Comments on: Rail Advisories: No Sounder to Mariners and Superliners

By: Bernie

Bernie — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 23:16:11 +0000

Oooh, I like Portland Rose (and Prospector ;-). I guess The Oregon Trail would be good too. No prior history as a passenger train that I know of but I’d never linked Pioneer with the pioneers that came out the Oregon Trail because that name already came with history.

It seems like it would make more sense to terminate the route in Portland than continue to Seattle. Let Amtrak Cascades handle the connection. There’s already contention with BNSF over freight on this busy cooridor and increased ridership on the Cascades can’t hurt. Potentially the Talgo equipment should be faster and it gives riders the flexibility to layover and visit Portland.

By: Chris Stefan

Chris Stefan — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 22:32:48 +0000

City of Portland? or maybe Portland Rose? (Both UPRR trains that ran on the Overland route between Chicago, Omaha, Denver, Ogden, Boise, and Portland)

By: Brian Bundridge

Brian Bundridge — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:57:06 +0000

You can make Horizon’s look REAL good =)

http://www.nationalcorridors.org/df/df12132004c.jpg

By: Bernie

Bernie — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:55:14 +0000

Do you mean until the sale goes through? I’d heard that it might be done by year end but we’ve been hearing that for a while and I don’t know if the bond market has become liquid enough.

I didn’t know Port of Seattle was working to find funding to help with the tunnel. They certainly should be making ROW a priority. I thought it was only going to be State dollars that were available. The State’s budget is pretty tight right now too but given the economic impact that rail transportation has it definitely something WSDOT rail should be making a priority. Port of Tacoma too.

PS. From posts on TrainOrders and other message boards it looks like BNSF stopped scheduled service on Stampede back in the middle of Febuary. Is this true? Amazing there’s zero coverage of this in the mainstream media. It was sure a big deal back when BNSF anounced they were going to resume freight traffic through Auburn. If they leave it closed for any length of time there will be that battle to fight again.

By: Brian Bundridge

Brian Bundridge — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:43:18 +0000

Until the Port of Seattle sales the Eastside Rail Corridor, the Stampede Tunnel work will not be done.

By: Kaleci

Kaleci — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 11:45:32 +0000

uhhh – Bavarian.

By: Bernie

Bernie — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 05:23:14 +0000

US regulations on diesel locomotives are very weak compared to regulations on automobile emissions or power plant emissions.[citation needed]

Try this one more time. It’s weird how some posts fail for no apparent reason? Since this says, “citation needed”; where does the idea come from that there is a tax disincentive for electrification?

By: Matthew Buchanan

Matthew Buchanan — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 04:15:23 +0000

I disagree about Scott Road being a better location for the Amtrak station. It may be better for people living in Surrey and New West, but the trip between the bridge and downtown Vancouver over the BNSF/CN tracks through Burnaby is pretty quick except for the bridge. I took the train southbound to Seattle on Saturday and except for a delay leaving the yard just outside of Pacific Central it went pretty smoothly. The extra transfer of passengers having to transfer to a packed SkyTrain car at Scott Road station in Surrey would deter riders, and it definitely wouldn’t save 50 minutes. Better to upgrade/replace the New West rail bridge.

By: VeloBusDriver

VeloBusDriver — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 03:45:11 +0000

Thanks for the link. One item in there pointed out that private rail lines with electrification facilities are charged a higher property tax rate than those without. It would be interesting to figure out a way to reverse that tax structure: Using clean electricity to power your rail line? You get a lower tax rate. Using dirty diesel? You pay more.

Sigh… Anything involving rail ends up involving the Feds so I imagine it would be a mess to figure out.

By: Lloyd

Lloyd — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 02:37:37 +0000

I read somewhere that the November issue of “Trains” magazine will have a lot of articles about electrification. Should be on the news stands next week.

By: Lloyd

Lloyd — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 02:06:55 +0000

If that’s what’s available, and with some renovation and redecoration, they’d serve adequately until new Talgos are available. Who knows,there might even be a genuine 1950s era dome car luring around which could be used?! And how about originating that train in Walla Walla in the AM to Pasco, Yakima, Ellensburg and Seattle and returning in the afternoon to Walla Walla, terminating there in the evening – lots of tourism possibilities and an absolutely stunning trip along the canyon north of Yakima. One train set would do.

By: Lloyd

Lloyd — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 01:59:45 +0000

The Amtrak marketing department apparently came up with the name to honour the Oregon Trail Pioneers who preceded the Union Pacific Railway along the route from Ogden to Portland. The train originally connected Ogden with Seattle; SLC came later when the California Zephyr was re-instated, and even later the Pioneer was switched to the Wyoming route to/from Denver in the last years of its life.

By: Bernie

Bernie — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 01:28:36 +0000

How did this route get the name Pioneer in the first place? Wasn’t the original Pioneer from Chicago to the Twin Cities via Milwaukee. wouldn’t Prospector have been more fitting? Or Rio Grande Zephyr, something that actually served Salt Lake and Denver.

By: Lloyd

Lloyd — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 01:01:50 +0000

And here are the comments from the Cascadia folks (via TWA) with a very different scenario for the Pioneer:
http://www.unitedrail.org/2009/10/01/this-week-at-amtrak-2009-10-01/

By: Lloyd

Lloyd — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:04:15 +0000

I wish I had known as much in my 20s as you do, Brian. Keep up the good work!

By: Bernie

Bernie — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:49:22 +0000

Isn’t BNSF closing the Stampede Pass tunnel for the winter? Unless there’s an agreement made to crown the tunnel so that double stack containers can pass through it’s of limited value to BNSF. Seattle’s position as a major west coast port is perilously dependent on several single point of failure choke points; landslides north of Seattle, flooding south of Seattle and earthquake and avalanches that can shutdown Stevens Pass.

By: No horizon.

No horizon. — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:31:45 +0000

Horizon? Yuck. That’s like a Greyhound without the class ;-)

By: Brian Bundridge

Brian Bundridge — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:05:17 +0000

95% of the time, no, unless the train is dramatically late….

This is how things look now.

http://macster.smugmug.com/photos/400773809_56M65-O.jpg

The tracks to the right are the old Main 1/2. These are now called Amtrak 1/2.

When Amtrak comes into King Street from the main line (Northbound from Tacoma) they will cross over at Stadium (next to 3rd Avenue) and the track in the middle, nearest the roof support for Safeco, is the Lander Main. The cross overs from Amtrak 2 to Amtrak 1 are powered but the leads into King Street are not. They are all manual (as the switch stands show)

By: Mike B

Mike B — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:35:00 +0000

:-)

By: Mike B

Mike B — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:34:37 +0000

No. B32′s do not have any of the components necessary to run on electrification. They are a straight diesel locomotive. BUT a P32 could as it has a 3rd rail system (easily convertible to an overhead contact system) and electrical switchgear. Dollar for dollar, a pure electric locomotive is much better since it has less equipment to maintain, can produce more power for its size, and it’s not lugging around a big diesel engine and fuel.

If they’re going to electrify any of it, they might as well do all of it. It’s not worth the time or cost to only electrify a small section where BNSF will have to use diesels once they’re out of the city again. With CalTrain and the NEC, the trains stay on the same corridor all the time so electrification makes sense.

Without going too crazy, Wikipedia is a good place to start! Just start clicking on things.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_locomotive