The future of Amtrak Cascades

55 Replies to “The future of Amtrak Cascades”

1. The switch to Amtrak Venture/Airo rolling stock is a major loss for the region. This trainsets lack tilting tech, are heavier, and will have longer trip times due to their slower acceleration between curves.

   It should also be noted that the FRA limited the amount of tilt that the Talgos could use in service, thus artificially limiting their speed capability to something lower than what the rolling stock was capable of producing.

   A proper approach to higher speed rail on this corridor would look to lighter weight, better accelerating rolling stock with full tilt capability for better speed in curves.

   The FRA is a very conservative agency whose approach to safety is to build everything like a tank. That might have worked in the 1920’s, but a lot has changed since then. Most of the world’s rail agencies have moved on from the “build it like a tank” approach to safety. The FRA should to.

   1. FRA passenger-train regulations have supposedly modernized in the past few years, so how much of it is the local agencies not leveraging the opportunities?

   2. It wasn’t the FRA.

      The problem is the heavy locomotives. The formula used for the maximum speed of a tilting is the same as used in Europe. The problem is Europe doesn’t use 130 ton locomotives on passenger trains.

      Lighter locomotives that meet FRA standards are possible. The DMUs used by Sonoma-Marin could be used as a basis for a light weight locomotive, as one example.

2. I agree with all of this, we need to proceed with incremental improvements to Amtrak Cascades to improve travel time starting now. Currently I take Flixbus to Vancouver BC rather than Amtrak Cascades since it’s the same travel time and Flixbus is cheaper.

   1. And WSDOT should have been doing it all along from 1990 when this vision was first floated. It did eliminate the slow spots in the Cascades South corridor, and maybe partly in the North, but it has done little beyond that. If it had made a serious effort to implement the 1990s recommendations all along, we’d have European-level service right now.

3. Some quick thoughts before I start my shift….

   1) Gondola would be inefficient and costly for such a looong route over. Thruway service or a “shuttle” is much better. A good example of this is BWI Rail station where the airport runs shuttlles every 10 minutes for a 10 min ride.

   2) There will always be air service between YVR-BLI-SEA-PDX for connections. People in YVR need to reach Spokane or Eugene and folks in Yakima or Boise will need to reach each other. Connecting through Seattle is necessary. I will admit, however, Alaska uses to have hourly service SEA-PDX. Now it’s every few hours off peak.

   3) Ideally, I’d like to see hourly rail service SEA-PDX and half hourly during peak. And adjusted service during the summer and holidays. Realistically, and only if WSDOT seriously invests in the Cascades, we’ll probably see an added 5-7 trips and maybe 10-15 min faster travel times.

   1. 1) Yeah a simple bus shuttle will be sufficient. If the BAR infill Link/Sounder station is built, then no need for any shuttle.

4. The big institutional obstacles are the limited rail right of way in our state combined with difficult bargaining required to merely add a train set or two. It contrasts with what exists east of the Rockies.

   As much as pursuing incremental improvements makes sense technically, it holds us back from comprehensively making our inter-city rail a service frequent enough and fast enough and reliable enough to suit us.

   1. It’s easier and more certain to incrementally improve it. UHSR is still pie-in-the-sky, would require billions more in funding, decades longer to open, and would require new right-of-way for even more stringent track specifications. The state hasn’t even really looked at how many landowners would have to be bought out, how many businesses displaced, or how much the land acquisition would cost. It’s like ST3 Link times a hundred.

      In contrast, the Cascades plan would simply require a third or fourth track in the BNSF ROW. BNSF is well aware of this, WSDOT would pay the capital cost for the share that benefits it, and there would be additional capacity for freight when the Cascades/Sounder/Amtrak trains move off the shared tracks. BNSF wants more freight capacity of course since it’s at the maximum, and the state/jobs/economy would benefit from that too.

      With another track or two, Cascades could run hourly, and Sounder could run every 30 minutes. There’s your frequent/fast service right there. (Of course, WSDOT/ST aren’t contemplating so much service, but the opportunity would be there.)

