"Amtrak at Centralia", by Mike Bjork
Amtrak and WSDOT are adding 11 more trains for the busiest travel weekend of the year. The regular ones are listed here. The new ones:
- Wednesday, November 24 -
Train #511 – Departing Seattle at 1:30 pm; arriving in Portland at 5:45 pm
Train #514 – Departing Portland at 7:00 pm; arriving in Seattle at 11:15 pm
Train #503 – Departing Seattle at 11:59 pm with direct service to Portland arriving at 4:14 am. No intermediate stops between Seattle and Portland. - Thursday, November 25 -
Train #502 – Departing Portland at 9:00 am; arriving in Seattle at 1:15 pm
Train #505 – Departing Seattle at 8:30 am; arriving in Portland at 12:45 pm - Saturday, November 27 -
Train #502 – Departing Portland at 9:00 am; arriving in Seattle at 1:15 pm
Train #511 – Departing Seattle at 1:30 pm; arriving in Portland at 5:45 pm - Sunday, November 28 -
Train #511 – Departing Seattle at 1:30 pm; arriving in Portland at 5:45 pm
Train #512 – Departing Portland at 1:45 pm; arriving in Seattle at 6:00 pm
Train #514 – Departing Portland at 7:00 pm; arriving in Seattle at 11:15 pm
Train #515 – Departing Seattle at 7:00 pm; arriving in Portland at 11:15 pm
It’s too bad the express service isn’t anticipated to be fast. Would be cool if there were express services on a normal basis though. Hurry up, HSR!
It probably not using Talgo equipment. It’s also important to note that that late night trip connects with #517, the night train from Vancouver.
The running times for these additional trains are on par with the Coast Starlight, indicating that conventional equipment will be used.
And they must therefore pad the schedules by about 15 minutes or so – these trains should run in about 3:55.
Interesting, these are all 4:15 schedules. The standard Talgo schedules are 3.30 schedules (not 3.55). This is padded significantly.
How much will the long delayed (now no sooner than 2015) Point Defiance cutoff save? 6 minutes, right, plus more reliable running? Call it a 3.20 schedule in the future. Still needs just a little bit more speed…. but not much, not much at all.
@ Nathanael
As stated elsewhere, these trains are NOT run w/ Talgo higher speed equipment. The laws of physics and the regs of the FRA do NOT allow Horizon and Amfleet coaches to operate as fast as Talgos – and remember, 79 MPH is the top speed for any equipment. PLUS, the station dwell time are longer because these are high floor cars without checked baggage service – therefore time at stations for unloading and unloading will be longer.
Did we expect that they have extra Talgos lying around to use?
No, I assume Amtrak planned months ago to bring in extra equipment. It will be a few years before the Oregon and Washington new Talgos are built.
Perhaps Tim Eyman will protest this by laying across the tracks. :-)
DREAMER!
Every year I wonder why the expanded service is exclusively PDX-SEA. I understand primarily focusing on that corridor, but I’d bet that Bellingham, Eugene, Wenatchee, or Spokane could fill a Turkey Train. Looks like there’s plenty of padding to run the red-eye to Eugene, or to extend Train 502 to Bellingham. I’m sure their crews are stretched to the limit on Thanksgiving, but I have no doubt the additional service would be popular.
Agreed. I would love a Spokane train that didn’t take eight hours or get you into town in the middle of the night via Empire Builder. What would it take for a daytime running, six hour trip from Seattle to Spokane?
It’s common knowledge that I-90 during Thanksgiving is a traffic nightmare.
A tunnel from Leavenworth to Skykomish. The Empire Builder schedule calls for 2.5 hours to run between Leavenworth and Everett, a distance of about 100 miles; get rid of all the slow-speed running through the Cascades with a 70mph straight-shot tunnel and there’s a significant chunk of the two hours you want to cut out of the schedule.
While running time may not be improved, a daylight train, one that leaves at say 8 AM arriving at 4 PM would be nice, even if it was only during Thanksgiving weekend.
For the first time, I’ll be doing some intercity traveling this Thanksgiving weekend (Spokane to Portland and back). Except I’ll be using Greyhound due to lower cost and more convenient schedules (at least in one direction).
Trailways typically has five or six extra buses on the Amtrak Thruway service between Seattle and Spokane.
I should add, it’s weird when the bus picks up someone at Stevens Pass.
I think the track north of Seattle is still limited in number of trips by the single-track sections, given that it remains a major freight route. So much for Bellingham extras, for now.
I’d assume Spokane-Seattle extras are limited by equipment shortage given how long the run is.
Are they using different trainsets for these or what? They indicate only a “snack car”, no lounge or dining car, no checked luggage, and no business class.
Yes: With only a limited quantity of Talgo sets, they’ll bring in equipment from elsewhere in the country to cover these runs. For instance, in the NEC Amtrak often borrows cars and locomotives from NJT and SEPTA to cover additional Thanksgiving service.
In the past, the extras have been operated with a Horizon trainset that comes up from Los Angeles and an Amfleet set that comes from back east. Both of those have single level seating, but those trains cars are designed for stations that have high level platforms, so there will be a bigger set of steps to climb when you board those trains. The extra trains are slower than the Talgos, so be forewarned if you take the “red eye express”–it actually takes 45 minutes longer than the Talgo.
