Greetings from somewhere between Red Wing and Minneapolis-St. Paul. It is currently 9:58 PM CT, and this post comes to you live from the sightseer/lounge car of the westbound Empire Builder.
I got back to Union Station this afternoon just before 1 PM, purchased lunch, and went to the Metropolitan Lounge to reclaim my luggage and to await the boarding of the Empire Builder, which I am taking to Portland. The lounge was quite crowded, since both the Texas Eagle and California Zephyr were scheduled to depart just before my train. Once announced, I headed out to the train, and discovered that we have a private car on the back of our train, in addition to the regular consist. We will drop that car (along with one coach) at Minneapolis/St. Paul. 
The train itself is quite long. I am in the Portland sleeper, which is currently the third to last car of the train (after Minneapolis, it will be the last car). The train itself has about 12 cars, including the diner and lounge cars, a baggage car, and two engines. It is also quite full.
We left three minutes late at 2:18 PM CT. The ride itself thus far has not been much to write home about. The scenery on this part of the route has not been terribly exciting in my opinion. Throughout Wisconsin, we could see flat fields and some lakes. For much of the late afternoon and early evening, we ran alongside the Mississippi River. However, I am to understand that there is much better to come, once we get out to Glacier National Park tomorrow afternoon and go through the Columbia River Gorge on Thursday morning.
I am in a roomette again on this train. This time I am in room 7, which is on the right side of the train. From my pre-trip research, I was not on the good side in terms of scenery watching today, but I will be tomorrow. Thursday morning, I’ll need to stake out a spot in the lounge early for the gorge trip.
After getting situated, I went to the lounge with National Pastime, but unfortunately, the lounge on this train is not nearly as pleasant as it was on the Capitol Limited. They have a rail-to-trails guide from the National Park Service providing information on the sights we are passing, but between the NPS volunteer, the cafe stand being open on the upper level (in addition to the lower level), and other people’s conversations, the lounge is not a very quiet place where one can bring a book, camera, and enjoy the scenery.
My being a single traveler has its advantages. Not only is the Roomette fairly spacious, I have more flexibility in making dinner reservations. Today, people in the Seattle sleeper cars got to make reservations first, but I had more options even when they got to us on account of my traveling alone. (Tomorrow, the Portland sleeper will get to reserve first). Unfortunately, I was seated with a party of three people who are much older than myself, and this resulted in a meal longer than I would have liked (close to two hours long). I also missed several opportunities to photograph the river and other scenery as a result of the long meal. The food on this train seemed to taste better. It is also served on real dishes and the glasses are actually glass, as opposed to the Capitol Limited, where there were plastic plates and cups. The silverware on both trains has been real though. I would say that train food is a step above airline food (or as others have pointed out to me when I’ve said this, the food that the airlines used to serve since they no longer do on many flights).
After returning to my room, I got a few river photos from there, since the river was on my side of the train, and finished reading National Pastime. I then did some photo organizing and wrote these entires. We seem to have arrived at Minneapolis now (at 10:26 PM CT), so I will sign off and see if I can step off the train for a few minutes during the service stop.
