Empire Builder

Named for James J. Hill, the magnate who drove the Great Northern through to Puget Sound, the train has carried his nickname since 1929. It hugs the upper Mississippi below Wisconsin’s bluffs, crosses the North Dakota prairie in darkness, then gives a whole afternoon to the mountains, topping the Continental Divide at Marias Pass: at 1,589 m the lowest crossing between Canada and New Mexico. At Spokane a Portland section drops away to run the Columbia River Gorge.

Stations

1. 0 kmChicago Union Station +14
2. 28 kmGlenview +3
3. 138 kmMilwaukee +3
4. 241 kmColumbus +2
5. 286 kmPortage +2
6. 314 kmWisconsin Dells +2
7. Show 30 more stations

   1. 386 kmTomah +2
   2. 452 kmLa Crosse +2
   3. 494 kmWinona +2
   4. 594 kmRed Wing +2
   5. 658 kmSaint Paul Union Depot +2
   6. 778 kmSaint Cloud +1
   7. 883 kmStaples +1
   8. 982 kmDetroit Lakes +1
   9. 1,061 kmFargo +1
   10. 1,181 kmGrand Forks +1
   11. 1,317 kmDevils Lake +1
   12. 1,409 kmRugby +1
   13. 1,507 kmMinot +1
   14. 1,593 kmStanley +1
   15. 1,699 kmWilliston +1
   16. 1,870 kmWolf Point +1
   17. 1,949 kmGlasgow +1
   18. 2,054 kmMalta +1
   19. 2,194 kmHavre +1
   20. 2,362 kmShelby +1
   21. 2,401 kmCut Bank +1
   22. 2,454 kmBrowning +1
   23. 2,475 kmEast Glacier Park +1
   24. 2,522 kmEssex +1
   25. 2,565 kmWest Glacier +1
   26. 2,601 kmWhitefish +1
   27. 2,763 kmLibby +1
   28. 2,898 kmSandpoint +1
   29. 3,004 kmSpokane +1
   30. 3,195 kmEphrata
8. 3,279 kmWenatchee
9. 3,314 kmLeavenworth
10. 3,470 kmEverett +1
11. 3,496 kmEdmonds +1
12. 3,524 kmSeattle King Street +2

The stations OpenStreetMap lists for this service, in order, with the distance along the line as drawn here. A train may skip some of them. A +N after a station: N other routes on this map stop or end there, and the map draws it as a station where lines meet.

Along the way

• Upper Mississippi bluffs
• North Dakota prairie
• Marias Pass at 1,589 m
• Glacier National Park’s southern edge
• Cascade Tunnel descent to Puget Sound

How this line was checked

• Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 1809794: the same nodes OpenStreetMap holds for this railway, thinned to within 55 m of them
• Checked against OpenStreetMap: the whole line lies on real track, a median 12 m from it
• Checked against the running timetable via Amtrak: our line sits 0.1 km from the shape of the Empire Builder to Chicago
• Wikipedia has an article for this line
• See for yourself: open this line on the map with OpenStreetMap's own railway drawn underneath it

Questions and answers

Read more on Wikipedia ↗