Comments on: Stanwood Amtrak Station Opens Saturday, Nov. 21

By: Zach Shaner

Zach Shaner — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 05:44:01 +0000

That would be quite the awkward schedule.

The 9:18am southbound from Stanwood arrives in Seattle at 11:05am, and to make it a daily commute – as you’d suggested – you’d catch the 6:50pm to be back in Stanwood by 8:14pm. Not exactly good commuting hours (!), and RailPlus is only designed to run on segments also covered by Sounder. (Seattle-Tacoma…someday I hope!) In truth though, since Amtrak’s not really in the business of making money, I don’t see the harm in allowing it. =)

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 04:25:17 +0000

I know many bus riders who would prefer to take the train daily from Stanwood to Seattle, including me. Does anyone know in the meantime if Amtrak will honor the Rail Plus to Stanwood? They accept the Puget Pass now from Seattle to Everett….what about a little further now that the Stanwood station is open? I can’t find anything on this topic yet. Thank you.

By: Brian Bundridge

Brian Bundridge — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 02:08:50 +0000

Hi Kirk!

Thank you for responding to this! Do you know by chance if the other unmanned stations will get the Quik Trak machines?

By: Kirk Fredrickson

Kirk Fredrickson — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:26:30 +0000

Someone sent this blog to me I need to respond. I’m the WSDOT Project Manager for Stanwood Station and we will be putting a Quik Trak machine in Stanwood once Amtrak successfully completes its testing on an all weather prototype. The wiring is already in place.

By: Dave F

Dave F — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:19:17 +0000

The Sound Transit boundaries don’t include Marysville, Stanwood, Snohomish, or Monroe, other towns that could easily be served by the existing Sounder North trains. The easiest way to expand these trains North would be for Community Transit to pay Sound Transit for the incremental costs of running these trains further north/east. And these trains already exist, so it would be relatively cheap to improve the route. This will take some time to implement, so to get the ball rolling email Community Transit and ask them to put an extension of the sounder trains into their long-range plan. Visit this link and email Roland Behee, whose email is listed on the right side of the page: http://www.commtrans.org/Projects/TransitDevelopmentPlan.cfm .

By: aw

aw — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:41:00 +0000

If this were to happen, it seems like a stop in Marysville would be useful too.

By: Brian Bundridge

Brian Bundridge — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:49:05 +0000

Megan,

Stanwood and neighboring areas are not a part of the Sound Transit RTA tax. I am not sure what would be required besides a public vote to extend Sounder service North to Stanwood but I for one would love it if 2 of the trains went North to Stanwood. I think that would be an excellent idea!

By: Brian Bundridge

Brian Bundridge — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:45:25 +0000

Tim, sorry, I totally missed this.

WSDOT is really liking how ridership continues to grow. It so far has been a good successful train with the most common complaint of the late arrival into Vancouver.

British Columbia and WSDOT are studying the feasibility to increase to 3 and 4 trains sooner but may require additional train sets for that to happen.

By: Megan Vogel

Megan Vogel — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 06:38:27 +0000

Does anyone know whether the Sounder Train will ever come north to Stanwood? I would love to ride the Sounder to Seattle every day.

By: Lloyd

Lloyd — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:29:28 +0000

Going to PDX for the day on Thurs 3 December to ride the new MAX line – will check running times.

By: Mad Park

Mad Park — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 05:27:59 +0000

It is neither.

By: Brian Bundridge

Brian Bundridge — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:51:24 +0000

I’ve been 3’15″ many many times. Its nice when you have all greens and not crossing over all the time!

By: Tim Whittome

Tim Whittome — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 03:52:21 +0000

By the way, folks travel well in business class!! Nice picture, to include with your piece, Brian!

By: Tim Whittome

Tim Whittome — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 03:51:26 +0000

I find that amazing that Wenatchee is unstaffed it is a major stop and a major city between Seattle and Spokane.

By: Seth

Seth — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 03:40:26 +0000

My record riding the Cascades PDX-SEA was 3’14″….I had to double check my watch!

By: Erik G.

Erik G. — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 01:09:45 +0000

Other places I can think of off the top of my head are San Juan Capistrano where the QuikTrak is outside the station and thus is available longer than inside the staffed station; Exeter, NH where the QuikTrak is located inside a nearby convenience store; and then there are the Metrolink TVM’s which are now setup to print Amtrak tickets! Sound Transit, are you reading this?

By: aw

aw — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 23:36:52 +0000

“Looks like ridership is down pretty considerably.”

Ridership was up considerably in 2008 because of gas prices. Ridership in 2009 is still up over 2007, but because of the recession and the easing of gas prices, it’s down versus 2008.

By: Brian Bundridge

Brian Bundridge — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:18:14 +0000

I receive the quarterly reports via e-mail… if there is a place to upload the most recent one I’ll be more than happy to.

By: Tim F.

Tim F. — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:47:38 +0000

i really hope customers notice the part about actually calling to make reservations and not just showing up to a sold out sunday train. and writing down or printing their reservations saves a lot of hassle.

and yes all of those stations need quik trak machines, wenatchee especially. tukwila is getting more and more ridership. when we stop there a lot of people are surprised and ask to get of there instead of seattle cause its way closer to where they live and they had no idea it was an amtrak stop.

By: barman

barman — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:41:21 +0000

Looks like ridership is down pretty considerably.