"Easter Eggs" on the Empire Builder?

[spinnaker]

I will be taking the Empire Builder east from Seattle in a couple of weeks. I was wondering if there were any "Easter Eggs" along that route?

Those things that you might not know were there unless someone told you. Two I can think of on the CZ is the ore cars right before you hit Denver (when going east) and the gelato at the platform in Denver Station. I guess Denver is full of Easter eggs.

One I will be looking for on the EB is a swamp buggy sort of thing that I saw on a previous trip. I don't recall exactly where it was now,. Somewhere pretty far east. May have been near the Mississippi. I would lobe to figure out what the heck that thing was.

 

[dogbert617]

I did already notice a potential one, since in days I will be taking the EB west to Glacier National Park. Which is just west of Williston, ND(and east of Wolf Point, MT, but it's closer to Williston). Anyway the train passes right by the former Fort Union Trading Post, which was once a very big fur trading post between several Native American tribes in this area. Today, it's a national historic site, run by National Park Service. Plus this trading post stands BARELY east of the North Dakota/Montana border, and the parking lot for this place is barely on the Montana side of the state line. So it's funny to think this is a point where once you see this, it's obvious you're crossing the state line between both states!

Thanks to the Glacier National Park website, for pointing out other area NPS ran sites not too far away. This was on a page, where they recommending visitors who may get fed up with crowds at Glacier, to consider also visiting other NPS sites(even the ones that aren't national parks) not too far away(Grant-Kohrs Ranch in Deer Lodge, MT(between Butte and Missoula), Big Hole National Battlefield in Wisdom, MT(outside Butte), Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Crow Agency(southeast of Billings), etc). Though I'm surprised they pointed out a site as far away from Glacier, as Fort Union Trading Post.

Finally in Minot during the smoke/stretch break there for the morning westbound train 7(though I don't think it's open for eastbound train 8 in the evening), there is a coffee shop and snacks truck that's parked just immediately south of the Minot Amtrak station, where people can walk over to for coffee and/or snacks during that 37 minute(for the westbound train IF it's on time, plus juckins.net makes me think it very often makes it on time and sometimes earlier) stretch stop. Also if you want to try such a quick 6 minute(per google) walk east for a photo op, there is a historic Soo Depot for Minot which still stands today: https://goo.gl/maps/9faePGThewfUN8MPA (this link is just to show you how to walk east to it, and that it could be done for the length of the smoke/stretch stop there). Pic of the historic Minot Soo Depot there: https://goo.gl/maps/TzmG1pa6hdBC6Hzu6

The more I explore Minot on google street view, the more I wonder if going there would be worth a potential train trip there someday? It even does have an art museum(Taube Museum of Art) there, which is interesting. Free to visit per their website, and of course they accept donations to support their operations if you want to do so.

Back to hidden things/easter eggs you see along the route, I just noticed two more. One between Devils Lake, ND, and Rugby, ND(both towns east of Minot, this'd only be visible in daylight if you're going west on train #7, but on eastbound #8 you'd go by here after dark). Which is the Lake Alice National Wildlife Refuge, and that you see the western Lake Irvine part of it briefly as you pass through the town of Churchs Ferry, ND. The other thing I suddenly noticed along the EB's route in Montana, was inbetween Glasgow, MT and Malta, MT(closer to Malta btw). Which is that the train passes through the Bowdoin National Wildlife Refuge, and you get a good look at Lake Bowdoin for a brief while, as you pass through this wildlife refuge.

I'm sure the part near the Mississippi River west of La Crosse(where you enter Minnesota), will inevitably be great for scenery as well. I'm sure others could fill in on the Portland and Seattle branches of the EB, where there are great places to see scenery. As I'm only going west from Chicago to Glacier National Park(though once I looked up the area around Sandpoint, ID for fun), I didn't yet look up the route of the EB beyond Whitefish and Sandpoint. I'm sure there are some great scenic points, west of Spokane(where the EB splits into 2 trains)!