5. With Sounder ridership half of pre-Covid levels, I can help but wonder if we should get Sounder and Cascades to be doing their planning and operations together rather than separately. They do share same tracks and station stops. They are powered similarly. Sounder ridership has sunk so far that a reimagined perspective could improve its productivity and even save it from its downward spiral.

   The obstacle is the organizational structure of it all. I see the optimal end state as a master “regional/ corridor rail authority” but I can’t see how to get there. The most obvious big-picture structural solution is to put the state in charge of both Sounder and Cascades (and their track easements) but we don’t seem politically ready to “go there”.

   1. We have suggested adding Sounder service that piggybacks off the new capacity. That’s something the state should consider in a comprehensive rail plan, the same way the 405 expansion accommodated in-line BRT stations and HOT lanes. It should, but the state is not quite there yet. Some in WSDOT probably are: there’s a WSDOT member on the ST board, and recently they’ve been one of the most clear-thinking members. But it needs to be taken up by WSDOT’s full leadership and the legislature and governor. The past year the legislature has suddenly gotten better at housing and maybe transit. But when will it be enough to reach critical mass, and will it be sustained?

   2. Another question is, with Cascades running hourly or almost-hourly, would that replace the need for some of those Sounder runs? Cascades stops at some of the Sounder stations though not all of them. I wish it stopped in Kent or Auburn instead of Tukwila. Half-hourly Sounder would transform access in south-central King County (where the center of the population is), but ST is not contemplating that. So with lesser Sounder service, say hourly or almost-hourly, how much of that needs to be on Sounder instead of Cascades? Obviously 100% for the stations Cascades bypasses, but in Tacoma and Tukwila maybe less?

      1. Wouldn’t a different kind of locomotive power (electric) enable better acceleration and deceleration? That would seem to make it easier to add infill stops.

         It’s also worth mentioning that both Kent and Auburn have larger populations than all of Lewis County, with Kent almost double. I do find it odd that the Cascades don’t stop in at least one of these two cities given their large populations.

      2. It would help some, but not as much as you’d think, given that the train doesn’t stop that much between Seattle and Portand and, when it does stop, it’s the dwell time at the station, not the accelaration/decelaration time, that dominates.

         Of course, electrification is also good in making the trains cleaner, the problem is, running overhead wire along all 300 miles from Seattle to Eugene would be extremely expensive, and difficult to justify for a train that only runs 4-6 times per day. Overhead wire is much easier to justify for a route that is short and frequent, such as Link.

         Of course, at some point in the future, it may end up being cheaper to electrify the Amtrak train with batteries rather than overhead wire, once batteries get cheap enough.

      3. @asdf2,

         It’s not just the acceleration from stops that is important.

         The line between here and Portland is known for being curvy, and the train needs to accelerate after every speed restricted curve too. And there are lots of those. Slow acceleration adds trip time

         The same effect exists for the heavier Venture/Aero rolling stock Cascades is moving to as opposed to the current lighter Talgo cars. It’s why you will never hear an official(or at least a knowledgeable official) say that the new rolling stock is “as fast as” the Talgos. They always use qualifiers.

         It should also be noted that faster accel/decel has benefits for freight trains too. Here the benefit isn’t so much reduced trip time itself, but the effective capacity increase of the line and energy savings. To gain the same effective capacity increase with other means would require things like additional double/triple track and lengthened sidings, which can often be just as expensive as electrification.

      4. Electrifying Sounder is far more impactful than electrifying Cascades, given there are more trips and more stops. Perhaps Cascade could be hybrid and run diesel for the Lakewood-Portland segment, which happens for some routes around the world.

      5. @AJ,

         “ Perhaps Cascade could be hybrid and run diesel for the Lakewood-Portland segment”

         Interesting idea. And it provides an incremental approach to increased electrification. Might be worth a look.

   3. “I see the optimal end state as a master “regional/ corridor rail authority” but I can’t see how to get there.” It should be WSDOT. Both WSDOT & ST contract out the actual operations to BSNF.

      There is already a template on the current Cascades runs: an ORCA monthly pass gets a rider onto a Cascade train if traveling within the ST district, and for each ORCA ‘swipe’ Sound Transit pays Amtrak the equivalent single-rider ticket ($12 when I was a ST a few years ago).

