01.12.07
All aboard for the Empire Builder
The Izaak Walton Inn at Essex, Mt., grail of my March train trip. For a larger, more detailed view click here.
Bear with me, all you who suffered through my travel-waffling earlier this week. The waffling has ended and the die is cast. Just one more mention of choo-choos:
I’ve booked a week’s trip in March aboard Amtrak’s Empire Builder to Essex, Montana, and the storied Izaak Walton Inn.
Here’s why:
First, Debby and I have made that trip twice. Both times we enjoyed the ride immensely, and I was highly productive at the laptop in the sleeper en route and at our destination. Why not repeat the experience? After all, my main objective in taking a train anywhere is to get some writing done.
Second, these days the Empire Builder from Chicago to Seattle/Portland is Amtrak’s flagship train. The faltering national passenger railroad’s constant cutbacks have largely escaped Trains 7 and 8, because the Builder is a showcase of sorts: Amtrak wants to keep the ambience of at least one of its trains close to what it used to be.
For instance, 7 and 8 both carry a dining car with real chefs who prepare meals on board, serving them on white napery, while all Amtrak’s other trains now serve preplated, microwaved meals on plastic tablecloths.
There are some nice perks for sleeper passengers, such as a wine-and-cheese tasting party before dinner the second day out.
Generally the train is on time, or close to it. Burlington Northern, over whose tracks the train runs, has a reputation for pridefully trying to keep the Builder moving on the advertised. The dispatchers on most of the rest of American freight railroads don’t seem to give a damn. Amtrak can’t control these delays. Usually when the Builder is late, there’s a good reason — bad weather or an accident on the tracks ahead.
Third, our destination. The Izaak Walton Inn at Essex, Montana, tucked into the mountains halfway between East Glacier Park and West Glacier, is a great place to hole up in and write. It’s famous among rail buffs as a former bunkhouse for crews of helper locomotives that still shove long freights up 5,216-foot-high Marias Pass, and it’s also favored by cross-country skiers. There’s a warren of cross-country trails just across the tracks from the inn, and they’re good for snowshoeing as well — I’ll be taking a pair of snowshoes along with the laptop. The hotel also has a first-rate restaurant at decent prices.
The trip won’t be cheap. It’s costing me $610 round trip on the train in a roomette that holds two. I’m going alone. (Debby hasn’t retired yet. If she were coming along, the fare for her would be an additional $238.) Three nights at the Izaak Walton will be $381 plus tax. That’s $991 before tips and meals at the inn (meals on the train are included in the sleeper charge).
But if I get 100 pages of the next novel into the laptop, it’ll be more than worth the cost.
And, the way things are going for Amtrak in Washington, it might be my last chance to get in a long-distance train journey in the United States.
