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The Coast Starlight through the Cascades continues as the train travels northwards . The first stop in this episode is at Chemult station. In 2017 the station hosts 10,500 passengers.
I meet interesting people to interview as the journey continues through stunning scenery. We pass the upper reaches of the Willamette River and then Lookout Lake, a reservoir dating from the 1950s.
We reach the farmland of the Willamette valley as we progress towards Eugene Station. Eugene is a busy station, used by over 98,000 passengers in 2016. We have an air break on the platform – its been a good few hours since we breathed natural air! The addicts light up!
After the short break we continue north to Amtrak’s westernmost station at Albany which hosts the Coast Starlight and the Cascades services. In 2017 the station sees nearly 34,000 passengers.
North of Albany we reach Salem. The Southern Pacific Railroad station is in the Beaux Arts style and dates from 1918. 2017 sees passenger numbers increase to 63,300.
The journey continues past the paper mills of Oregon City and on to Portland Union Station used by nearly 600,000 passengers in 2017. I disembark from the train which continues to Seattle. I’m going to spend a couple of days in Portland before joining the Empire Builder to Chicago.
Join us in two weeks for episode 5 where our traveller spends a couple of days in Portland.
Full size copies of the photographs taken by MrT are available from Flickr, Facebook and some through Instagram.
The music Steam Railway is used under licence from AKM Music.
© The MrT Podcast Studio 2017 to 2018
