/drop off passengers from the Portland section. So, as I disembarked from the train, I watched the nervous passengers standing and waiting for the train move a few cars forward.
So, what awaited me at Williston? Tune in next post and find out.
