Amtrak Cascades Service discussion

[Willbridge]

Ok I just got a quote of $200 in BC from King Street to Vancouver for two Senior Tickets next July. I feel that is very high and is Amtrak price gouging again because of limited BC seating?

One note: is that Vancouver, WA or Vancouver, BC? (VAN or VAC?)

SEA > VAC in BC on Sunday, July 7th is $108 for a single adult right now on the evening train. The morning train is Sold Out.
SEA > VAN in BC on Sunday, July 7th is $87 for a single adult right now on all the trains except the final evening train, which is $72.

 

[Matthew H Fish]

Related to another thread about the ownership of Amtrak stations, I made a map showing the stations of Oregon and Washington, by ownership, including the Amtrak Cascades, as well as the Coast Starlight and Empire Builder.

As is often the case, the graphic design is in its first draft. I was also going to try to include information about the size of the station, before deciding that would make it too messy.
As I mentioned in another thread, ownership of a station might have a big impact on customer experience. If you are an employee of a small transit agency, such as Skagit Transit, which owns and operates the Mount Vernon Station, you are going to notice things like broken drinking fountains, in a way that the manager of a freight railroad will probably not notice! I also wonder if being owned by a transit agency is more likely to make a station multimodal.
It also makes me realize how complicated it is to expand---because say we were to put an Amtrak Cascades station in a place like Woodburn. It sounds like a good idea, but who exactly is doing that? Does the City of Woodburn want to spend the money to build a station, complete with ADA and safety compliance, as well as paying for insurance? Especially, why would the City of Woodburn do that if in 5 years, Amtrak might decide to cut service leaving a small city with the bill for a train station that isn't being used? So while these jurisdictional issues might be technical, I think they are important.

 

[fairviewroad]

Amtrak is warning that all trains on "the Cascade route" will experience delays of "about 30 minutes" over the next six weeks due to trackwork by "the host railroad." Let's examine how useless this announcement is:

1. There are multiple host railroads over the 400+ mile Cascades route between Vancouver BC and Eugene OR. So...which host railroad is working on the tracks, and where?

2. Delays of "about 30 minutes." Frequent passengers on this route will note that a 30-minute delay often represents an improvement over the status quo. (I took a 55 minute delay EUG-SLM on Tuesday and canceled my Friday trip on the same segment because the inbound train was 2+ hours late and I knew if I wanted to get home in reasonable time I should just take a Thruway bus.) So, are these 30-minute delays on TOP of the existing routine delays, or INSTEAD. [I think we all know the answer to that, unfortunately.]

3. Are there times of day/days of the week this trackwork impacts, or is it a 24/7 project that will affect all trains over the time period?

4. Finally, with all due respect to the fine folks who answer the phones at Amtrak Customer Service, does anyone here actually think that calling the 800-number will result in more specific, useful information than what is posted in this Tweet?

Anyhow...buyer beware, I suppose.

 

[flitcraft]

Yikes! I'm traveling to Portland seven weeks from tomorrow to catch the EB from there (and say happy birthday to a friend at the Portland Amtrak station). Wonder if I'll be in trouble if six weeks means instead "most of the spring."

 

[Willbridge]

Related to another thread about the ownership of Amtrak stations, I made a map showing the stations of Oregon and Washington, by ownership, including the Amtrak Cascades, as well as the Coast Starlight and Empire Builder.
View attachment 35651
As is often the case, the graphic design is in its first draft. I was also going to try to include information about the size of the station, before deciding that would make it too messy.
As I mentioned in another thread, ownership of a station might have a big impact on customer experience. If you are an employee of a small transit agency, such as Skagit Transit, which owns and operates the Mount Vernon Station, you are going to notice things like broken drinking fountains, in a way that the manager of a freight railroad will probably not notice! I also wonder if being owned by a transit agency is more likely to make a station multimodal.
It also makes me realize how complicated it is to expand---because say we were to put an Amtrak Cascades station in a place like Woodburn. It sounds like a good idea, but who exactly is doing that? Does the City of Woodburn want to spend the money to build a station, complete with ADA and safety compliance, as well as paying for insurance? Especially, why would the City of Woodburn do that if in 5 years, Amtrak might decide to cut service leaving a small city with the bill for a train station that isn't being used? So while these jurisdictional issues might be technical, I think they are important.

