Around the time September became October, I found myself on Amtrak’s Coast Starlight route between Seattle and Los Angeles. Riding the rail is one of the most honest forms of transportation. Freeways are modern constructs designed for speed along sheltered corridors away from the population, and you have to keep your eye on the road. Compare this with rail, where lines were laid in a different time, and then cities and towns grew up around them. You can observe, appreciate, and investigate the terrain as it continuously drifts by. Trains run along industrial sections, old water ways, and the communities ‘down by the tracks’. One passes through agricultural and wilderness interspersed with urban and rural. In rail travel we get a deeper look into cross-sections of history and humanity. We meet new people, and with very limited wifi, not much room to wander, and a day and a half’s travel, we also get the opportunity/challenge of meeting ourself more. This doesn’t happen that often in our busy 24/7 connected lives.

Travelling down nearly the whole length of the United States’ West Coast by rail is a spectacular thing. I greatly enjoyed the service and the views, the thoughts and the journey.

And since I am the Photography Editor here at Wandering Educators, it isn’t too surprising that I took pictures.

My train journey starts one morning in Seattle (after catching an Amtrak coach from Vancouver, British Columbia much earlier that morning)

Puget Sound, part of the Pacific North West’s Salish Sea.

Washington's Forests Changing Colours Before My Eyes

Ages and Eras: The Passage of Time

Scrap Metal and Grain Elevators

It’s Raining in Portland

Everyone’s Got Somewhere to Be

Green Growth in the Misty Lands

Going Round the Bend in California

Creations and Expressions

Waves and Layers

A Slow Farewell in Process

Stories Never Known, Often Seen

Overhead They Soar

Hiding in the Shadows

Coming to a Salad Near You

Goodnight Railway Reflections

A Misty Morning in Oregon

Water and Wires

Passing the Past

Snowy Surprise

Savouring the Sights