Early morning departures from other cities?

[spinnaker]

I am already thinking about next years trip. I plan to fly out to Spokane next year and do some bicycle touring out that way. I really want to come back on the EB but not sure what to do as the train leaves east at something like 1:25AM.

So what do you for those early morning departures from other cities (not your home city)? Do you just bite the bullet and get a room for a few hours? Or just hang out in town? Don't know about right near the train station but Spokane at least seems to be safe enough at night.

I have a similar problem with the CL going east out of Cleveland. I have been wanting to make a long weekend bicycle tour our that way and return on the CL but have been reluctant to do so due to the early morning departure. Not sure if I would want to hang out in Cleveland till early morning.

One crazy thought for Spokane would be to take the Tramway back to Seattle and then leave from from there. But it would be REALLY crazy because it arrives 5 minutes after the EB leaves Seattle.

That means I would need to stay a night in Spokane to get the early morning bus then stay another night in Seattle to get the EB in time.

 

[jis]

If the departure is significantly after midnight, I tend to get a hotel room for the night, turn in early and get some good sleep. Then show up at the station about an hour or so before the actual departure, which on many occasions turns out to be even later in the night than the original schedule shows.

If I was you, I'd do the one early night in hotel in Spokane rather than the two nights of hotel exercise.

 

[TiBike]

You could ride to Pasco and get on the train there -- that would be a couple solid days of riding. Ephrata would be closer, but there's no baggage service and Amtrak can't be bothered to get a bike onboard a long distance train without it.

The Portland section of the Empire Builder is scheduled to arrive in Spokane at 12:13 a.m. If you can book onto that section and it's on time, maybe you could get on the train just after midnight? Or wait until the Seattle section gets in at 12:40? Don't know how they deal wth loading passengers in Spokane -- I guess they might wait until after the two trains are put together.

 

[TiBike]

Just took a closer look -- there's a state-maintained bike trail, the Columbia Plateau trail, that covers nearly half the distance between Spokane and Pasco. Looks like it's gravel for most of the way, and it's generally downslope. Now you got me thinking about putting some cross tires on my bike and doing the route

.

 

[SarahZ]

I'm a night owl, so if the departure is anytime before 3 a.m, I would just stay up and then sleep through breakfast.

If the departure is closer to 4-5 a.m, then I'd get a hotel room and take melatonin so I could sleep for a few hours.

That's assuming I'm on Eastern time. If I'm out west, as in the case of Spokane, I'd have to adjust accordingly.

A 1:00 a.m. departure would be rough, but staying up would still be easier for me.

 

[jis]

In my younger days I would not have considered a hotel room for any such night departure.

Back in India in the '60s I lived in a place where the only two usable trains (Jodhpur Mail and Bikaner Mail - they actually had Railway Mail Service cars where you could still mail a letter!) stopped by between 1am and 3am at a station 14 miles away from my home, reachable by a single lane country road. The last connecting bus left at 10pm. So it was all par for the course. They were nice Meter Gauge trains pulled by beautiful Pacific Steam Engines of designs derived from the WWII McArthurs, and initial ones built by Baldwin in the mid '50s..

But coming back to topic, as I have grown older I have become less adventurous and more prone to spending money on creature comforts. So now I tend to go for the hotel room option, as I did in Columbia SC last year returning to Florida from the Solar Eclipse trip on the Silver Star.

 

[spinnaker]

You could ride to Pasco and get on the train there -- that would be a couple solid days of riding. Ephrata would be closer, but there's no baggage service and Amtrak can't be bothered to get a bike onboard a long distance train without it.

The Portland section of the Empire Builder is scheduled to arrive in Spokane at 12:13 a.m. If you can book onto that section and it's on time, maybe you could get on the train just after midnight? Or wait until the Seattle section gets in at 12:40? Don't know how they deal wth loading passengers in Spokane -- I guess they might wait until after the two trains are put together.

Well I think I would need to wait for the Spokane section anyway since Portland does not have RORO. The bike would need to be boxed. Same problem of going to Pasco (and that would mean more like 2.5 - 3 days for me

).

I am actually going to be in Taft, MT to ride the Route of the Hiawatha bike trail. It would require some careful planning but I could ride to Whitefish and just board there. There is a bike trail east of Taft that parallels I90 for quite a bit. I would need to do my research. The problem in that area is that lodging is so far an few between.

.

 

[crescent-zephyr]

I used to get on the empire builder in Fargo ND around 2 AM. I personally thought it was fun to get on a train in the middle of the night and go straight to my sleeper.

Once I did the same thing in Carbondale waiting for the City of New Orleans until after 3 AM. I don't think I would do that again.

 

[spinnaker]

Just took a closer look -- there's a state-maintained bike trail, the Columbia Plateau trail, that covers nearly half the distance between Spokane and Pasco. Looks like it's gravel for most of the way, and it's generally downslope. Now you got me thinking about putting some cross tires on my bike and doing the route

.

Have you seen the Route of the Hiawatha and Coeur D' Alene bike trails? Both look very cool! Both near Spokane.

