We decided to join these slow travelers on what has become Amtrak’s most popular long-distance train route, with nearly a half-million passengers taking the Empire Builder each year (433,373 riders in 2019, source: Amtrak FY 19 Ridership Report). (Map source:, an interactive map that you can use to zoom in and out.)īut there remains a sect of society with a preference to instead pursue this classic rail journey, traveling across America’s most Northern states over the course of three days, rather than the 5-hour flight zipping above the US. This 2,206-mile rail trip across the US can easily be accomplished by flight in one-tenth of the time and for about the same price. Yet now well into the 21st century, it’s a time when the Amtrak Empire Builder is a wildly inefficient way to travel from Chicago to Seattle. The final call for passengers was one of the many morsels of Americana to enjoy when crossing the US by train on this Empire Builder route that’s been in use for nearly 100 years. For us, that holler from deep in the lungs proved to be a most appropriate welcome as we boarded those shiny silver train cars that had just rolled into Chicago’s ornate Union Station. After stepping onto the Amtrak Empire Builder, we soon found out the crew really does belt out an “all aboard” call as the train is departing.
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