Late arrival

I am back in NoDak now. It was a late arrival as I never got here until 3 am, well past the scheduled arrival time of 9:22 pm. It seemed as if we lost time all along the way. The cause was train engine trouble, something I suspected when I saw a BNSF train engine as the lead engine when the Amtrak train arrived in Whitefish.

A freight train arrived at the station before the Amtrak train. Walking along the top of the train's grain cars were ducks looking for spilled grain.

They would walk single file along the cars hopping from car to car. A very young girl seeing the ducks screamed "Ducks!" to her father and the ducks, and this unnerved the ducks.

I also noticed that freight train cars throughout the day had more painted graffiti than I usually see.

Instead of the normal midsection of the train I was directed to the last coach car. While there were a good number of people in the station waiting to board the train I was the first to board this train car. It was empty except for one person when I boarded it. So I got my pick of seats. The train never had many people and I don't think our car was even 1/5 full.

Another difference was there seemed to be few people getting on/off all along Montana. Most destinations I had seen listed Chicago. Far fewer for a Minneapolis destination than what I normally see.

One cute woman was going to Minneapolis. She sat in another part of my train car. While I first noticed her in the train station, I never spoke with her as I guessed she was half my age. I suppose I could have as she was traveling alone and either slept or read a book. Conversation usually is a nice change of pace on long train trips. Did I mention that she could have been half my age? I didn't want to come across as a creepy old guy.

Minot seemed to be a popular destination as a good percentage of passengers were going there.

I saw the train attendant who had been rude to me last September when I took the train to Seattle. I wasn't in his car. I did see him again when I got off the train to walk around at the Havre stop and again when I got off the train in Minot. Each time he looked at me and I could see he was trying to place me.

The view on this trip was different than usual. It was due to the the time. Since we left after noon and not at 7:46 am the light was different as we passed through western and central Montana and it was dark in the eastern third of the state. With the light and fresh snow I spent more time looking out the window as we passed through the mountains.

East of the mountains it was easy to see it was very windy. Flags were straight and electrical lines and cable swayed in the wind. I saw a different view of the mountains: I didn't. The wind was pushing the clouds west of the mountains up and over the mountains completely covering them, as seen in the photos below. I have seen satellite photos on the local weather forecasts showing the jet stream blowing clouds over the mountains but this is the first time on the ground that I have seen this.

I would take short naps throughout the day and fell asleep soundly after we reached North Dakota. The train attendant woke me up 5 minutes before we arrived in Minot else I would have slept through it.

My brother was at the station at 3 am to meet me. It was cold with a temperature just above zero F. Quite a number of people were in the station waiting to board the train. A surprising number of train passengers got off the train to take a smoke break. Anything for a cigarette I suppose. In the cold they didn't seem to last beyond one quick cigarette.

At 3 am it was no surprise that there was no traffic on the roads once we left the train station.