 

[tim49424]

I did already notice a potential one, since in days I will be taking the EB west to Glacier National Park. Which is just west of Williston, ND(and east of Wolf Point, MT, but it's closer to Williston).

Try this again. The way you describe it, GNP is just over the border of ND and MT. Nope. It's actually a little less than 400 miles west of Wolf Point,

 

[Ziv]

Montana's Hi Line (Hwy 2 between Cut Bank and the NoDak border) is a pretty stark place with little of the grandeur of the land west of Cut Bank, but I grew up there and there is a beauty to it. Easter Eggs I would look for would be the little bridge where Kid Curry and the Wild Bunch blew up the mail coach and made off with $80,000 back in 1901. It is on the west side of Malta, halfway to Wagner. Sheriff Griffith from Glasgow was aboard the train but couldn't stop the robbery because Kid Curry kept him pinned in one of the rail cars while Hanks (or Kilpatrick?) took three tries with increasing amounts of dynamite to finally crack the mail safe. Then Griffiths got a posse together of every tough in the counties around there and chased the Wild Bunch for days and accomplished little other than drinking all the best whiskey in 3 counties and getting everyone mad at him. Then the Pinkertons showed up...
Once you get to Choteau, you may want to pull up a picture of "The Last of Five Thousand" by Charles Marion Russell to get a sense of the flavor of this cattle country's rougher years. They moved cattle up to Montana from Texas from the early 1870's until the horrific winter of 1886-87. CMR lived in Montana and his work really brings this place to life. I saved 9 or 10 of his photos to my lap top and looked at them as I rolled along the Hi Line last trip. It kind of puts the history of the place in a closer way.
Finally, as you pull out of Cut Bank the EB goes over a rickety old trestle bridge. You can't see much of the bridge, but the views of Cut Bank Creek are pretty cool. I like shooting north because the light is better.
If you want to know who had the land before we got there, from east to west it was the Assiniboine from the NoDak line to around Glasgow, then it was Groz Ventre to the north and Crow to the south, but the Crow hunted game and Assiniboine/Groz Ventre pretty much year round. Once you hit Chinook you are in Blackfoot land pretty much all the way to Glacier Park.
I think my attachments may be out of the order I intended but you get the idea.

 

[dogbert617]

Try this again. The way you describe it, GNP is just over the border of ND and MT. Nope. It's actually a little less than 400 miles west of Wolf Point,

FYI, I am aware that Fort Union Trading Post is NOT right near Glacier NP. Just saying that it was on the way there, and that when I was looking at places along the EB train route using satellite map imagery, I thought it was interesting I noticed that building happens to be barely east of the ND/MT border. EMPHASIS on the fact that Fort Union is along the EB train route on the way west to there, and not close to each other(Fort Union and Glacier). Sorry if you got confused, by that comment.

Also thanks to another site, I found that the EB passes by the abandoned Savoy Schoolhouse, right after you pass Malta(and a station stop as well) going west: http://takemytrip.com/2017/11/harlem-savoy-schoolhouse-dodson/

 

[tim49424]

FYI, I am aware that Fort Union Trading Post is NOT right near Glacier NP. Just saying that it was on the way there, and that when I was looking at places along the EB train route using satellite map imagery, I thought it was interesting I noticed that building happens to be barely east of the ND/MT border. EMPHASIS on the fact that Fort Union is along the EB train route on the way west to there, and not close to each other(Fort Union and Glacier). Sorry if you got confused, by that comment.

Also thanks to another site, I found that the EB passes by the abandoned Savoy Schoolhouse, right after you pass Malta(and a station stop as well) going west: http://takemytrip.com/2017/11/harlem-savoy-schoolhouse-dodson/

Somehow, maybe I misread your post. I thought you were stating that Glacier was near the ND/MT border. Your post sure read that way.

 

[dogbert617]

Somehow, maybe I misread your post. I thought you were stating that Glacier was near the ND/MT border. Your post sure read that way.

You did misread it as me saying both places(Fort Union Trading Post and Glacier NP) were near each other, when I clearly know they aren't. That's okay, don't worry about it anymore.