      A good future state would be as such:
      – Sound Transit transfers the trip easements and operational fleet to Amtrak
      – ST capital funds are used to add a few additional Tacoma/Seattle runs
      – WSDOT (state) funds are used to add a few additional Portland/Seattle runs
      – WSDOT operates all heavy rail service, under two brands (Cascades and Sounder) to differentiate service. WSDOT prices both services as it see fit.
      – A regular ORCA pass allows a rider to access any Cascade or Sounder train for a trip within the ST territory, with ST paying Amtrak based upon number of ORCA boardings. This allows for ST to subsidize intra-region trips using regional taxes and allows Amtrak to provide more regional service.

      1. Having WSDOT lead a combined operation is probably optimal. However, in ST’s case, some local elected officials would balk about giving up control. For example, I doubt that Kent and Auburn would be getting new Sounder garages if WSDOT was calling the shots. ST gives lots more control to local governments than WSDOT does, stemming from Board representation.

         I think there needs to be discussion about Cascades stopping in Kent or Auburn too -regardless of which agency controls things. The combined populations of Kent, Auburn, Covington, Maple Valley, Black Diamond and Enumclaw are about 290K. That’s more than Thurston County as a whole! A new garage could offer overnight parking in designated areas for a fee.

         Then the agencies could print combined schedules, set up fare sharing and cost sharing agreements, provide realtime arrival info on a common display, and expand station building use to include more restaurants and clean bathrooms and other features.

      2. > For example, I doubt that Kent and Auburn would be getting new Sounder garages if WSDOT was calling the shots. ST gives lots more control to local governments than WSDOT does, stemming from Board representation.

         Lol, I’m not too sure about the control part, but the parking one I think you’re a bit mistaken. WSDOT loves building parking lots/garages. Practically all of the freeway parking lots and parking garages that sound transit now uses were originally planned in locations by WSDOT. It’s why for i-405 brt they are building the lots in newcastle and north renton. But they view freeway bus mainly/solely as a way to bring cars off the freeway and not as much as way for people without cars to use.

         > The Selected Alternative would include arterial HOV priority for transit, additional park-and-ride capacity (approximately 5,000 stalls), additional transit center capacity, (2000s document)
         https://wsdot.wa.gov/sites/default/files/2021-11/I405_RecordOfDecision_Final.pdf

      3. WL, you haven’t been paying attention.

         https://www.theurbanist.org/2023/02/09/sounder-needs-more-service-not-more-parking-garages/
         Roger Millar, secretary of the state transportation department, urged a rethink of priorities two years ago. He offered very astute and critical remarks when car parking garages were being debated then, apparently to no avail. “When you look at our station access budget, we are investing more in parking than we are investing in all of the other modes combined,” Millar said. “And all of the other modes combined bring 80% of our ridership to our system.”

         Millar also hit on designing the system we want for the future.

         “The other thing I’ve heard people discuss with this is the reality of the situation today is people need to drive to the station because that’s how we designed our communities and we’re hoping for a future where we have these walkable urban communities,” Millar said. “If we want to get to that future, we should be investing in that future, not investing in the existing paradigm. Because if you continue to invest in the existing paradigm, what you’re gonna get is that paradigm.”

      4. “Roger Millar, secretary of the state transportation department”

         And ST board member.

         It was Millar and Balducci who came up with an alternative to the split-spine alignment, that the rest of the board voted no on. I don’t remember what their alternative was now.

6. Isn’t a good chunk (~40%?) of TGV service on standard tracks shared with non-HSR services?

   1. Other countries allow lightweight passenger trains, which are faster and less expensive than the freight-like tanks on US railroads. US regulations focus on making passenger trains battle-ready to withstand collisions. European and other international regulations focus on preventing collisions so that the issue doesn’t come up.

      Europe also has more government-owned, passenger-primary tracks, which the US is the opposite with privately-owned, freight-primary tracks and not as many of them. The US ships more bulk freight by rail, so that saves carbon emissions and the like. But because there are fewer tracks per capita and they’re owned by profit-minded freight investors, there’s more track-sharing when passenger trains are involved, and thus a higher risk of freight-passenger collisions.

