I love taking the train places. I've taken it round trip to Glacier National Park three times. Both Williston & East Glacier sit on the Empire Builder route, which starts in Chicago and ends up in Seattle and Portland - it comes through every stop once a day both directions. If I had enough time, I'd pick the train over an airline any day. The footroom is about four times larger than a plane's, you can get up and walk around, sit in the lounge car with giant windows, meet some interesting people over a sit-down meal in the dining car, and best of all, enjoy the view. They have sleeper cars for anyone that's willing to part with a lot of money, and coach for people like me who are ok with "roughing it" during the night.
One con for taking Amtrak is that the trains are always late. One hour is normal, but I have a friend who arrived at her destination over 18 hours late due to some unfortunate circumstances and the weather. It's never been that bad for me, but on Wednesday night I ended up leaving Winona, MN at 10:30pm instead of the scheduled 7:50pm, but arrived only 1.5 hours late - pretty good, I thought. When taking the train you have to be very flexible.
Being in Williston gave Nathan and I a chance to stop at Fort Union on our way home. An old Indian trading post on the Santa Fe trail, it was established in 1851 and lasted for about 40 years. The site, which is now run by the National Park Service, is supposedly very active in summer with living history and a chance to see what it was like in the 1800's. In winter, it is protected not only by its thin white walls, but a jetstream of the coldest wind you'll ever feel in your life. You have to really want to visit Fort Union in winter to make it to the gate. We did, and saw the small museum and defense tower.
Was it worth it? Probably not - wait until July, but the trip did allow us to see the wreckage of some derailed grain cars, which is always nice to see a week before you have to climb back on the Amtrak!
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