Trip Report: March 14 - 25, 2002
by Ted & Sylvia Blishak
CULTURAL TOUR OF THE PACIFIC COAST
Eugene to Portland
Day 2. Friday, March 15, 2002.
Eugene is that rare American city with a fine hotel an easy walk from an Amtrak Station. We arise early to enjoy the buffet breakfast at the Hilton, then walk our rolling bags and backpacks through the misty Willamette Valley precipitation to board the 9:30am Cascade to Portland.
Travel Tip 2: For reducing your dependency on taxicabs and bellhops, we always recommend luggage with built in wheels and a pulling handle. The Americans with Disabilities Act has actually made it easier for all of us to get around, for obstacles such as curbs are rarely encountered when rolling our wheeled luggage.
Travel Tip 3. The Eugene Hilton has a very good restaurant just off the lobby. We recommend the excellent hot and cold breakfast buffet at the surprisingly low price of $8.95. Their dinners are fine as well, but for a unique experience for you railfans, the Oregon Electric Station is just one block from the hotel, on the way to the Amtrak Station. This lunch and dinner house is quartered in the former Eugene Station of the Oregon Electric Railway, which once ran a fine high speed electrified service to Portland, including overnight sleepers, dining, and observation lounge cars. These are immortalized in historic photographs decorating the building's interior. This restaurant is well known for its steaks and prime rib and has one of the largest collection of fine libations of any bar I have seen.
Amtrak's Cascade service is operated with the Spanish designed Talgo trains with passive tilting mechanisms. We are two of only four passengers in the two Business Class cars. I have mentioned before, during previous trips on this route, my concern that this service from Eugene is not heavily used, and may be lost, but it is still subsidized by the State or Oregon. It certainly beats the truck clogged Interstate-5, which we drove on once between Eugene and Portland, but never desired to repeat. The Cascade trains provide the only reliable rail service between Eugene, Portland, and Seattle, as the Coast Starlight suffers from poor timekeeping.
However, one advantage of the Starlight, besides its obvious on board amenities, is that it is the only through train between Eugene and Seattle. All through Cascade passengers must change trains in Portland. On our previous trips the Cascade trains were spotted on adjacent tracks, so that in order to make the connection, passengers were forced to disembark and walk the length of both trains, around the locomotives, and across two tracks in order to transfer from one train to another. On today's trip, the connecting train was spotted across the platform, making it much easier for connecting passengers. (Has someone at Amtrak been reading our trip reports?) Unlike the sparsely-patronized Eugene to Portland segment, a large crowd of passengers stream onto the platform to board the Portland to Seattle train.
Business Class passengers are given a boarding pass that includes a $3.00 coupon good in the Bistro car, so shortly before arriving at Portland, we go there and order a Cobb salad. This salad, though small, was actually fresher and tastier than the salad that we had ordered on the Coast Starlight yesterday. The price was $5.25, less $3 for the coupon, or $2.25. We enjoyed our meal at the counter. You may also take your food to one of two tables in the Bistro, or you may carry it to the adjacent dining car. On the Pacific Northwest Talgo trains, full sit down dining service is available only on the Mt. Baker International, which runs between Seattle and Vancouver.
Our arrival in Portland might have been on time, except that the Union Pacific dispatcher placed a freight train ahead of us just inside the city limits. By the time the fouled main line was cleared, we were 15 minutes behind schedule. I expect that if I were a UP dispatcher, I would have to say that the Amtrak passenger train was fouling the main line, interfering with the important business of moving freight. Then again, if moving freight is so important to our railroads, why is 80% of our intercity freight moved by truck on interstate highways? (If there are any dispatchers out there reading this, I would like to hear your views, of course.)
A short taxi ride from Portland Union Station takes us to the Westin Hotel in downtown Portland. We have tickets tonight for the Oregon Symphony in a program called Gypsy Fire, featuring Hungarian and Rumanian music, with guest appearance of the Okras Folk Music Ensemble -- three violins, viola, string bass, cimbalom, and female vocalist. The performance included a comparison the orchestra's version of Hungarian composer Bela Bartok's Rumanian Dances with the Okras' playing of the ancient original folk melodies that inspired Bartok. Folk music from this part of the planet is perhaps the most exotic music that we have ever heard. We could imagine ourselves hundreds of years ago sitting around a Magyar campfire. The Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, or the Schnitz for short, was completely sold out and the audience was wild about the music!
Prior to the performance we treated ourselves to a fine dinner at the Heathman Hotel restaurant. We returned to the Heathman bar afterwards to listen to an excellent jazz trio, making it a uniquely fulfilling musical evening, then back to the Westin for a restful night in their trademark Heavenly Bed.
Travel Tip 4. Portland is alone in the US, or the world as far as I know, in that the concert hall structure itself houses a major hotel, the vintage, luxurious Heathman. It comes as close to the elegance of the former Canadian Pacific hotels as any we have seen in the US, with art deco and art nouveau décor and a lobby with a fireplace and crystal chandeliers. After dinner we were able to leave our heavy winter jackets in the checkroom and stroll directly from the hotel lobby to the Schnitz lobby, without going out onto the rainy street. This is a very convenient location to stay in Portland if you are attending a performance at the Schnitz. If you are an architecture buff, the Schnitz is the former Portland Theater, a vaudeville and movie palace beautifully restored to its 1920s elegance, with marble floors, alabaster statues, lavish chandeliers, and ornately decorated cove ceilings.
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