You are right that towns can end up with stations that they have provided. The Dalles is a good example. It was built to serve Amtrak, Greyhound, and Pacific Trailways. They're all gone now. The only argument is that airlines screw smaller cities all the time, so it's only fair for railroads and bus lines to do the same.

1990 - The Dalles from a Superliner.


2008 - tracks at The Dalles.


As you've learned, this is a hard subject to put in graphic form. Chemult, for example, has station facilities owned by someone, on property owned by the UP.

Sadly, you might as well put in Idaho, as Sandpoint is on this map. I would also suggest putting a date on this.

 

[Matthew H Fish]

Sadly, you might as well put in Idaho, as Sandpoint is on this map. I would also suggest putting a date on this.

If I add in Sandpoint, I would have to add in every station in Idaho!
I will add a date after I've decided whether this is the best format for the map.

 

[Willbridge]

If I add in Sandpoint, I would have to add in every station in Idaho!
I will add a date after I've decided whether this is the best format for the map.

Sandpoint is 100% of the stations in Idaho.

 

[Matthew H Fish]

Sandpoint is 100% of the stations in Idaho.

(That was the joke )

 

[fairviewroad]

This post on the Amtrak Cascades twitter account, which I'm pretty sure is run by someone at WSDOT, has waaay more information about the upcoming potential delays than the cryptic post from Amtrak that I referenced upthread.

 

[ST Saint]

I went by that area on the train this weekend. BNSF appeared to be putting up a wall and doing a lot of preventative work on the problem area. I got an email the night before my rides stating trains could see delays of up to 45 minutes. Both my trains up and down were held for about 20 mins for traffic to clear since its down to one active track.

 

[Matthew H Fish]

I went by that area on the train this weekend. BNSF appeared to be putting up a wall and doing a lot of preventative work on the problem area. I got an email the night before my rides stating trains could see delays of up to 45 minutes. Both my trains up and down were held for about 20 mins for traffic to clear since its down to one active track.

If they are saying 45 and giving you 20, that sounds a lot better than the reverse.
Did they make up for lost speed? What was the final result at the destination?

 

[ST Saint]

If they are saying 45 and giving you 20, that sounds a lot better than the reverse.
Did they make up for lost speed? What was the final result at the destination?

I was on 11 on Saturday and we arrived only 20 mins or so late. 518 on Sunday was about 45 mins late when I arrived, but the wait was extended a bit due to switch issues in Longview which delayed 517 clearing that area and the single tracked portion.

Just looking at the ASM docs in the day leading up to my travel, I'd say on average the trains are losing about 20 mins which isn't too bad, especially if leads to a fix of that problem area.

 

[trimetbusfan]

Took a trip up to Seattle on Saturday, this is the alert Amtrak sent me by Email.

Please be advised that Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway will be performing track work between Vancouver, WA and Kelso, WA starting February 2nd and continuing through March 12th. This trackwork project may cause delays of up to 45 minutes that will affect the Coast Starlight and Cascade trains.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Thank you for being a valued Amtrak customer.

 

[trimetbusfan]

They just posted a more detailed alert on Twitter

 

[Matthew H Fish]

They just posted a more detailed alert on Twitter

Oh, these are two separate jobs, I am assuming. At first, I was wondering why trackwork near Kelso was changing service in Eugene!

 

[igor]

Train 11, which normally stops at Eugene, will bypass this location

How does that work? Isn't the UP the only way through Eugene?

There are several short lines that run into Eugene, but I'm assuming Amtrak won't be running on those.

 

[Maglev]

How does that work? Isn't the UP the only way through Eugene?

There are several short lines that run into Eugene, but I'm assuming Amtrak won't be running on those.

I am making a complete guess here--you have been warned. Maybe they're fixing that awful siding for the station itself, which is possibly jointed rail even. Last time I came through on the northbound Starlight, the switch at the south end malfunctioned and we had to go past the station then reverse back in from the north switch.

 

[Chris I]

I am making a complete guess here--you have been warned. Maybe they're fixing that awful siding for the station itself, which is possibly jointed rail even. Last time I came through on the northbound Starlight, the switch at the south end malfunctioned and we had to go past the station then reverse back in from the north switch.

We had to make the same movement last year. Hopefully they are finally fixing it.

 

[fairviewroad]

That would be my guess as well. It's unfortunate that creative minds can't think of a way to safely load/unload passengers at EUG while on the "thru" track but I suppose for a short-term project like this it's tolerable. Since the disruption doesn't seem to affect the first-out/last-in Cascades train of the day, I'm assuming the work is taking place during daylight hours only and won't prevent the use of the siding during the off-hours.