 

[bratkinson]

Hard to believe it's nearly 40 years ago, shortly after the Superliners were introduced on the California Zephyr. I had proven to my boss that taking the train with a bedroom was less costly for business trips than flying (airline pre-deregulation days). I flew out to Denver and the branch manager there took me to an all day meeting with a customer. My job was to give a technical presentation/proposal. The manager got me to the Denver station about 10-15 minutes before 6PM-ish train time. Unfortunately, they had moved the schedule up an hour and their calling me in advance reached only my answering machine (no cell phones/internet in those days). That was before 'remotely get your calls from the machine' days, too!

I still wanted to get my first ride in a Superliner. So, I took a taxi to the airport, flew to Omaha, and told the taxi driver there my story and told him "I'll buy if you pour me off at the station about 2:30". He took me to a crowded bar about 4-5 blocks from the station and we drank until we both could barely walk. He drove me to the station and I don't remember what the total fare was, but I likely gave him a bunch of money.

I won't do that today, though. I've been clean and sober for over 19 years now.

 

[Seaboard92]

You could ride to Pasco and get on the train there -- that would be a couple solid days of riding. Ephrata would be closer, but there's no baggage service and Amtrak can't be bothered to get a bike onboard a long distance train without it.

The Portland section of the Empire Builder is scheduled to arrive in Spokane at 12:13 a.m. If you can book onto that section and it's on time, maybe you could get on the train just after midnight? Or wait until the Seattle section gets in at 12:40? Don't know how they deal wth loading passengers in Spokane -- I guess they might wait until after the two trains are put together.

Well I think I would need to wait for the Spokane section anyway since Portland does not have RORO. The bike would need to be boxed. Same problem of going to Pasco (and that would mean more like 2.5 - 3 days for me

).

I am actually going to be in Taft, MT to ride the Route of the Hiawatha bike trail. It would require some careful planning but I could ride to Whitefish and just board there. There is a bike trail east of Taft that parallels I90 for quite a bit. I would need to do my research. The problem in that area is that lodging is so far an few between.

.

I believe the ex Milwaukee Road Pacific Extension is a trail all the way across Montana, Idaho, and most of Washington state. Could catch the train in Seattle.

 

[pennyk]

But coming back to topic, as I have grown older I have become less adventurous and more prone to spending money on creature comforts. So now I tend to go for the hotel room option, as I did in Columbia SC last year returning to Florida from the Solar Eclipse trip on the Silver Star.

I am pretty much the same age as jis and I did the same thing in Columbia, SC. A few years back, a group of us were in Salt Lake City waiting for the CZ to take us eastbound. Most of us decided not to get a hotel room and we hung out in the lobby of the hotel in which we had stayed the previous nights. I think we all agreed that next time we would get a room, even though we would not be using it the entire night.

 

[JayPea]

Just took a closer look -- there's a state-maintained bike trail, the Columbia Plateau trail, that covers nearly half the distance between Spokane and Pasco. Looks like it's gravel for most of the way, and it's generally downslope. Now you got me thinking about putting some cross tires on my bike and doing the route

.

It's the old SP&S right-of-way that the then-BN used, mainly for directional travel, until they abandoned the line in 1987 or so, a move that BNSF now regrets. There has been some talk of BNSF putting down rails again and reviving the route, but I have complete confidence that will never come to pass.

 

[JayPea]

You could ride to Pasco and get on the train there -- that would be a couple solid days of riding. Ephrata would be closer, but there's no baggage service and Amtrak can't be bothered to get a bike onboard a long distance train without it.

The Portland section of the Empire Builder is scheduled to arrive in Spokane at 12:13 a.m. If you can book onto that section and it's on time, maybe you could get on the train just after midnight? Or wait until the Seattle section gets in at 12:40? Don't know how they deal wth loading passengers in Spokane -- I guess they might wait until after the two trains are put together.

They do indeed wait until the two sections are joined and electrical connections hooked up until they board passengers eastbound from Spokane.

 

[Charles785]

OK - now if anyone is boarding the Southwest Chief in Newton (Wichita) here's

an idea that may not be available in other Amtrak towns.

Both SWCs are scheduled into Newton shortly before 3 a.m.

In my case, I begin tracking the progress of the trains before I turn out

the lights in my hotel room, then get up earlier enough to spend 45 minutes or

so at downtown Newton's all night doughnut and sandwich shop,

Druber's Doughnuts one and a half blocks from the Amtrak station.

Good food, fresh doughnuts and friendly service.

 

[TiBike]

Thanks! Didn't know that much about northwest bike trails, but now I'm making up for it. Those are cool rides – gotta start factoring those into future travel plans. Sounds like you're going to have a good tour too. Heading to Whitefish to catch the train sounds like a winner.

It wasn't obvious that roll up bikes are not allowed between Portland and Spokane. Thanks for the heads up. I was looking at the bring your bicycle on board page and the PDF schedule. Those would lead one to believe roll ups were allowed, although after I read them again, it doesn't exactly say that. There's almost an inverse relationship between a city's value as a bike destination and Amtrak's ability to serve it. Chico, Paso Robles and Truckee are also off the list, completely – unlike Portland there are no corridor trains, boxed service or the Starlight to fill the gap.

Good riding!

Just took a closer look -- there's a state-maintained bike trail, the Columbia Plateau trail, that covers nearly half the distance between Spokane and Pasco. Looks like it's gravel for most of the way, and it's generally downslope. Now you got me thinking about putting some cross tires on my bike and doing the route

.

Have you seen the Route of the Hiawatha and Coeur D' Alene bike trails? Both look very cool! Both near Spokane.