This wasn’t reported in any of the local news papers but The Vancouver Sun covered the story regarding the delay of the second Amtrak Cascades train to Vancouver BC. The required siding in Colebrook has been completed for some time now and is now on the hinges of the Border Patrol.
I guess the Canadian government doesn’t want the extra tourism and money that the second train would bring in. Not to mention the extra relief from the Border.
Falcon’s news release last year stated: “In its first full year of operation, the second Amtrak passenger train from Seattle to Vancouver is expected to bring approximately 50,000 travellers to Vancouver, injecting an estimated $13.9 million into B.C.’s economy.”
If the second train does start, it will be the 3/4 car Superliner train set that has been on that run for a little over a year now as the State of Washington refurbishes the Talgo Trains. So far 2 of the 3 train sets have been refurished; The Mt. Rainier and Mt. Adams. The Mt. Hood should be completed by the end of August.
This is a pure cash grab by the CBSA – they’re basically demanding that the BC government pay them for all additional staffing (and then some).
Stephen Rees posted about last week:
http://stephenrees.wordpress.com/2008/07/27/new-seattle-vancouver-train-delayed-by-cbsa-cash-grab/
Wait… it says that the current Seattle-Vancouver trip leaves at 9:15pm and arrives in Vancouver at 12:35. I thought it left at 7:40 in the morning…
Yeah, what are they talking about there? I am almost positive the north bound train currently leaves in the morning for Vancouver and there’s not a departure after the evening return from Vancouver to Seattle.
According to Amtrak’s schedule, Northbound is 7:40am – 11:35am and Southbound is 5:45pm – 10:05pm. It looks like the second train will be set up for the opposite direction (south in the morning, north at night). The Sun is probably talking about the new schedule.
Why don’t they just do the customs checks at Pacific Central Station in Vancouver, like they supposedly do now? I am sure VIA would love the extra business at the station, as VIA 1/2 to Toronto only runs 3 days a week.
I can see the problem here. From an HR perspective, how do you staff for a surge of visitors at a historically inconsistent time? It would be much easier, though still problematic to pull border agents off the Peace Arch crossing to process a train, but at 11 pm it’s a big problem. How do you thoroughly and safely process a train full of sleepy pax that might arrive in a 2-3 hour window. If a train is 2 hours behind schedule, you are talking about serious amounts of OT.
The Vancouver Pacific Station processing would be almost impossible, for the same reasons.
It’s understandable that they want money from BC (oh and indirectly WSDOT) for additional staff – what is not understandable is that they want to charge the “new facility” rate. Let’s say that you and I somehow have a fat wad of cash and we add a flight int YVR from SEA at an unusual arrival time – we would not be getting charged the “new facility” rate.
YVR has all sorts of international flights coming in at all hours, so staffing the processing of an additional flight would be only incrementally impacted.
You’ve made my point for me.
Really? You know that no international flight lands at YVR between about 1:30 am and 6:45 am, right (and the bulk of international flights are clustered together)? It is not a 24 hour international facility. So, how does that make your point if a flight from, let’s say, China started arriving at 5 am? Or WSDOT/BC decided to keep extra lanes open at I-5/99 later? They’d be charged for additional staffing, NOT the new facilities rate.
The CBSA wants $1,500 PER DAY – I don’t know how much Mounties run but considering there are like four dudes who do it now – that’s $375 per staff person per day and somehow I don’t think that the mean salary for Mounties is almost $100k per year.