In the meantime, it's highly unusual for an Amtrak train to originate or terminate in Albany (OR). I assume they'll stash the trainset on a siding somewhere or in the railyard by the Albany station. The crew on 505/508 will get a much longer layover than usual and will get to enjoy the city of Albany as an added bonus, I guess?

 

[Willbridge]

That would be my guess as well. It's unfortunate that creative minds can't think of a way to safely load/unload passengers at EUG while on the "thru" track but I suppose for a short-term project like this it's tolerable. Since the disruption doesn't seem to affect the first-out/last-in Cascades train of the day, I'm assuming the work is taking place during daylight hours only and won't prevent the use of the siding during the off-hours.

In the meantime, it's highly unusual for an Amtrak train to originate or terminate in Albany (OR). I assume they'll stash the trainset on a siding somewhere or in the railyard by the Albany station. The crew on 505/508 will get a much longer layover than usual and will get to enjoy the city of Albany as an added bonus, I guess?

Too bad that they can't run on the Oregon Electric Railway. Not difficult at Albany, but it would get convoluted to tie up in Eugene.

 

[Maglev]

Another landslide...

 

[Matthew H Fish]

https://www.opb.org/article/2024/02/17/newport-oregon-passenger-air-service/

In my "travel around the Willamette Valley" thread, I showed how hard it could be to transfer laterally on to the Amtrak Cascades. Sometimes this was just due to transit being not a big cultural part of many suburban/exurban towns, but sometimes, the distances really were prohibitive.
Newport does have shuttle bus service to and from the Albany station, but it leaves at infrequent times, and takes over an hour to get to Albany, followed by waiting for the Cascades or POINT bus northwards. In other words, using the Amtrak Cascades from the coast to Portland for day trips is prohibitively difficult.
But on the other hand--- Newport doesn't seem large enough to sustain an airport. There are 10,000 people in city limits, and maybe 20-30,000 close enough that the airport would be convenient. And if the shuttle/train has inconvenient hours, I don't imagine that an airplane would be much easier. Also, weather on the coast might make an airport unreliable.

 

[Willbridge]

https://www.opb.org/article/2024/02/17/newport-oregon-passenger-air-service/

In my "travel around the Willamette Valley" thread, I showed how hard it could be to transfer laterally on to the Amtrak Cascades. Sometimes this was just due to transit being not a big cultural part of many suburban/exurban towns, but sometimes, the distances really were prohibitive.
Newport does have shuttle bus service to and from the Albany station, but it leaves at infrequent times, and takes over an hour to get to Albany, followed by waiting for the Cascades or POINT bus northwards. In other words, using the Amtrak Cascades from the coast to Portland for day trips is prohibitively difficult.
But on the other hand--- Newport doesn't seem large enough to sustain an airport. There are 10,000 people in city limits, and maybe 20-30,000 close enough that the airport would be convenient. And if the shuttle/train has inconvenient hours, I don't imagine that an airplane would be much easier. Also, weather on the coast might make an airport unreliable.

This is a story that has been going on since war-surplus airports were turned over to local agencies after WWII. They used Redmond as an example of success, but it's on the other side of the Cascades from Portland International. It's not great driving from Newport to Portland, but it's easy enough that affluent or expense-account people will drive, or have someone drive them, rather than rely on infrequent and weather-challenged air service.

 

[Matthew H Fish]

This is a story that has been going on since war-surplus airports were turned over to local agencies after WWII. They used Redmond as an example of success, but it's on the other side of the Cascades from Portland International. It's not great driving from Newport to Portland, but it's easy enough that affluent or expense-account people will drive, or have someone drive them, rather than rely on infrequent and weather-challenged air service.

And there are also 200,000 people in Deschutes County, as opposed to 50,000 people in Lincoln County. I would say that Deschutes is also a major tourist destination---but then, so is the Oregon Coast. But 200,000 versus 50,000 makes a big difference.

 

[fairviewroad]

Also - if you're in Newport, you don't have to drive all the way to PDX to catch a flight. Eugene is half the distance, has cheaper parking and fewer traffic jams, and has a respectable-enough level of flights to make it a serviceable alternative. (That's assuming the final destination is somewhere other than PDX, of course.)