Amtrak Empire Builder

[JASII]

I really don't monitor railroads, but I told my wife that I might be interested in taking the Amtrak Empire Builder either from Saint Paul Minnesota to Chicago IL or to either Portland OR or Seattle WA.

I assume that there would be multiple railroad radio channel changes during that run. I am just assuming that they switch to the road channel of whatever section of track they are on. Anyway, if anybody has any suggestions on how to convince a spouse, please feel free to share your ideas. My wife is pretty convinced that she would be pretty bored on the two day run from Minnesota to either Oregon or Washington.

Also, maybe somebody has a run down of the all the channels used on that line. If so, feel free to share.

Thanks in advance!

Empire Builder Train | Amtrak

Take the Empire Builder train between Washington state and Chicago with stops in Seattle, Portland, Minneapolis & more. Book your trip today.

www.amtrak.com

I did find this. Is it still accurate?

On Track On Line - Amtrak Freqs Empire Builder

Trains Community - On Track On Line provides information about Rail Travel and all facets of the hobbies of railroading and trains.

www.on-track-on-line.com

 

[cbehr91]

I did find this. Is it still accurate?

On Track On Line - Amtrak Freqs Empire Builder

Trains Community - On Track On Line provides information about Rail Travel and all facets of the hobbies of railroading and trains.

www.on-track-on-line.com

I have found that website to be perfectly accurate.

 

[n0esc]

No specific radio advice, but I can offer you insight on the Empire Builder. Go into that trip with more grace than you may usually have. The journey is the destination, and sometimes the ending point will be much farther away than initially planned. Delays on the EB can run into a dozen hours or more, so leave yourself PLENTY of time on the end of your trip as a contingency. When I was much younger and dumber I didn't fully appreciate the risk involved when I figured out which station the East and West bound trains meet and booked a same day return with a 1 hour layover in Havre, MT. There is NOTHING in Havre, MT. The station isn't even open most days. We were beyond lucky that the trains were both on time that day.

If you haven't already I highly recommend checking out Jeb Brooks and DownieLive reviews on YouTube if you haven't already. Both are great travel vloggers.

Everything said above, the trip is beautiful, and arguably worth traveling both ways at some point as you will see different parts of the country due to the time of daylight. Eastbound SEA to CHI sunrise through Glacier National Park is beautiful, but you will be in the dark coming over the Rockies. Westbound sunrise over the sunflower fields of North Dakota offers some great breakfast views.

 

[FrensicPic]

We have done the Empire Builder several times - end-to-end, both directions. Beautiful on the west end. One of our trips involved a week-long stay in East Glacier at the Glacier Park Lodge.
As always, had my scanner with me and the On Track On Line website is a very good resource.

 

[jaymatt1978]

I did some checki ng and the latest updates was 1/23/23 which to me means it's pretty up-to-date