Aboard Amtrak's Empire Builder January 12 - January 14, 2014 Sunday January 12, 2014; 6pm A few minutes after 5pm we boarded Amtrak's Empire Builder at the Vancouver WA station. I've mentioned before that this is a handy boarding spot for us, being only 10 miles or so from Gage and Andrea's house in Camas. Andi and Evan saw us off. The train is made up of one Amtrak engine, a baggage car, an observation/club car, two regular coach cars, and a sleeper car bringing up the tail end. All except the baggage car are "Superliner" two level cars. The Empire Builder is unique in this regard: between Chicago and Spokane it's a single longer train. In Spokane it splits, with half going to Seattle and the other half going to Portland. The process for eastbound travel is the reverse, and our small train will rejoin it's Seattle half later tonight. From there we'll be at "full strength" for the rest of the trip. 9pm PST Sunday. Our route foll