I'D THOUGHT IT would be glamorous. I'd pictured men in white linen suits, women in big straw hats. I'd imagined ornate leather trunks being loaded on board. I'd clearly watched too much Masterpiece Theatre as a kid. What I saw in the station, as I waited to board Amtrak's Coast Starlight for a scenic train ride home from Seattle to the Bay Area, were frazzled women lugging oversize nylon backpacks, men in baseball hats eating Doritos, and teenagers snapping gum while talking on cell phones. The Orient-Express it wasn't.

It was 9:15 in the morning, and I'd arrived at Seattle's King Street Station with 45 minutes to spare before the train set off on the estimated 22-hour trip to Emeryville. In search of magazine racks, food stands, and one of the city's numerous coffee shops, I instead found a serviceless station awaiting renovations and packed with frenetic travelers eager to sit down. (Work on the waiting room has since been completed; further station renovations will take place in stages through summer of 2006.) One by one we checked in at the ticket counter and were directed toward one of two groups: those who had kicked down for a sleeper and those who hadn't. I, naturally, fell in with the latter.

Herded aboard one of the silver cars via a process alarmingly free of security checks, I settled into my roomy, upholstered window seat and was pushing aside the curtain as a jolt announced our departure.

"Welcome aboard the Coast Starlight," a man's voice said over the P.A., "bound for the city of Los Angeles and all points in between." I checked my provisions, which basically amounted to a small bag of wasabi peas, chocolate, half a bottle of water, a so-so collection of short stories, and a Walkman whose batteries, I soon discovered, were dead. I looked around at my fellow passengers and began to wonder whether a simpler attire of jeans and sneakers might have been more appropriate than my short eyelet skirt and wedge heels. The woman behind me began yammering into her cell phone.

Soon we were passing Boeing Field and the stunning silver dome that houses Tacoma's Museum of Glass. The car attendant handed out pillows, and people began breakfasting on nachos and soda. I moved to the sightseeing car and began peppering the National Park Service volunteer I found there with questions, like a two-year-old on massive amounts of sugar.

We passed through Steilacoom, the oldest incorporated town on the Puget Sound, passed the Columbia River and the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge, home to cranes and blue herons. Later I heard passengers on the opposite side of the car oohing and ahhing at the wagons that mark the end of the Oregon Trail.

The Pacific Northwest turned out to be as lush and beautiful as promised in the postcards – in Salem, Oregon's capital, where the streets are quaint and tree-lined, and in the Willamette Valley, which offers views of the Cascades and of a mountain that was snow-capped in June.

About an hour outside Eugene, the train made its way along Klamath Lake, whose stunning views kept a sightseeing car full of passengers transfixed. We stared into the woods we seemed to be inching toward. The woman next to me, a mother in a tie-dye T-shirt and flip-flops, was apparently looking for Bigfoot. Another woman stuck to needlepoint; elsewhere a man began playing guitar.

Toward evening I met a group of 25-year-old guys from Portland on their way to Berkeley for a memorial service. Within an hour I was talking to them as if I'd known them all my life. One had just lost his father; another was raising a five-year-old on his own. I shared my wasabi peas. They offered me a disposal camera and rum. We stared out the window as the train curved around the jagged edge of a mountain, a steep drop below. The sun was setting, and it seemed we wouldn't make it to Mt. Shasta before dark.

As night fell, the train took on a new life. The lights went down in the coach cars at 10 p.m., and the sightseeing and dining cars filled with night owls, relative strangers now talking, laughing, and playing cards together. We reached Klamath Falls around 11 p.m., and an old red motel sign called to mind a lonely Edward Hopper painting.

By 5:30 a.m., somewhere outside Chico, the night had become a blur of rum, cribbage, and Star magazine. I'd caught a bit of sleep and felt reenergized. Farmland, gorgeous and stark, came into view as the sun rose, and we wound our way into familiar California territory. I watched my Portland friends from the night before descend to the platform in Sacramento, and the woman behind me got on her cell phone again. This time, somehow, I wasn't annoyed. "It's great," she said. "It's a great way to travel." I couldn't have agreed more. Anna Mantzaris is a San Francisco-based writer. She can be reached here.

Trip planner

Book in advance for the cheapest Amtrak fare (1-800-USA-RAIL, www.amtrak.com) and make sure to compare online and over-the-phone quotes. If you don't want to take the train both ways, Southwest Airlines (1-800-I-FLY-SWA, www.southwest.com) is a good bet for inexpensive one-way flights to or from the Seattle-Tacoma Airport.

Think like a Boy Scout and be prepared. Dining car meals are pricey, and the café car has a limited selection; bring sustenance for the journey (preferably more than wasabi peas and chocolate). Other things that might come in handy are cards, games, earplugs, crossword puzzles, plenty of reading materials, a journal, an iPod, a camera, and a sweater or small blanket.