Despite a great deal of apprehension, riding Amtrak to Glacier National Park has so far been a success. You can read about all of the planning of our Amtrak trip and pricing information from my previous post here.
Knowing that Amtrak is notoriously late, I didn’t quite know what to expect when we arrived at the station a half hour before it was scheduled to depart. I was prepared to wait a long time, but fortunately I didn’t have to as wee left bang on time. With the exception of one person, the Amtrak staff were wonderful people.
We first met our attendant, Ryan, who showed us to our roomette. I’ve got to tell you that the roomette is small though very roomy compared to a plane seat. At the edge of the seat is the sliding door, so it does get a little small in there. A friend reminded me before I left to take advantage of the lounge car and dining car in order to get some space.
Ryan brought us champagne for the journey. Very nice. We then explored the lounge car and the dining car which I’ve pictured here. You get an amazing view. Our dinner was great too and it was included in our fare because we got a roomette. We had a very large flat iron steak with two sides. I’m going to the try the trout on the return journey.
There was an older couple from Eugene Oregon sharing our table who have gone to Glacier National Park by train three times. They like going to Glacier because they don’t have to drive. While I may not be willing to 14 hour train journeys all the time, the nice thing about this trip is that most of it is spent sleeping. You wake up in Montana. That’s a huge plus.
And how was sleeping? The vibration of the train as well as the champagne and the enormous dinner do a good job of getting you in the mood to sleep. The train creates some pretty good white noise also so you don’t have to listen to your neighbors conversations. I won’t pretend that it was the best sleep I’ve ever had, but I did sleep and I slept enough to be perfectly capable of an eight mile hike the next day.
All in all, I highly recommend it.
Thanks for the nice article. I’m searching around the web to find personal experiences with AmTrak and the sleeper cars. I was wondering if those had a sliding door or if they were just curtains. Now I know. Thanks.
PS Can you recommend a nice hotel to stay at in Glacier?
We always go budget, but we did hang out in the Glacier Park Lodge which was within walking distance to the East Glacier Amtrak station. They have these convertible bus tours which can take you to other locations in the park. So if you wanted to stay one night there and then take the bus to a hotel further inside the park that might be the way to go.
Try the Mexican restaurant in East Glacier. It’s the best place to eat in town.