Much of the Kootenai River Canyon between Libby, MT (well, Troy, really) and Bonners Ferry, ID is largely inaccessible by road and our (BNSF's) Kootenai River Sub. traces it near water level. If I remember correctly, BNSF at one point rated it as the most scenic spot in their network. As an AMTK passenger, you're missing one fine morning view; they filmed the waterfall scene of The Revenant at Kootenai Falls for a reason (and also because train crews are most of the only people to have seen them).
These old dwarf telephone poles parallel the rails along the water that the ospreys nest on (they peep angrily at you when you step out onto the nose and try talking to them). Constant landslide hazard in the canyon - BN has spent, well, not enough building slide detector fences and reinforcing the rock but it didn't stop a few big boulders from tossing two Dash-9's into the river last January in the middle of the night. Ironically, given this forum, I think they were in Katka siding waiting on Amtrak.
The Canyon is one of those rocky, windy single-track stretches where freight and passenger (if I remember) are limited to 30. So the next time you're westbound on #7 and can't sleep in the middle of the night, wait til you're going real slow about 15 minutes out of Libby - head downstairs and open up that little vestibule window on the right side of the train that your Shelby conductor really won't appreciate you opening - get your night vision - and take a gander at one of the last truly remote stretches of rail left in the West. I don't miss much about riding the head end at 3am, but I've yet to find a more gratifying solitude at work than opening up that orange steel door, suffering the blast of sudden Idaho winter and hanging my arms over the forward stanchions, watching that river (always under 20mph, as far as the internet is concerned).
