Lori traveled extensively by train before we met and married over fifty years ago. Since I do not remember riding anything except light rail or subways and we needed our drivers license renewed we decided to use Amtrak for a month long loop from St Louis, Missouri out to Seattle, Washington shown in our 2011 Travel Map.
First our palatal digs. Shown here is the locomotive taking us from Salinas, California to Seattle, Washington and a longer distance shot of the train looping back on itself winding up the California hills. Inside the cheap seats in the back of the train looks a lot like an airplane only on wheels.
As budget travelers the first issue we faced was simply cost. Current 2019 pricing has the loop by coach at a little over $1,100 packed in the cattle car. Isolated in a roomette the cost jumps to well over $2,400. That's a $265 a night difference for laying flat in an uncomfortable bed rather than tipping back in an uncomfortable reclining seat. There is also the matter of lousy meals at their price.
Net result is taking a Subway footlong for two meals, getting breakfast in the dining car, and getting off after each night travel to get a real shower and sleep in a real bed.
One thing about these western trains is there is only one each day but at least every day. If we got off at 5pm we got back on at 5pm. Also it really does not matter which train or which direction we crossed the Rocky Mountains in the dark.
I also took lots and lots and lots of photographs whenever we had daylight on the train and sometimes beyond. I finally decided to put the photographs for each state in that state's page rather than try to cram them all in here. Therefore here are the links to the states the train passed through in sequence.