Through the Great Plains - A ride across America

The cross-country Amtrak Empire Builder service

WHEN my youngest daughter, barely five then, wondered if America lies just within the Manhattan island in New York, we reckoned that mere words may not tell her much. Instead we decided to take a train ride, a very long one at that, across the huge nation.
 It was four in the afternoon, on a beautiful early summer day when the Amtrak train pulled out of New York city's Penn Station. Both my daughters, my wife and me were excited about the trip.

 The four-day journey involved two sectors, the first being an 18-hour ride northwards within the state of New York and then a westward swing across Ohio before ending in Chicago, Illinois. After a night's stay in Chicago, we were to board Amtrak's renowned Empire Builder service for a two-day journey across the great plains, up the Rockies, before emerging on the Pacific coast city of Seattle.
 The second sector would take us through much of the American Prairie, through some parts of the trail blazed by early explorers Lewis and Clark and a crossing of the mighty Missisippi. Quietly, as a fan of old western movies and one who appreciates wide open spaces, I was looking forward to that part of the trip.
 I have always liked being on trains. Things tend to pass by a bit slower when you're on the iron horse plus you get to see parts of towns usually out of view when travelling by road, more so by air.
 There is also that nostalgic feeling when you're on a train, especially when it travels in the night and you sit there in the club car sipping coffee while talking to a fellow passenger you hardly knew. Once in a while, you'd hear the lonely sound of its horn coming from the locomotive far ahead.
 It was dusk when the Amtrak rolled into the Albany station in upstate New York. I got down for a smoke as the train refuelled, the stop lasting about 30 minutes before the conductor hollered the 'all aboard!" call.
 While the first leg was in a seating-only cabin, it was comfortable and I managed to catch some sleep after a dinner comprising tuna sandwich and only got awakened by the train's screeching brakes as it pulled into Cleveland in Ohio in the middle of the night.
 From Cleveland we rolled on into the night before I caught the first glimpse of the Great Lakes as the first lights burst through the eastern sky. We travelled along much of the lake which seemed more like the sea and reached Al Capone's hometown of Chicago around noon.
 We spent the rest of the day walking about in the very windy city, went to bed early and headed for the Union Station to continue our journey west.
 The family cabin on the Empire Builder service was above comfortable. Four bunk beds that could be folded into seats during the day, a wash basin, folding tables and huge glass windows on either side. At the end of the car was a shower and toilet.
 Meals were served in a club car at another section of the train. There was also a glass viewing car where passengers could sit back, read a book and enjoy the scenery as the train rolled along some of the most open spaces on earth.
 By nightfall we were already halfway across Wisconsin, reaching St Paul, Minneapolis, at about the time I hit the bunk. When we woke up early the next morning, the train was standing stationary, taking in fuel and water in Minot, North Dakota. We had passed Minnesota and were already in frontiersmen territory.
 From there it was wheatfields as far as the eyes could see. Once in a while, a farmhouse or a small town dotted the landscape as my thoughts flew to that 'Little House on The Prairie' television series I seldom missed when I was a kid.
 All stations on that part of the route were equipped with giant grain silos. This was America's grain bowl and a very important part of the country's economy.

Wolf Point, Montana.

 Names of towns thereafter seemed familiar in western movies of old. Devil's Lake in North Dakota, Wolf Point and Cutbank in Montana, where we began to see the first images of the Rockies far into the horizon and where I began to realise that on our right was Canada.
 The train stopped in Cutbank to take in some more water and fuel while I took the time to absorb a bit of what the place was all about. Near Cutbank was the historical site where long ago General Custer led the 7th Cavalry in their last stand against the Northern Cheyenne indians at the Battle of The Little Big Horn. Custer and his men were slaughtered.

Glacier National Park

  There were still patches of melting snow on the ground as I started to feel some sense of gradient as the train enters the Glacier National Park territory in the Big Sky country of the state of Montana, stopping briefly at the highest point where the resort town of Whitefish was. By then it was night and throughout the darkness and the thickening snow on the mountains, the train pushed through.
 When I woke up the next morning, the train was snaking through a pass in the mountains while snow was still falling. We broke through into the apple state of Washington some hours later and finally reached Puget Sound on the Pacific coast in mid-morning and then into Seattle.
 It was four days since we left Penn Station in New York and when my daughter then asked me where we were, I answered, "Nowhere. We are still in America."

Author's note: We spent four days in Seattle and managed to take the ferry into Victoria in Canada. Victoria remains one of the most beautiful towns I've ever visited. We flew back to New York out of the Seatac-Tacoma airport in Seattle and enroute, stopped in Denver, Colorado. The flight back took no more than six hours.