Second Vancouver Train To Continue

http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive...0/23/c4282.html

"Government of Canada extends Amtrak pilot project until September 2010

OTTAWA, March 23 /CNW Telbec/ - The Honourable Vic Toews, Minister of Public Safety, announced today that the pilot project providing border-clearance services for the second daily Amtrak train between Vancouver, British Columbia, and Seattle, Washington will be extended through September 2010"

NS VIA FAN said:

http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive...0/23/c4282.html
"Government of Canada extends Amtrak pilot project until September 2010

OTTAWA, March 23 /CNW Telbec/ - The Honourable Vic Toews, Minister of Public Safety, announced today that the pilot project providing border-clearance services for the second daily Amtrak train between Vancouver, British Columbia, and Seattle, Washington will be extended through September 2010"

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Hi,

Good news !! Good indeed.....

But I'm still appalled at the Customs Border Service people for torturing the issue to the point of making it look like THEY are doing the world a favour by condescendingly agreeing to '' provide clearing services'' for '' a little while longer'' to service this train....They did that prior to its start-up last august, perhaps overlooking the not so negligeable fact that the rest of the universe had agreed and got the thing ready YEARS before ( three level of government, two railroads, Amtrak, the unions, etc.....). I guess they felt this was an opportunity to drag this until they could drum their chests and do the world a favour .....by finally agreeing to do.....WHAT THEY'RE SET UP TO DO IN THE FIRST PLACE'' !!!!!!!and making it sound like they were the nice guys that made it all possible....Oh...dear me ...!!

The trains have performed quite well since last august and the ''load figures'' according to local amtrak sources, were '' within the range'' of what various levels of governments and operating bodies had set the bar for.

I suspect common sense will prevail and we're now pretty well assured of two trains each way between Seattl & Vancouver.

Heck, even the road bed and an additionnal siding were buiult up a full year before last august....

Good news none the less.

Thanks for sharing the link

Cheers

Claude

In defense (defence?) of the Canadian Border Services, operating the Pacific Central Station checkpoint is not cheap. There are only two trains a day and nothing in between. The officers that serve the station are based at YVR airport. They have to be transported down to the station, process what amounts to one plane-load of passengers, and then head back. Now they have to do that twice. The productivity of those officers in terms of passengers processed per day is pretty dismal compared to the productivity of officers working YVR full time.

Of course, the USA pre-clearance agents at Vancouver have the same issue (they are also based out of YVR). But, in their case, Amtrak is part of the big, happy federal family. They do what they have to do. The Canadian government does not have the same family affection for Amtrak, so they may not be as anxious to absorb the cost.

Having said all that, there are certainly some land crossing points where agents process very few people a day. I think the issue is that the airport border station is not like that, and they must not like sending officers away from a very busy checkpoint to go down to the station to do so little work.

PRR 60 said:

In defense (defence?) of the Canadian Border Services, operating the Pacific Central Station checkpoint is not cheap. There are only two trains a day and nothing in between. The officers that serve the station are based at YVR airport. They have to be transported down to the station, process what amounts to one plane-load of passengers, and then head back. Now they have to do that twice. The productivity of those officers in terms of passengers processed per day is pretty dismal compared to the productivity of officers working YVR full time.
Of course, the USA pre-clearance agents at Vancouver have the same issue (they are also based out of YVR). But, in their case, Amtrak is part of the big, happy federal family. They do what they have to do. The Canadian government does not have the same family affection for Amtrak, so they may not be as anxious to absorb the cost.

Having said all that, there are certainly some land crossing points where agents process very few people a day. I think the issue is that the airport border station is not like that, and they must not like sending officers away from a very busy checkpoint to go down to the station to do so little work.

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However, it is a necessary govenment service. If they can man the crossing at Del Bonita, Alberta, then can surely man this. And, given all these reasons, why has this never been an issue for the first train and still is not? Also, it was brought up at the last minute, after capacity improvements paid for by Washington State but done in BC (Colegrove siding, for instance) to allow the second train after years of planning and construction, and just when it was about to be initiated the CBSA woke up and pulled this.

BTW-The BC provincial government and the city of Vancouver are absolutely incensed over this debacle. They WANT the service. It was the product of years of cross-border negotiation and cooperative effort between mostly the BC provincial government and Washington State (which pays for the train -- it is a 403(B) service), which the CBSA p*ssed on at the last minute. At this point, I think the CBSA is just finding a way to retreat from the fee gracefully. One thing is absolutely for sure, if the CBSA reinstates the fee, the train will stop. Washington State will not pay the Canadian federal government to do its job, and, given it is a state-subsidized train, neither will Amtrak.

If efficiency is the driver, they should close the little border crossing at Point Roberts, that can't be a very efficient use of CBSA officers in the Vancouver area. Of course, that would completely maroon everybody in Point Roberts with no way to get out, but they aren't in the Canadian "family" either.