Los Angeles to Seattle by Amtrak

After I had decided to visit Los Angeles I decided that I wanted to take the train to another city.  I picked Seattle and booked a "roomette" on the Coast Starlight.   It would be a 32 hour trip.  My longest train trip up to this point had been about 5 hours so I was looking forward to the two day experience.  

Here is the route the train would be following

   At around 9 am on Tuesday morning I arrived in Union Station in Los Angeles.  This was on the subway line and only a few stops from my downtown hotel where I had been staying for RushCon.

At around 10 am we all boarded the train

   Here you can get a sense of size of my Roomette.  It consisted of two wide chairs with an fold down table in between.  The cabin also had a sliding glass door and curtains for privacy.  During the night the chairs folded down to make a lower bunk.  There was also an upper bunk which could be folded down if needed.

We pulled out of the station and in no time we had some great scenery

  I also had access to a few other cars on the train.  This is the Parlour car which was a great place to sit and talk with other passengers.  It was also where we met for 3 pm wine tasting.

We hugged the Pacific Coast for a while

From the car hallway looking out my cabin window.

A great mix of coastline followed by farm country

  Mealtime was great.  If you wanted you could eat in your room or the parlour car but I always chose the dining car.  I always chose the dining car because you were put in groups of four to fill the table.

  One meal, our foursome was myself ( a software guy from Ottawa), an independent film maker from New York City, a retired truck driver from Oklahoma, and an Insurance Broker from Texas (who was about to retire and work on her evangelical Christian writing).   I thought that this was great; meeting such different people from what I was used to.

   The food was also very good tasting as well.  The room included meals so you just ordered what you wanted from the menu.  The staff on board were always helpful as well.

Some more sightseeing from the cabin.

The Cabin Attendant had prepared my bed for the night.  It was pretty comfortable and I had no trouble sleeping.  I woke up a few times and it was cool to just sit up and watch the world go by.

The next morning we were still in Northern California

  Some of the stops were very short, others a little longer.  Here in Oregon we stopped for about 15 minutes so many of us left the train just to walk around

Here I am

Some lakes and ponds

Here we are approaching the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.  In a short while the train was in Seattle

  The Seattle train station was downtown and a very quick cab ride to my hotel.

  I really enjoyed the train trip.  It was a nice relaxing pace in between my visit to two big cities.  I was able to really enjoy the scenery more than if I had drove.

I then enjoyed a few days in Seattle http://theglennv.blogspot.ca/2015/08/ending-journey-in-seattle.html