      Recently I heard the FRA did modernize its passenger-train regulations to allow more lightweight and EMU/DMU trains on shared tracks. But the cities/states aren’t exactly jumping over themselves to take advantage of them, like their counterparts in other countries would.

      1. Freight tonnage per car maxima in Europe are considerably lower than those in the US and trains are shorter, so they pack much less kinetic energy there than here.

7. I hope we don’t repeat California’s mistake. We have so overinvested in highways relative to our modest population that buses are more than capable of getting us between Seattle and Portland. If we were truly focused on reducing carbon emissions, the best thing we could do is merely raise fees at Seatac and institute tolls on I5.

   And then we could instead invest in rail where we have demonstrated demand, as evidenced by bus ridership. Aurora and Rainier, for starters.

   1. Agree, but that any politician to tried to do that would be hounded out of office; average Washington voters like the idea of playing lip service to climate change, but far higher on their priority list is that the cost of driving and flying be cheap. We’ll get a test of this is a few months when the Climate Commitment Act is voted on in a referendum.

   2. I think it is clear that some sort of higher speed rail between VanBC and Portland would be a huge economic benefit for the region over just more freeway traffic. Pretty clearly our freeways are overcrowded and are becoming too slow and unreliable. It’s part of what is driving the amount of air travel between here and Portland.

      The California experience with HSR is a cautionary tale, but it is a tale mainly of project delivery and management. Our goal should be to learn from the California experience and avoid repeating their mistakes.

      And we don’t need full ultra-high speed rail to beat buses on the freeway. We just need a rail system with an average speed of 85 to 90 mph (including dwell time), and a system that can maintain that speed reliably.

      Because traffic on our overburdened freeways will never yield reliable transportation between city pairs, and reliability actually matters. And it matters a lot.

8. Faster train service to Portland would be nice, but please don’t pitch it as a climate imperative. The percent of all global carbon emissions resulting from car or airplane trips specifically between Seattle and Portland is infinitesimally small, and the percentage of that that better rail service would actually eliminate, even smaller.

   Sure, better train service would attract more riders and replace *some* car or plane trips, but you would probably get more CO2 avoided for the money by investing in clean electricity generation, heat pumps, or even King County Metro bus electrification than improving Amtrak service.

   That said, this does not mean improving Amtrak service is not worth doing. Better service equates to more people traveling between Seattle and Portland more often, which means more money spent at each city’s hotels, restaurants, and tourist attractions, more jobs in these sectors, and a general boost to both city’s economies. But, call it as it is – the primary purpose of Amtrak Cascades is economic development. Whatever reduction on greenhouse gases it provides is just a nice secondary benefit.

   I suspect a lot of the reason we see people at the Urbanist and other progressive publications tout carbon emissions over the economy is that many progressives are uncomfortable with the idea of economic growth, but they like trains, and touting CO2 reduction through car/airplane trips avoided makes them feel better. But, it doesn’t change the fact that the primary benefit from better train service to the region is still the economic boost by having Seattle and Portland be more connected.

   1. I agree with your overall point that adding high(er) speed rail isn’t a climate solution alone. Adding any additional transportation service, regardless of how “green” it is, will not tend to reduce energy consumption much. People will still use the existing modes (i.e. highway driving, flying). It’s basically adding supply and expecting demand to stay the same or drop.

      However, if we think about what we need to address the climate crisis, I think improved rail service is essential. But in parallel, the reality is that we need to REPLACE highway driving and flying, not supplement them. Why don’t we talk about taking highway lanes away and adding rail in its place for example? A good solution could be economically neutral in that it transports the same number of people between places. Political opposition is the obvious answer, but I’d like to at least see more conversation about how we can actually reach a sustainable solution for transportation.

      Trips between Seattle and Portland may be a small percentage of global emissions, but change needs to start somewhere and it can inspire further change in other areas. Dismissing a small change in that manner seems like a recipe for maintaining the status quo everywhere.

