Introduction:
Over President's Day weekend, my family decided to take a quick trip to Portland, OR to visit some family. I asked my parents if we could take the train, and they gladly obliged. I'm not exactly a train nerd even though I do enjoy travel by train, but plane travel is more my thing, so apologies if I'm not descriptive enough in some parts. We took Amtrak Cascades down to Portland and the Coast Starlight back to Tacoma. In case you don't know, Amtrak Cascades runs from Vancouver B.C. to Eugene, with a train change in Seattle and thruway bus service to Eugene, and the Coast Starlight goes from Seattle to Los Angeles. Anyways, without further ado, I'll get to the trip report itself.

February 17, 2018
501 Amtrak Cascades
Tacoma to Portland
Departs at 8:08 am, arrives at 10:55 am

At around 7:30, my family arrived at the train station in Tacoma. I didn't get a picture since it was small and had lots of people in it, but it wasn't anything special. At 8:05, we were instructed to go out to the platform to wait, where we waited for around 15 minutes. Our train left about 15 minutes late, which isn't uncommon when taking Amtrak.
(I took all pictures with my Samsung Galaxy S8.)
Our train arriving:
20180217_081753 by ian_m.03, on Flickr
20180217_081801 by ian_m.03, on Flickr
Most of the passengers got on in Seattle, so our car was pretty full. I was wondering if the Amtrak Cascades derailment back in December would result in lower ridership, but it had little to no effect at least when I took it. Unfortunately, my mom and I, along with my grandparents, were stuck in seats facing each other, with two complete strangers right across us, no table in between, a misaligned window, and little legroom because my seat neighbor stored his bag on the floor rather than in the overhead bin.
amtrakseatsfacingeachother by ian_m.03, on Flickr
This picture isn't mine and it's of business class, but just imagine two pairs of seats facing each other rather than one and slightly less plush seats and you're basically in our situation. After the train left the station, I was pretty much just sitting there twiddling my thumbs for about half an hour until I went to the snack car.
20180217_093251 by ian_m.03, on Flickr
The train was kind of narrow, so this car felt cramped. I bought a breakfast sandwich that had egg, sausage, and Provolone on a bagel and was around $5. It was slightly greasy and the bagel was somewhat chewy, but it tasted ok.
20180217_093835 by ian_m.03, on Flickr
I then decided to watch The Office on my iPad to pass the time and used the free WiFi to check Airliners.net. I didn't do a speed test, but it was fast enough for basic web browsing.
20180217_094033 by ian_m.03, on Flickr
About an hour and a half after departure, I explored the train to see what the other cars looked like.
This is business class, the highest class of service offered on Amtrak Cascades. The only perks are the seats being three-abreast instead of four, lounge access in Portland and Seattle, and a $5 dining car credit, so it's not really worth it.
20180217_090941 by ian_m.03, on Flickr
The dated and spacious restroom. It was kept fairly clean by the staff.
20180217_102017 by ian_m.03, on Flickr
I saw this in one of the cars, and I figured it might be of interest to some people.
20180217_091015 by ian_m.03, on Flickr
There was an announcement that we were 20 minutes away from Portland, followed by information about the thruway bus to Eugene for the passengers taking it. 10 minutes later, there was another announcement about a delay due to another train or something like that. The train was sitting there for 10 minutes, after which we arrived at the station in Portland about 30 minutes behind schedule.
The nice but crowded train station in Portland:
20180217_111358 by ian_m.03, on Flickr
A few pictures I took while in Portland:
20180217_133201 by ian_m.03, on Flickr
20180217_135535 by ian_m.03, on Flickr
20180219_141709 by ian_m.03, on Flickr
The night before we left, it snowed a little bit.
20180218_213856 by ian_m.03, on Flickr
Of course, these pictures only showed a little bit of Portland, and it's a wonderful city. I really recommend that you visit there if you can. Unfortunately, our all too short trip came to an end sooner than I would have liked.

