A train through winter

It was early morning (for me!)  but I wasn't sure where my mind was when Jan  came to get me to go to the train station.  She had to remind me to turn off the power and water valve in my well.  Later, halfway, across Montana I remembered I had forgotten to click the padlocks shut on a couple of the outbuildings.  *sigh*   I called Jan and she will lock the locks.

The train was on time to Whitefish at 7:26 am. It was Christmas Eve Day and to my surprise the train car was near full.  I was assigned a seat by the train attendant.  Usually a person gets on the train and looks for a seat.  I sat next to a woman traveling from Portland, Oregon to Great Falls, MT.  She was leaving the train at Shelby.  Or "Shelberia" as the train attendant called it in a fake Russian accent when he announced the train stop.

I walked through the train and found that the car I was sitting in was the most full.  The oriental attendant had sent me and many others to this car instead of letting us board his car.  Later that afternoon as I walked through his car I saw him fast asleep in his seat.

It was a bit odd in that lots of people were exiting the train at the towns of Cut Bank, Shelby, and Wolf Point instead of the usual larger towns.  Fortunately several of the towns were early in my train trip, and as hardly any people were getting on the train, lots of seats opened up and I was able to have two seats to myself the rest of my trip. Which made it much easier to lay down and sleep overnight.

After the train left Minot the conductor came by and asked me if I would move up three cars to make it easier for me to get off the train in Red Wing.  The Red Wing train platform is not long and I was in the third car from the end.  Oh, yeah I'll move!   The other cars still had less people and my new car was a refurbished and nicer car.

Because the Red Wing train station doesn't handle baggage I had to carry my bags on the train. The conductor offered to carry one of my bags to the new car.  When he returned from getting my suitcase from downstairs he commented that Red Wing makes and sells bricks and I could have waited to get bricks there instead of bringing them in my luggage.   Little did he know that the other bag I was carrying to the new car was the heavier bag.

The views in the mountains were a winter wonderland with the fresh snow on the pine trees. Once we crossed the mountain divide we began to lose the clouds.

 

 

With the clear skies the temperatures dropped.  At the stop in Havre my face and ears felt the nip from cold air as I walked the station's platform.  At Glasgow the train attendant announced the temperature was minus 17 degrees.  There were less than the usual number of people standing outside the train to have a quick smoke.

Another side effect of the cold was that quite a number of the bathroom sinks wouldn't drain and were half full of water.  I informed my car's attendant and he told me the sinks wouldn't drain because the pipes were frozen.

Because of the winter storm across North Dakota and Minnesota Amtrak decided to add a third engine in Havre.  We had been on time until the third engine was added.  After that we ran an hour and a half or later behind schedule all the way to Red Win
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We lost people from the train as we crossed Montana.  After all who would be crazy enough to travel by train on Christmas Eve?  Once we reached North Dakota we started getting more people boarding the train.   With lots of empty seats we easily handled it when Minot had lots of people boarding. We stopped in Fargo in the middle of the night.  I half awoke when people boarded in Fargo.  Once I woke up later most of the seats were filled with people going to Minneapolis on Christmas Day.

When the train stopped in Minot I got off and walked the platform in case my brother did drive down to see me.  Because the weather forecast was for a storm I asked him not to come.  He didn't come.  It was snowing when I was in Minot but the main part of the storm hadn't arrived yet.  I learned later that Minot and North Dakota got hammered with snow and a blizzard.

Minnesota wasn't bad.  Instead of the predicted 18 inches or more of snow, Rochester got 5.5 inches.  The temperature was near freezing and the snow was slushy.  The train stopped short of the platform and the half dozen of us who exited the train had to walk across another set of tracks.  The tracks were snow covered and between the rails I stepped into a small lake.

Standing among the falling big wet snowflakes Tammy was there to get me.  The roads were wet, a little slippery, but otherwise fine if one took it easy when driving.