      1. There was an executed master agreement in 2004 between WSDOT and BNSF to design and construct infrastructure that could support 110 mph operations. That has been the goal for Cascades “higher-speed” rail system planning ever since. A 110 mph framework was captured in the agreement’s conceptual plan, and it was clearly a bedrock assumption of the State’s 2006 Cascades long range plan. The latter was used to secure Obama-era stimulus funding for American high-speed rail development, further reinforcing the 110 mph imperative.

         On BNSF tracks, Cascades trains would operate no faster than 90 mph. On parallel, sufficiently offset WSDOT-owned tracks in BNSF ROW, the trains would operate at speeds up to 110 mph.

         I am unsure as to why the State abandoned the 110 mph WSDOT track concept. It may be as simple as it not being a State funding priority. Perhaps it is just not in their wheelhouse. WSDOT does a fine job building and maintaining highways, not fast passenger railways.

      2. BNSF never actually agreed to 110 mph or any other part of the conceptual plan in that 2004 master agreement. They clearly reserved the right to say ‘no’ to any of it. The focus of the agreement was how WSDOT and BNSF would work together, not an agreement on what the plan would be.

         While BNSF was willing to entertain 110 mph passenger trains in their right of way 20 years ago, that evidently is not the case now.

      3. I see that I misplaced my response again. It can be found below.

   2. It is more comprehensive to consider the broader implications of an expansive High Speed Rail system.
      Rather than confining the view of carbon emissions reduction between Seattle and Portland, it would be more beneficial to envision the larger-scale impact. Imagine the significant decrease in emissions that could be achieved by extending the HSR network from Seattle, reaching as far north as Vancouver, and stretching southwards to Los Angeles.
      Furthermore, consider the potential of a route from Seattle to Spokane, extending all the way to Chicago and beyond. The cumulative effect of these expansions will be monumental to reducing carbon emissions.
      We must not underestimate the transformative changes that are absolutely required in order to achieve our environmental goals. It’s crucial that we fully embrace the potential of large-scale initiatives in our pursuit to lower carbon emissions.

      1. That would be a good argument if there existed more mega-cities just beyond Portland. Unfortunately, there aren’t.

         I also read a recent NYT article about the per-passenger carbon footprint of trains vs. planes. Turns out the train’s advantage is actually conditional on the distance being relatively short (less than a few hundred miles), and that, for longer distances, the airplane actually becomes cleaner.

      2. The problem is the distances. San Fransisco is too far from Seattle, even for super high speed rail. Even from Portland or Eugene it is too far. As asdf2 mentioned there is basically nothing between Eugene and San Fransisco (and Eugene is relatively small). This makes it different than the East Coast. A high speed rail line from Miami to Boston is quite reasonable. But that isn’t because a lot of people will take it from Miami to Boston, or even Miami to New York. It is all of the trips in between (Boston to New York, New York to Philly, Philly to DC) all the way down. The West Coast simply doesn’t have that.

         There is a range where rail makes a lot of sense (call it “rail range”). Any farther and folks are just gonna fly. As it turns out, the Northwest is well suited for rail. Seattle to Portland, Seattle to Vancouver, Eugene to Seattle — these are not really far. But there is actually two types of “rail range”. If cities are close (e. g. Baltimore to DC) then high speed rail doesn’t get you much. For the opposite end of the spectrum there is San Fransisco to Los Angeles. While there are cities in between, they pail in comparison to that trip pair. If you ran frequent trains at 110 MPH, then lots of people would still fly. But that isn’t true in our case, and it is an important distinction. If Portland or Vancouver were 400 miles from Seattle we wouldn’t be having this conversation. It would be bullet trains or nothing. But that isn’t our geography. Seattle to Portland is about 180 miles and Seattle to Vancouver is only about 150. These distances are such that bullet trains don’t add much over trains that go 110 MPH.

         Of course there is also just the overall size of the cities. Seattle, Portland and Vancouver are tiny compared to the Bay Area or L. A.