I’ve suggested before to WSDOT that they try real express runs with Talgo equipment during the Thanksgiving break and let the slower, extra trains cover the local service. An example schedule would have a Talgo departure from Seattle to Portland (likely with stops in TAC and VAW) at 0725 and then have a local depart at 0735. The travelers from Seattle to Portland would have a better product and the riders at the intermediate stations wouldn’t feel the time and comfort penalty of the older and slower equipment as much on their shorter trips.
The “red eye express” is likely a positioning move that would have happened anyway, but they’re selling tickets to anyone who doesn’t mind arriving in PDX at 0415. The trainset will then come back to Seattle on Thursday morning, full of passengers. By eliminating all intermediate stops on the red eye southbound trip, the conductor won’t need to do much more than close the doors in Seattle, then listen for slow orders and defect detector reports for the next 4 hours.
Can we run Sounder down to Portland? That’d be awesome.
Sounder to Portland? I think you’d regret that trip: no lounge, no baggage car, no recline to the seats, less padding on the seats, tighter seat pitch, up and down steps everytime you want to walk around the train. Sounder is fine for a quick trip down to Tacoma, but a 4+ hour trip to Portland is kind of stretching it.
Let’s try or hope for Sounder to Lakewood instead, though not any time soon.
At least Sounder to Lakewood is funded last I checked, and has passed environmental reviews, and is actually being built.
Point Defiance Bypass, the rest of the project, is funded, but needs extra environmental review, so it’s delayed AGAIN….
Has anyone ridden the Turkey Trains? It’s the same equipment Alki Tours uses for the Snow Trains in December.
What are they like inside? I’ve only seen them on the outside, and some of them look like the really old (as old as me, at least) commuter equipment I remember from the east coast.
I wondered if they had that same funky smell.
Happy Thanks Giving to all the BNSF and Amtrak crews that make the extra service possible, so riders may enjoy their holiday.
Nice touch!
They ARE just the sweetest people, aren’t they? Doing this out of the goodness of their hearts… Oh, you mean they’re getting paid for it? Whooda thunk!
My theory is that they really don’t have lives. Morning shift is working to avoid cooking Thanksgiving dinners, and evening shift is avoiding cleaning up, no doubt.
My theory is overtime. I’d gladly work that stupid holiday if I had that kind of job for time-and-a-half.
Why does the direct train take the same amount of time when it isn’t making the extra stops? All of the trains show a SEA to PDX time of 4:15. Seems to me that the direct service should be around 3:45 or so without making the stops.
One good reason I was thinking of is why would you want to get into Portland at 3:30 in the morning? Nobodies families would like coming at that early hour, plus TriMet service (MAX, buses, Streetcar) haven’t started yet (they start at around 4:30). Coming in at 4:15 is a little more reasonable as by the time you get all your baggage, one could get on a MAX train.
I dont think so, those stops are very short as it is and the trains lose time easily anyway.
All train service on this corridor is “Direct”.
Train 503 will operate “Express” or “Non-Stop”.
And it’s too bad the Talgo sleeper car was returned along with the demonstrator trainset!
Can we buy the used ones from German Rail?
http://www.360cities.net/image/talgo-nighttrain-2nd-class-bunks-liegewagen-db-munich-hamburg#81.90,0.80,88.0
We really need a high-speed line. I suggest completing what the French did at first for Paris-Lyon. Build a line from outside Lyon to outside of Paris. I would do the same from Lakewood to Vancouver. Build further extensions in if service becomes popular. I think a speed upgrade through Lakewood should be done as well. It would also help on the Tacoma-Seattle section for dedicated passenger tracks.
I like the red eye train – let’s dream that one day all of these ‘extra’ train sets will be year round! It would help our Sounders fans next year when they travel down to PDX for our game with them. We could start with extra trains for special occasions like this. Portland’s rose festival could be another such occasion that Washingtonians would enjoy extra train service for. Start with these and then work outwards to service on ordinary days.
In reverse, I am sure many Portlanders would like more service to Mount Vernon during the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival as well of course for their Timber game with our Sounders at Quest Field. We also of course have many cruises operating out of Seattle during the summer that Oregonians would welcome additional train service for. When King Street Station finally finishes its restoration, we will have a gateway that we can be proud of once again.
As for Spokane, I would love to see an additional day train to the Lilac City. It would make for a very nice weekend sojourn over that part of the state if it could be arranged.
Tim
In addition to the Timbers/Sounders rivalry, the Vancouver Whitecaps will also be in the mix.
Sort of combining a response to a lot of the above but:
An additional reason not mentioned here for the longer timetable on the extra trains is also so they don’t interfere quite so much with freight traffic. Doing the trip in 3:30 puts an awful lot of freight traffic to the side for a while, but running right behind or ahead of an existing container train or some other service allows for better track capacity.
As to running additional trains to Eugene: it isn’t possible. The Union Pacific sent a rather emphatic letter to ODOT saying that if they want any more train service, they need to add a new main line for passenger only service, as they are uninterested in having any additional passenger trains on their line. Copies of this letter have been reasonably well circulated down here in Oregon among railfan groups. BNSF and UP are a real study in contrasts right now when it comes to passenger service policy, and I think everyone should be glad that it is the BNSF that owns the primary Portland to Seattle main line, and not the UP.