Circling the U.S. Chapter 28: Riding the Rails

Thursday, August 15 - Friday, August 16, 2019

When we were in Australia in 2003 for one of Rob's sabbaticals, we had the opportunity to take the overnight train from Melbourne to Adelaide. It was so much fun, sleeping in a little cabin with bunk beds and our own compact bathroom with a toilet and sink that folded up to leave room for a shower. The only disappointment with the trip was that it was too short. We arrived at our destination shortly after breakfast with no time to just sit and look out the window, watching the scenery pass by.

Ever since then I've yearned to take another overnight train ride. Traveling by train from St. Paul to East Glacier fulfilled that longing and was exactly the solution we were looking for to get us to the Rockies and the west coast before the changing seasons caught us off guard.

We booked a sleeper car, the cheapest one with two beds and a shared bath and toilet. I was stunned at how small it was. When we got on the train after 10:30 at night the beds were already set up. They took up the entire compartment.

Because Rob gets up several times during the night I had no choice but to sleep on the top bunk. I now have an idea of what it must be like to sleep in a submarine. The sheets were tucked so tightly that I struggled to loosen them enough to get covered. It may sound trivial, but with such limited space to work it was a challenge. 

In the end I did get a decent night's sleep. Early Friday morning Rob and I swapped places and I sat up in the lower bunk and watched the moon set on the prairie.

I was sorry that the beds were put away before I had a chance to take a picture, but you can see the top bunk in this photo. There was no room to sit up and no window up there. The seats folded down for the bottom bunk.

With the beds put away during the day, our little cabin was just two seats that could recline a little. It was cozy, just enough room for us. We could close the door when we wanted quiet or privacy. If we were to take the train again, I would definitely try for a larger compartment. I peeked into some of them. They had bigger beds that turned into a sofa-style seat and then had a second seat by the window. There was plenty of room to stretch out and also a private sink, toilet and shower.

Following are pictures I took from the window. I was a little sorry we skipped cycling this part of the country, but one day of it would have been enough. The train saved us over a thousand miles of boredom.

Sleeper car passengers had meals served in the dining car. All the food was prepared in a kitchen under the dining room. They were very good. For breakfast I had a cheese quesadilla with scrambled eggs; for lunch a veggie burger and salad. Rob and I shared our dinners. I ordered salmon with rice pilaf and green beans and Rob had steak with baked potato and green beans. Both were delicious.

We sat in booths that seated four so we had a couple across from us at every meal. We met a mother and son from Indiana going to stay at an all-inclusive lodge in West Glacier; a husband and wife from Rhode Island who were taking the train from Boston to Seattle. They were exploring Seattle and Portland for a week then taking the train home. Then an older couple from Washington, D.C. They flew to Chicago where they got on the train and planned to stay at a lodge in East Glacier. When I said that it was fortunate they were seeing the glaciers before they all melted, she said it was a shame that tourists were ruining them. I said, no, it was climate warming. She didn't respond.

The couple from Rhode Island told us that the train to Chicago did not have a dining car and that the meals were served airplane style - precooked and brought to your cabin.

We arrived for meals early and were seated right away. They filled up one table then the next and when all the tables were full they took names and sent you back to your seat. For a couple hours during each meal serving we had to listen to the loudspeaker calling passengers by name to the dining car.

For dinner they took reservations. Since we were scheduled to disembark around 6:30, we were assigned the first seating at 5:00.

We arrived late, in the rain. That was all okay as we had a reservation at a hostel just half a mile down the road, and we'd already had our dinner. We had to go to the baggage car to pick up our bikes. The rain reminded me of the last time I bicycled through the northern Rockies when it rained every day for ten days straight. I hoped this time would be different.

The East Glacier train station.

Throughout the rest of our journey, when we tell people we bicycled from New Hampshire, we have to qualify that by saying we took the train from St. Paul to East Glacier. Almost always the response  is, "Good idea."