      3. There are many large-scale initiatives (that would need to be incentivized at the Federal level) before the carbon-footprint argument really works for long-distance high-speed trains. These include nationalizing the freight railways, electrifying the railways with overhead wire, and developing a low-to-no-carbon concrete manufacturing capacity. Strong subsidization of trade school tuition and a high carbon tax on fossil fuels burned for transportation and manufacturing (including on products manufactured overseas) would similarly go a long way toward rebuilding the USA’s ability to build things.

         I would love to have a competitive alternative to long-distance travel by air, but unless we’re very strategic about refurbishing existing railways and massively expand capacity for low-carbon construction, it will not have the intended contribution to environmental goals. Agencies saying stuff like “the break-even point for the embodied carbon compared to other modes of travel is in 2100” or whatever is not really a winning argument.

         In a nation where any only people with any audible voice are those who only care about the number at the bottom of their quarterly reports, we have to argue for the economic benefits of increasement capacity for movement within regions. The Northeast Corridor is a great example of this principle working really well; it will be interesting to see how the various Brightline railways are doing once they’ve been running for awhile. The CAHSR project will be seen as a boondoggle until the day it opens, at which point most will forget how long it took to build and California will pat itself on the back for building America’s First True HSR (despite taking 30-something years to do it while being the world’s 6th largest economy). But at least some American project managers will have learned how to build high speed rail, and hopefully they’ll be able to turn around and teach the next generation. I just wish we could take HSR construction seriously in this country and start building at the same grand scale we did with the Federal Highway Act in the 50’s and 60’s.

      4. I agree Nathan. It is worth adding that the break-even point for long distance high speed rail is so far into the future that carbon-neutral jet fuel alternatives may be here by then. So not only are there far more effective projects for reducing carbon, building long distance high speed rail may never make sense (if reducing greenhouse gases is the goal).

      5. Nathan your prediction for the future of CaHSR is spot on. When it’s complete and full of people on ten minute headways, every politician in California will be elbowing to get on the podium to claim authorship.

         However, your prediction that the delays are because Americans don’t “know how to build HSR” and that things will magically get better on future projects ignores the real culprit: the “takings” clause of the Constitution.

         Because every one of the thousands of landowners in the Central Valley affected insists that their land is uniquely valuable, nearly every parcel needed has been litigated to the extreme. Unless later lines can be sited on existing but little used rail rights of way or along freeways, the same litigation nightmares will ensue.

         Americans are famous for “gaming the system”. It’s a genetic thing, I think, based on that we all [except African Americans dragged here in chains] came here to get away from “those people” — the folks they left behind.

         And “Yes, that includes Native Americans.” They walked here…

   3. Railrider, you’re making an erroneous connection that because we don’t have 110 mph infrastructure, BNSF said no to it. The railway has clearly established protocols that restrict trains to 90 mph on their mains, but allows for 110 mph on well-offset trackage that they don’t build. Well, WSDOT hasn’t built it either.

      To assert that BNSF never agreed in spirit to 110 mph operations on separate WSDOT trackage in their right-of-way, despite the master agreement and its conceptual plan articulating one such vision, and despite the subsequent long range plan developed with their consultation, is peculiar. In the past, BNSF has also made agreements with the State of California for passenger infrastructure in shared or adjacent BNSF ROW that support speeds up to 125 mph (or greater with offsets and barriers).

      110 mph operations here were not going to occur until the complete build-out of the 2006 plan, to include PTC, new equipment, high-quality track infrastructure, maintenance programs, etc. The State has hardly taken an aggressive stance to deliver these improvements. We still haven’t corrected a 30 mph curve on an 80 mph publicly-owned segment of the railway where a major derailment occurred.

      If BNSF is being a difficult partner—for which I have seen no evidence—it is nowhere near as consequential to the development of the Cascades program as the State’s passivity. It’s also irrelevant to the new service update. The 110 mph American passenger rail template exists, it is now operational, it is successful, and has become a minimum expectation for these types of capital investments made by the public.

      1. You’re arguing with statements I never made.

         I didn’t say that because we don’t have 110 mph infrastructure, BNSF said no to it. I said they were open to it 20 years ago and now they are not. It’s that simple.

