Around the U.S. by train – Part 15

Thirty minutes ahead of the Coast Starlight’s departure time, those of us booked in sleepers file out onto the platform and head down toward our cars. Just ahead of me is a young mother with two small children who are hopping up and down with anticipation. One of them, a little boy about seven, somehow drops his backpack and they stop to reorganize. The woman looks up as I pass and, shaking her head, says, “Their first train ride.”

At 9:45, exactly on time, we depart Seattle, passing directly behind right field of Safeco Field, home of the Seattle Mariners baseball team. The ballpark has a retractable roof which, as you can see here, extends out over the tracks when the roof is open.

A few minutes later, on the right side of the train and across an interstate, we pass Boeing’s private airfield. This is where the passenger jets are built and take their first test flights. Parked around the runway are a dozen or so planes painted with the logos of airlines from around the world.

After leaving Tacoma, I head into the parlor car and there, off to the left and standing out in relief against a hazy blue sky is Mount Rainier, still dazzling white with snow.

The Coast Starlight passes through two state capitals in the first several hours of its journey down the length of the Pacific Coast — first comes Olympia, Washington, followed by Salem, Oregon, three hours later. We pass lumber mills, lots of them, with many thousands of freshly-milled 2×4’s and 4x4s, banded and stacked, ready to be loaded on flatcars and shipped by rail all over the country.

By late afternoon, we’re heading into some of the most beautiful country anywhere – a single track, for the most part, through heavily timbered forests, along ridges overlooking vast valleys and numerous lakes … picture-postcard stuff, mile after mile.

It was along here, near the town of Oakridge, Oregon (between Eugene and Chemult), that a massive landslide wiped out several miles of track this past January. It literally took Union Pacific months to dig out, regrade and lay new track and there are stretches along here where the earth is still scraped bare, the aftermath of work by hundreds of pieces of heavy equipment.

Night falls and after quite a good steak dinner, complimented by a half-bottle of wine, I head back to my roomette. The bed has been prepared while I was in the dining car and, as I turn in, I remember that we don’t get to see Mount Shasta on the Coast Starlight’s southbound trip because it comes and goes long after dark. It is really something to see, however, and it’s one reason I recommend taking the northbound version of this train.

And so to sleep. Tomorrow this ’round the country train trip will end … back in Los Angeles where I started nearly two weeks ago.