Editorial notebook: Amtrak is as good as its railroad

It was time for a family adventure, and as a fan-of-anything trip that involves two bands of seamless rail, it was time for an Amtrak experiment. It was time to take the train with the reputation as the pride of the system, the Empire Builder.

This train runs from Chicago through Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana and Washington. In Spokane, it splits into two trains, one snaking through the Cascades to Seattle, another curving along the Columbia River gorge to Portland.

I chose Portland as the destination. And on a recent sunny day in Chicago, I descended into Union Station with son Max and daughter Charlotte to find the Empire Builder waiting on a track underneath the bustling city above. It was long and silver. Its double-decker coaches and sleepers, built in the 1980s, were crisply refurbished. Soon it glided silently out of the station, and once in the suburbs, hit the top speed, 79 mph. Before long the lounge car was filled with passengers waiting for dinner in a real diner with real chefs below, linens and china above.

Amenities like this were once standard on all Amtrak trains, but now the Empire Builder is a rarity. Why has this train survived with some dignity and style? I asked frequently. The answer was always the same. This train doesn't run on the tracks owned by the Union Pacific Railroad, which operates every Amtrak train that runs through Sacramento. The Empire Builder runs on the tracks of a railroad that has a different culture, the Burlington Northern/Santa Fe system.

Amtrak isn't really a railroad. It's a struggling train service that runs almost always on somebody else's tracks. If the railroad happens to have its act together, its rails maintained and its dispatch system carefully synchronized, the Amtrak train is afforded safe, speedy passage. If the railroad has too few sidings, too many trains and too little track maintenance, one delay piles on top of another. If you don't believe me, go to the Amtrak Web site and look at the recent on-time performance of the Empire Builder into Portland vs. the train that heads to Sacramento from Chicago, Union Pacific's California Zephyr. The last two days I could check, the Zephyr made it into Sacramento about 500 minutes late each run. The Empire Builder rolled into Portland, 35 minutes early. Yes. Early.

It can't be fun working on a train that is a shadow of its former self like the Zephyr. On the Empire Builder, an upbeat dining car staff had to turn away customers. The train had to pick up 90 extra chicken dinners in Montana to keep up with the passengers' appetites. Just about every seat in the coaches was taken. The views of the Mississippi River, the Rockies, the green plains, the Columbia, all absolutely stunning. The train was 25 minutes late into Portland, however, the conductor horrified, repeatedly apologizing. But it was a grand run, thanks not only to Amtrak, but also to the proud cultures of the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe railroads that live to this day.

-- Tom Philp

tphilp@sacbee.com