February 19, 2018
14 Coast Starlight
Portland to Tacoma
Departs at 3:56 pm, arrives at 6:45 pm

A picture of Union Station from outside:
20180219_153936 by ian_m.03, on Flickr
The departures board:
20180219_154105 by ian_m.03, on Flickr
Our train was delayed for about 30 minutes. No biggie. As nice as the station looks, it got boring quickly. There was a souvenir shop that sold sandwiches and other light food that I got an ice cream from. Half an hour before departure, a line began forming for seat assignments, and I was happy to learn my mom, my grandparents, and I got normal seats on the upper deck.
The train at Portland:
20180219_162757 by ian_m.03, on Flickr
Boarding:
20180219_163114 by ian_m.03, on Flickr
We climbed the narrow staircase to the second floor. I immediately noticed that the cabin and seats were wider and the ceiling was higher. I settled into my seat which had some trash from the previous guest who sat there, but which otherwise was clean.
20180219_163233 by ian_m.03, on Flickr
Legroom was great, anywhere from 45-50'' pitch. Even with my not-small backpack under the seat I could stretch my legs a few inches. The seat was plushy and comfortable, and had a footrest and very generous recline. It was much better than on Amtrak Cascades.
20180219_163503 by ian_m.03, on Flickr
This was my view at the station. It was starting to be golden hour on the other side of the train.
20180219_163506 by ian_m.03, on Flickr
The train left the station 35-ish minutes behind schedule. It traveled under the approach path for one of the runways at PDX, and I saw an AA 738 arriving from PHX and an AS 739 from DFW. 15 minutes or so after leaving Portland, the cabin attendant told us that we had two choices if we wanted to buy dinner. The first one was to go to the dining car with a set reservation time either on the hour or half-hour, or to get dinner served to you. Because my grandparents were tired, we got dinner delivered to us for $12 each. We had Salisbury steak with mashed potatoes, mixed vegetables, a roll, a chocolate chip cookie, and a bottle of water.
20180219_171653 by ian_m.03, on Flickr
I was actually very impressed with the meal. I don't have much else to say about it. After dinner, as I had done before, I explored the train. I was able to go into business class but I was somewhat rudely (even though I didn't have my hopes up for it and I understood why I couldn't) told I couldn't walk through the sleeper car area. Here are some pictures.
The PSU:
20180219_164611 by ian_m.03, on Flickr
A better view of the cabin from my seat:
20180219_184131 by ian_m.03, on Flickr
The lounge/viewing car:
20180219_174542 by ian_m.03, on Flickr
Business class, with no noticeable differences from what I saw in the hard product other than the seat cover.
20180219_174827 by ian_m.03, on Flickr
I also looked at the bottom floors. Most seats were on the top, with checked luggage, restrooms, a few coach mini-cabins, and one snack bar on the bottom floors I looked at. After I walked through the train, I just sat and read for about 45 minutes, then we arrived at Tacoma, 30 minutes behind schedule.
One last picture of the cabin I sat in, 10 minutes before arrival at Tacoma. (Apologies for the blurriness, it was dark outside when I took the picture.)
20180219_184556 by ian_m.03, on Flickr
I took these pictures as I left the train.
20180219_192428 by ian_m.03, on Flickr
20180219_192456 by ian_m.03, on Flickr

Conclusion: I enjoyed my Amtrak trip from Tacoma to Portland and back. It was definitely more interesting than driving, even though the first leg was subpar. As you could probably tell, I enjoyed the Coast Starlight more than Amtrak Cascades, although I'm sure if you can get seats not facing a stranger and don't care about a narrower train and aren't going to eat, that it won't matter to you, and most people are likely going to take the Cascades, since it's much more frequent. To make an aviation analogy, the Coast Starlight is like a domestic widebody route and the Cascades is just your normal 737/A320. Thanks for taking the time to read my trip report, and I hope you enjoyed it!