Home > Rafi on the Rails > Archives > 2007 > October > 01 > Entry
Day 5: Stomach Ache, Thank You!
The Empire Builder is unique in that it’s the only Amtrak train that still performs a live split (if heading westbound) and joining (if heading eastbound). When splitting, one section of the train (including the dining and baggage cars) goes to Seattle. The other section (including the Sightseeing/Lounge car) goes to Portland, Oregon. The juggling act happens in Spokane, Washington in the middle of the night, so most passengers never even see it happen.
Well, as fate had it, I woke up at about 1:00 AM this morning with an awful stomach ache. I’m still not sure what brought it on, because Jon had the exact same lunch and dinner as me, and he was fine. Regardless, I had to get out of bed, because I was in the top bunk, and if something wanted to come up, well, I needed to be out of the room for Jon’s sake.
As I got out of bed, I realized the train was stopped. And the power was off. And then I slowly woke up and came to the realization that we were in Spokane and were in the midst of the late night juggle, where the Seattle portion of the train would detach from our Portland section. I made a (thankfully) quick bathroom trip and headed outside.
And froze.
Spokane is COLD, man. Especially at 1:15 AM in the morning. Regardless, I waited, and sure enough, the Amtrak conductors first detached the air hoses between the rear Seattle-bound coach and the Sightseeing Lounge car (which was forward of our Spokane cars). At that point, I couldn’t take the cold any longer, so I headed inside to the Sightseeing car to watch the action from there. The conductor released the coupler from the Sightseeing car (you could feel the scrape and bump of the metal pin), and not long after, I stood at the front door of the Sightseeing car and watched the coach passengers in the car ahead of us slowly pull away into the darkness, flanked by two red lights on the rear of their car. It was a little bittersweet, honestly, because we had grown to know many of these passengers at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and many would awaken early the next morning to find their train magically shortened by about half.
About 5 minutes after the Seattle section left, I heard the bell of another engine in the distance that grew louder until I could see the rear of a brand new Amtrak engine backing up toward our Sightseeing car. It coupled to us, and I headed back to bed at that point. My stomach had calmed down, and I could finally say that I’ve seen a live passenger train split into two independent trains.
Incidentally, here are a few fun facts:
1). So the baggage car left with the Seattle section. Makes you wonder what Amtrak does with the Portland baggage, right? It actually rides along on the ground floor of one of the Portland cars. I figured that out when I realized that one of our coach cars had a conspicuous large door welded to the side of it:
2). If the dining car heads to Seattle, what do the Portland passengers do about eating? Well, as it turns out, the Portland folks do get the shorter end of the stick in this respect; sleeping car passengers are given cold box meals (which actually weren’t too bad, all things considered), and the coach passengers have to buy food from the cafe in the bottom of the lounge car.
3). Two other Amtrak trains have performed splits in recent history: The California Zephyr (which used to split off into the Pioneer to Portland, Oregon, and the Desert Wind, to Las Vegas and Los Angeles) and the Lake Shore Limited (which used to have a split in Toledo that went up to Detroit for Michigan passengers. All of those splits have since been converted to bus connections, unfortunately.
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By Doug
October 1, 2007 9:36 AM | Link to this
Rafi, What a great adventure! Love the idea. Stay warm up here in the Pacific Northwest. Too bad you can’t swing on over through to Boise, but let us know if you change your mind. Your posts are now set up through my Attensa feed. Enjoy the trip. Doug