"There may not be many more," Pippel said as she and her family returned to Wenatchee from Seattle this week.

Amtrak's 2,221-mile Chicago-to-Seattle route stops in Wenatchee daily, picking up about 9,000 people a year. But its future is very much in doubt.

Last week, the Bush administration worked out a $200 million deal with Amtrak to keep the national passenger trains rolling until September, averting a threatened shutdown over a lack of money.

Pippel, her two young sons, her teenage stepson, her mother-in-law and a cousin decided to take the train for their Monday day trip -- "mostly because we all wouldn't fit in the car," Pippel said.

Trains named "Empire Builder" began operations in June 1929 as part of the Great Northern Railway. The route now runs across seven northern states daily, carrying 433,000 passengers a year.

The Empire Builder lost $47.5 million two years ago and is the least-profitable line in the railway, according to a 2000 Amtrak Reform Council report. That could make it part of future conversations about reductions in service.

It has happened before: Empire Builder service was reduced to four days a week in February 1995 before being restored to daily service in 1997.

The train brought Earl Thompson and his family to Wenatchee last Sunday on their first rail vacation. They left Indianapolis by rail on June 26 for Chicago's Union Station, where they boarded the Empire Builder. On Monday, the Indianapolis firefighter was waiting with his wife, Susan, and their children, Victoria, 11, Roderick, 13, and Zachary, 15, for the 5:43 a.m. westbound Empire Builder to pull into Wenatchee.

Other stopovers for the family across the rail route included Minot, N.D., and Glacier National Park in Montana.

The family is no stranger to cross-country journeys, but this was the first summer vacation by rail, said Susan Thompson, a nurse.

"I didn't have to do all the driving," Earl Thompson said.

The family chose Wenatchee as a stopover after reading a description of the north-central Washington city's river walk and the Ohme Gardens in a travel brochure. They didn't make it out to the gardens, but there was time to do laundry, jog along the loop trail and pick up fruit at the local farmers market.