All Aboard!

Riding on the train now for a couple of hours: the Coast Starlight serves an old train route from Seattle to Los Angeles; but we'll only go to San Francisco.
This morning we spoiled ourselves in taking a taxi to Seattle’s beautifully restorated King Street Station (see pic), which we normally would never have done, but luggage was getting too bulky and we had too few hands… It’s not the first time that we take the train, we both love train travel and did it many times before in the U.S.

For economical reasons and because it’s „only“ one night, we took „coach“ (left pic) this time, but legroom is spacious, seats reclinable and there are tables and electrical outlets at every seat. Five restrooms per car (two of them designed as „dressing room“ and „ladies’ lounge“) and, for all passengers, there is a „sightseer lounge“ car (right pic) with wrapped-around windows (see pic) on top and a snackbar on ground floor. Also, there is, of course, a dining car. where dinners are served on reservation in shifts. For sleeping car passengers meals are included in the ticket as well as a wine tasting in the Parlour Car. We’ve had sleeping cars before, but meals weren’t really great and we didn’t sleep well there neither for a much higher ticket price.

The weather is gorgeous, we passed Tacoma (where the Go West Summit took place two years ago) and had beautiful views of the Puget Sound, the Olympic Mountains and later of Mount Rainier.








In Portland (see pics) the train stopped for about half an hour and we got out and stretched our legs and inspected the locomotive (pic) and the other cars (about ten in total). The train is pretty full and already stopped several times on the route because freight traffic has the right of way since train tracks belong to freight train companies and AMTRAK only pays to use them.


Lush, green countryside in Oregon’s backcountry: wine (pic), orchards, fields and other crops, sheep, cattle and horses. One one side: the Cascade Mountains, on the other, the Coastal Range. In the observation car one young guy started to play the guitar. Just left Oregon’s capital, Salem. Now we have the Three Sisters in view, closeby Bend. Soon the train climbed up into the mountains and woods of the Cascades and it slowly got dark (at about 7:15 pm). We had a „picnic“ with goodies from the Pike Place Market on the train. It’s been a quiet day and eventually we caught up with labeling pics, reading and writing down notes.


Seats seemed comfortable, legs stretched out, but during the night it showed that seats weren't exactly a bed and we only slept in intervalls, until either a muscle got stiff or a bone hurt. Formerly you got pillows and blankets on the train, but not anymore! I am sure, our friend Dave would have slept here like a baby, but we couldn't. Wouldn’t say that we are really fresh and chipper this morning, but well… we survived!
Just departed Sacramento, the capital of California, still pitch dark. Sunrise is at about 7:15 am - palms and a swarm of pelicans as well as layers of thick fog (see pics) were impressive and let us know that we are in Califoria now.Another hour to Emeryville, where we have to transfer to the bus to SF. Luggage will be checked through and then it'll be only a couple of blocks to walk to our hotel in SF.