I’d say let Amtrak’s thruway motorcoach services fully compete with Greyhound. Requiring a rail segment for most thruway trips is silly and turns away a number of customers who could otherwise use the service.

For the most part the trains leave on time, are reasonably fast, and rarely have to wait for freigt. Trips to Portland compete well on cost and time (especially when loosing an hour to TSA is factored in). Driving to Olympia is slightly faster and costs less, but I’d rather relax on the train.

1) I thought the frieght companies were legally obliged to prioritize Amtrak, but chose not to and were not called on it. I could be wrong.

2) I’ve had great experiences going from Seattle to Portland on the train.

Basically, Amtrak has been underfunded for years – the recent and thankfully departed Bush administration did their best to destroy Amtrak completely and if McCain had won, we would have even less hope for the network.

The other problem of course is that Amtrak does not own the track it rides on – the BNSF does in Washington State and Union Pacific in Oregon. While BNSF is more sympathetic than the UP to Amtrak, neither railroad has gone out of its way to free up track time to passenger service or spent the money needed on upgrading the track to full European-style express service.

Yet for all this, ridership on Amtrak is up and people appear to love the idea of trains even if the reality often seems to fall short. The attitude of Amtrak riders and staff on the trains I have been on, seems to be that of a ‘healthy-if somewhat-resigned-to-unforeseen delays’ customer base. I always enjoy talking to Amtrak staff and we should also take note of the rennovation work being undertaken at King Street Station in Seattle. I hope when this is done, that KSS will be a gateway of which we can be proud.

I also agree that the track improvements outlined in my preferred option 4 in the WSDT report to allow for 8 round trip trains will come on tap too slowly for my liking and tastes, but I think we’ll get there eventually and the region will be all the better for it.

Tim

I think you are in error when you stated thier was not mention of Pt. Defiance in the attached plan. It is called “Tacoma – Bypass of Pt. Defiance” The WSDOT project URL is http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/projects/rail/pnwrc_ptdefiance/

We recently had relatives visit from England. Coming back from Vancouver to Seattle the only reasonable choice was Greyhound. I’ve often wished I could take the train from Seattle to Whistler but that just doesn’t work. I’ve looked at booking out of town guest for a overnight trip down to Eugene. Not only does the scheduling make this impractical but the last time I looked into it part of the route involved a transfer via Greyhound.

Visiting Great Britain we took advantage of rail service from London to Paris and Edinburgh. Both of these routes are fabulous and they are far more than just tourist runs. Instead of spreading money thin on a route from Canada to Eugene they need to focus first on making the trip from Seattle to Portland competitive with air travel. Prove to people that aren’t train nuts that Amtrak funding is more than pork barrel politics.

The Sounder train works great though.

I can’t comment on the southern portion of the line, but in my experience, Amtrak Cascades just isn’t a reliable service as it currently stands. Like nearly ALL Amtrak lines, the poorly placed track routes, slow train speeds, priorities to freight trains, and hefty price tag make driving much more pleasant. Obviously long distance trips are an even bigger nightmare, and flying ends up being cheaper and faster anyway. (Flights to SanFran from Seattle are about $130 roundtrip, Amtrak costs well over twice as much and takes 22 HOURS)

Yes, hopefully the infrustructure improvements will help fix some of these problems but I don’t see Amtrak Cascades, or any of Amtrak’s lines, being worth the trouble. At least not until a MASSIVE overhaul; like a maglev system they’re doing in California. Hopefully that’ll expand its way up here…

that said i have to congratulate WSDOT for what they have done in the last 10 years to improve the Cascades route. Its a shame Oregon and British Columbia havent stepped up to the plate to improve their portions of the route.

Scenery was definitely great, but sitting stationary for 30 minutes outside Everett while a freight train snailed by was painful. And let’s not forget that it’s not cheap!