Home > Rafi on the Rails > Archives > 2007 > November > 13 > Entry
Le Spectacle de L’Adirondack
Amtrak trains run into Canada on three routes (two of which Amtrak operates through to the Canadian destination with the third operated by VIA Rail, Canada’s national passenger railroad). One of those routes is the Adirondack, which operates from New York’s Penn Station through Albany and up the banks of Lake Champlain into Quebec. All of this I knew long before I decided to take a trip on the Adirondack. What I didn’t know was just how spectacular the trip—especially the segment along Lake Champlain—is. Apparently Amtrak got the feeling that I wasn’t alone, because in a surprise move this fall, the railroad began running its sole remaining “Great Dome” observation car between Albany and Montreal on the train in an effort to remind folks just how scenic the train is.
And that’s what lured me to the Adirondack this weekend: the Great Dome. Built in 1955 by Budd for what was then the Great Northern Railway, this dome car once ran on the Empire Builder, the same train I recently took on my great transcontinental journey in September and October of 2007. Back then, it was called the Ocean View, and its name has since been changed to simply the Great Dome, as it’s Amtrak’s last remaining dome car in the entire fleet (only six were made by Budd, in fact). I had ridden in similar cars before—most notably on the (for now) defunct Spirit of Washington Dinner Train—but never as part of a regular passenger railroad coach fare, and certainly never in scenery as lush as the views from the Adirondack, as I was about to discover.
When you step inside of the Great Dome, you don’t want to leave. It’s that simple, because when you come down from the elevated floor and come down the stairs into the rest of the train, you instinctively know that you’re just not getting the best view anywhere else. In the dome you’re up high, you can see over top of the engine to the track in front of you, and you can see over top of the snaking coach cars behind you. Birds are racing you alongside the curved dome windows and leaves are tumbling in the wake of the train inches from your face. There’s just no comparison—even on Amtrak’s double-decker Superliner trains with Sightseer Lounges.
The trip along Lake Champlain is clearly the highlight of the Adirondack. The track snakes along the lake shore, weaving and dodging rock formations and going through a few classic short mountain tunnels. This trip came on the tail end of the fall foliage season, but the colors were still out there—vibrant oranges and yellows with some reds thrown in. On the trip back, I looked to my left and saw a Bald Eagle staring me in the face as he raced the train—I’m not kidding. A Bald Eagle. Next to me. Flying at about 25 miles an hour. By the time I grabbed the camera, he had backed away, but I was still able to get a few good shots (as seen here). When I mentioned it to the conductor, he grinned and explained, “yeah, they do that a good deal. The know the train’s gonna scare up some varmints—they’re not stupid, ya know.” Yes, he actually said “varmints,” and no, he didn’t have a strong resemblance to Yosemite Sam.
The other interesting experience on the Adirondack is going through customs. Those of us who are used to the airport customs experience are generally accustomed to the “Cattle Drive” nature of the procedure: “residents and citizens in this line, everyone else in this line,” etc etc. On the Adirondack, the customs agents actually come to you in your seat on the train. The schedule has about an hour of padding each way for the procedure, and the agents pretty much just make their way through the train checking everyone’s passport and declaration card. You get the same questions that you normally get at the airport (where were you born, why are you coming here, etc etc), but it’s in the comfort of your seat. That said, I have heard of horror stories where a train is held up for hours while a suspicious character is questioned in an adjacent building to the train, but that thankfully didn’t happen to either of the trains I was on.
The Adirondack is one of those trains people tend to forget about, I think, and that’s a shame. The scenery is surprisingly spectacular, the customs procedure (in my experience) is relatively convenient, believe it or not, and the train drops you off in a city that could fool you into thinking you’re in an old French town (Old Montreal is fantastic. If you’ve never been, GO.). It’s hard to beat that for $38.70, my fare from Albany to Montreal. Highly recommended.
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