Great Escapes 2008: The Empire Builder

Admittedly, the train ride from St. Paul to Milwaukee and Chicago is not the Orient Express. It has no mystique, no alluring aura of romance or intrigue. To my knowledge, no one has ever been murdered along this route (though I once saw a man have a heart attack), and the name of the train, the Empire Builder, hints at a grandiosity of experience that the trip doesn’t deliver.

And yet, perhaps because I’ve traveled it so much, this unassuming stretch of rail has become my favorite escape route from the Twin Cities, especially for three-day weekends to Milwaukee or Chicago. My in-laws live in the North Shore suburbs of Chicago, you see, so once or twice a year for the past fifteen years our visit-the-rels routine has been for my wife and son to drive down a few days early, leaving me behind to “write” (i.e., grapple with some heinous home-improvement project to avoid writing), after which I take the train down to meet them.

It’s a beautiful arrangement, one that has allowed me to ride the train from St. Paul to Chicago in all types of weather, in every season of the year. I’ve traveled this route so many times I’ve developed an almost Proustian relationship with it—the experiences and memories of each trip layered in my consciousness like so many rings in an aging tree. While every trip has a similar rhythm, each trip is different and memorable in a way that travel by plane or car usually isn’t. Such distinctions are difficult to parse, but on my latest excursion south, in early March, I agreed to take some notes and try to explain what it is about the Empire Builder that I like so much.

Twin Cities to Milwaukee: $50-$110; Twin Cities to Chicago: $54-$119

For starters, the trip is the perfect length. The train departs Midway Station in St. Paul at 7:50 a.m. and deposits you in Milwaukee at 2:07 p.m, or Chicago at 3:55 p.m., in plenty of time for an evening out in either city. True, it occasionally runs late, especially eastbound from Seattle, but it’s the span of time—six to eight hours—that matters, not the precise arrival and departure. If your goal is to “get away,” six to eight hours is just enough time to feel as if you’ve “gotten” somewhere.

Of course, Twin Citians can get to Europe during that same time span, but travel by train is more about psychological distance than physical distance. When you watch 400 miles of countryside roll by, mile after mile, the brain registers it in a different way than it does in a plane going 500 miles an hour at 40,000 feet. It registers those 400 miles as actual distance traveled. The miles mean something; they’re tangible. You can feel them.

Psychologically, train travel is also infinitely more relaxing than travel by plane or car. Air travel is one little panic attack after another, from the moment you check your bags (will they make it?) to the security ordeal (will they stop me?, can they really stop a terrorist?) to the preflight disaster routine (why does my seat cushion need to float?) to the little voice in the back of your head that’s always wondering if this is going to be the flight that ends up on the evening news.

Driving feels safer, but isn’t, and highway travel requires that you stay alert to the possibility of death at any instant, especially if you close your eyes. By contrast, when you step on a train, your vacation begins as soon as you locate your seat. Your luggage is accessible, the driving is taken care of, the seats are as roomy as first-class seats on an airplane and are spaced far enough apart that a guy my height (six-foot-two) can stretch out, and you are free to close your eyes whenever you want—which, for me, is a very important part of the experience. Unlimited napping—priceless.

Indeed, one of the things I like best about train travel is that it disrupts the hurry-scurry rhythm of my ordinary life, forcing me to slow down and relax. On the Empire Builder to Chicago, there is enough time to eat a couple of leisurely meals in the dining car, read a few chapters of a book, get bored, take a nap or two, gaze out the window, watch the scenery roll by, and not feel guilty about any of it. In fact, one of the best things about train travel is that there is nothing else to do. Eat. Nap. Read. Talk. Play cards. Listen to music. That’s about it, unless you’re foolish enough to bring a laptop—in which case you can watch a movie or, though I strongly advise against it, work.

Let’s assume for the moment that you’re not foolish enough to bring the office with you. The first order of business on any trip east on Amtrak is breakfast. I heartily recommend taking advantage of every dining opportunity (that’s breakfast and lunch on the way to Chicago, dinner on the way back) because eating in the dining car is one of the things that makes train travel a more civilized, and civilizing, experience. The only way to get better food in a more socially inviting environment is to book an ocean cruise.

Cuisine is secondary to the overall experience, but on the Empire Builder the food happens to be surprisingly good—and reasonably priced. The most expensive thing on the breakfast menu is a three-egg omelet with potatoes or grits and a biscuit or croissant ($9). At lunch, a flame-broiled Angus-beef hamburger will set you back a mere $7.25, and they ratchet up the food quality at dinner, which features an aged flat-iron steak ($21), grilled salmon ($16.50), roast game hen ($13), wine for $5 a glass, and a dessert tray that any decent restaurant would be proud to offer. All the food is prepared onboard by trained chefs, and the wait staff treats diners as if it’s a special occasion, not just another meal on the train. All of which is a long-winded way of saying that finances should not be a deterrent.