         I didn’t say that BNSF never agreed ‘in spirit’. The master agreement clearly states that the conceptual plan is tentative and non-binding. BNSF was not committed to implementing 110 mph operations or any other part of the plan. Whether they agreed ‘in spirit’ or not, BNSF was never bound by that agreement to implement 110 mph operations with the improvements in the conceptual plan.

         The State has been pretty aggressive about delivering improvements given the available resources. When the ARRA program was created, WSDOT took the long-range plan and used it to grab a couple hundred million dollars to start implementing it. And when some states declined to receive the ARRA funds they were awarded, WSDOT stepped in and grabbed a few hundred million more dollars for a total of about 800 million dollars. That kind of money hasn’t been available again until recently, with the BIL. I don’t see how WSDOT could have been much more aggressive to deliver further improvements without money to pay for them.

         That said, WSDOT could have been much better about staying prepared to go after additional funds for capacity improvements. The long-range plan was already long in the tooth by the time the ARRA program was completed and should have been replaced by then. The 2017 derailment sure didn’t help the situation.

         That 30 mph curve hasn’t been corrected because it isn’t ‘wrong’. It is just one of many 30 mph curves in the corridor. Straightening it will cost a lot of money and doing it now will not provide much benefit in terms of capacity, reliability, or even travel time. It’s definitely not the highest investment priority for Cascades, which needs projects that will improve reliability and provide capacity for more trains more than it needs one very expensive curve straightening project.

      2. “BNSF never actually agreed to 110 mph in the first place. They were willing to discuss it”.

         Am I arguing against a point you never made? You seem to be strongly inferring here that BNSF was never a serious party to 110 mph infrastructure, when in fact they have been for decades. The caveat is that fast trains must be on separate and higher classes of trackage, which is no longer the plan of the State. So, we have 90 mph plans instead. This is a distinction with a difference. And of course BNSF has veto power over improvements to their essential infrastructure and right-of-way. That is how this relationship must work. Not sure why this point keeps being made.

         I am familiar with the funding history of the Cascades. Indeed, I personally helped construct some of the railway improvements funded by the stimulus, most notably the new Coweeman River Bridge.

         Finally — and this will be my last writing on this topic — sure, the concept of “wrong” is subjective. The 30 mph curve exists and it is a curve that can accommodate a moving train. It is what it is. However, it is also a curve incongruent with the preceding segments of railway and with the larger vision of the Cascades program. It has also resulted in death and serious injury. For a State that champions public safety and rail improvements, that this curve continues to exist while major highway projects move forward is incredibly disappointing. The correction of this curve is a fundamental component of any long range Cascades improvement plan.

9. I looked through the latest draft. When did the maximum speed fall from 110 mph to 90 mph as it was in earlier versions? Why do we have to fight again for 110 mph?

   1. BNSF never actually agreed to 110 mph in the first place. They were willing to discuss it, but that’s a lot different than agreeing to it. They’ve had 20 years to think about it and now they’re only willing to consider top speeds of up to 90 mph, which is the current maximum for passenger train speeds on their system. It’s their house and their rules.

      If we want faster trains, I think we’re better off with dedicated passenger rail segments under public control. In the meantime, the focus should be on increasing capacity (more trains) and reliability. Reducing travel times through higher speeds is going to be very expensive, so we should go after the low hanging fruit first.

      1. Do we have a definitive source that BNSF said no and will never say yes?

      2. “If we want faster trains, I think we’re better off with dedicated passenger rail segments under public control.”

         We need something we can do in twenty years and won’t cost a lot of money. Otherwise it’s just ST3 and that’s it. We can’t go imagining a whole new right of way on top of ST3; that’s unlikely to be accepted by either the state or cities or the taxpayers, and we still need to do a major Metro expansion. The state is studying UHSR, but come on, if it can’t even prioritize Cascades, can’t say no to more freeways, and it’s watching ST3 descend into cost overruns and a passenger-hostile alignment, will it really vote yes for HSR? And even if it does, how many decades will we have to wait for it, and will it get done, and what about those stations it bypasses?

      3. @Mike Orr,

         “and we still need to do a major Metro expansion.”

         I’m not sure a Metro expansion should compete with the Cascades for funding. They are different market segments and Cascades clearly has needs and benefits that are outside of Metro’s purview.

         Additionally, it is unclear if a major Metro expansion is even warranted. Local transit over the next few years is set to change so dramatically with ST’s Light Rail extensions to Lynnwood, Redmond, and Federal Way that it is hard to know exactly what Metro’s needs will be.

         Clearly Metro will need to redeploy resources, pivot towards feeder type routes, and leave more of the heavy lifting to Light Rail on key corridors. But does that mean more service? Or changed service like CT is doing with their LLE service improvements?

         My bet is at least partially on the CT service model. Metro would do well to learn from the CT experience, but that doesn’t necessarily imply “more” funding.

      4. “Clearly Metro will need to redeploy resources, pivot towards feeder type routes, and leave more of the heavy lifting to Light Rail on key corridors…. Metro would do well to learn from the CT experience”

         As Ross said in another article, Metro has already done most of this. There’s not much more pivoting Metro can do. The remaining runs that can be truncated don’t add up to that many service hours. Not enough to increase frequency 33% on all the feeders and non-Link corridors, for instance.

         Metro has been doing several rounds of restructuring in South King County and the Eastside now, so the feeders and routes are mostly in place; it’s the frequency that’s lacking. When Metro restructured for SeaTac Link, RapidRide A and F, and again in the late 2010s, it it restructured the Des Moines milk runs, the 150, SeaTac-Kent service, created the 160 to prefigure RapidRide I, straightened out routes in eastern Kent, and made sure Kent and Southcenter both have routes to all the surrounding cities. The feeders and crosstown routes are already there now for the most part; they just need to be made more frequent so that people aren’t waiting 30-60 minutes for them, or ignoring them because they’re infrequent.

      5. My response was (unintentionally) posted above.

   2. Maximum speed only gets you so much when you’ve got a line with that many curves. To get the speed up, better equipment would be far more bang for the buck than dealing with grading new lines.

      When Amtrak demonstrated the turbotrain from Portland to Seattle in the 1970s, they were able to make the trip in under 3 hours. This includes the route around Point Defiance.

      That’s what a lightweight train able to fully take advantage of tilting technology could do, with no effort to eliminate existing curves.

      The only place 110 mph ability alone would really buy you that much is on the Portland to Eugene end, where there is mile upon mile of straight track through parts of the Willamette Valley.

10. More important than going faster, is reliably keeping on schedule. That said, increasing speed to an average of 75 mph would be good. Part of that increase would be loading platforms at intermediate stops to speed boarding and unboarding. Could those platforms be movable?

11. Gee. Look what they are doing elsewhere:

    https://www.seattletimes.com/business/from-sin-city-to-the-city-of-angels-building-starts-on-high-speed-rail-line/

    Sort of makes the plans for the Cascades look pathetic.

    1. Literally thousands of trips per day are made between the LA Basin and Lost Wages. The drive between Victorville at the summit of Cajon and LW is booooooooorrrring! (and moderately dangerous occasionally). Planes are getting more expensive by the day as airlines realize that they can get far more profit by running their existing fleet full — and even by turning away a few “customers” — rather than by buying more ill-assembled collections of parts from the Local Champion.

       So the comparison to Amtrak Cascades is moot.

12. I’ve been harping on this for decades. I’ve ridden Japan’s “bullet train” when it was 125 mph, and that’s plenty fast enough. I agree, we need to focus on improving the slowest segments and incrementally improve it overall. It’s been a few years since I’ve ridden the Cascades, but the section through Marysville being grade-separated would do wonders for all modes of traffic. The train also goes slowly through Everett and between there and Mukilteo. To the south, there was single-tracking just north of Longview that, if still there, could be improved by double-tracking. The other pokey area was surprisingly around Vancouver, where despite being high above the traffic below, the train poked along at 15 mph. BTW, a similar principle for BRT is to consolidate driveways, i.e., instead of 4 entry points, consolidate them to 2 or 1.

    1. No single-tracking anywhere these days, except maybe a short section for maintenance. There is only one usable platform at Kelso, though, so maybe that’s what you’re remembering.

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