The Seattle Times ($), Trains Magazine, and The Urbanist are reporting that Amtrak is rearranging cars from its national fleet to restore service to Amtrak Cascades over the course of this week. This is in response to Amtrak’s sudden recall of Horizon rail cars nationwide last week which severely impacted Cascades service.
Amtrak is ferrying Amfleet railcars to the PNW via the Empire Builder route right now, with train service to Vancouver, B.C., expected to return for one of two schedule round-trips as of today. Videos of Amfleet cars on Empire Builder trains have been rolling online over the last day or two. Additional service will be restored as more cars arrive with each daily run of the Empire Builder train this week.
WSDOT posted this temporary banner on the Amtrak Cascades website yesterday:
Replacement trains arriving soon:
Several train cars are on their to Seattle to replace the Horizon trainsets unexpectedly taken out of Amtrak Cascades service on March 26 due to corrosion issues. Some train cars have already arrived, while others are on their way. They are being transported as part of Amtrak’s long-distance train, the Empire Builder, from Chicago.
The first Amtrak Cascades trains that will be back in service are Train 516 and Train 519 between Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia. These trains are expected to resume on Tuesday, April 1.
As additional train cars arrive over the next week, they will quickly be entered into service, with trains replacing the buses that are currently running. The goal is to quickly restore all trips, but with a limited number of cars on each train. Therefore, most trains will have fewer seats available, providing just two coach cars, 17 business class seats and a Café car. In some cases, this could result in the availability of just half the number of coach seats as normal. It is uncertain how long this limited seating will remain in place. For future travel plans, book your travel in advance due to limited seating options until our routes are fully operational.
Actually impressed that Amtrak is doing this, and relatively quickly. Will this eventually restore us to full service? I’m hoping the new Aero train sets can get here soon and they’re able to expedite testing/validation.
I believe the expectation is to return train service to all scheduled runs by the end of the week, but the trains will be shorter (have fewer seats) than before.
Will be about 2-3 weeks for full restoration roughly and should have about 30ish cars on site. Cars are coming up on the Flordian, Lake Shore Limited, and the Flordian and come over on the Empire Builder. They are limited to horsepower/available locomotives. They could shoot everything over in one go but they don’t have the spare locomotives to do that.
Thanks for the details, Brian!
Yes, thank you, Brian. I figured that the Builder must be limited to fourteen cars over Marias Pass, because the Seattle section pictured had ten including the Amfleets and Portland gets four.
What does this mean for Amtrak service on the Northeast Corridor and other routes? I hope these cars were spares so this isn’t hurting service there?
These are primarily stored Amfleet I cars. Some will come off certain NEC trains but not a lot.
The Amtrak Cascades railcar mess has been a reminder of the value of the Skagit Transit and WTA County Connector buses north of Everett (Routes 80X and 90X) when there are Amtrak Cascades disruptions and the replacement bus service doesn’t work out as planned. Amtrak notified me very late in the game that the replacement bus that was supposed to take me from Bellingham to Seattle was oversold.
Sure, the County Connector buses are somewhat slower and have a few extra stops, but the Skagit Transit buses have very comfortable seats, the buses generally aren’t crowded and the bus transfers are well timed. With the 80X and 90X, plus ST Express Route 512 and the Link 1 Line, I made it from Bellingham Station to U District Station in a little under 3 hours. Not so bad.
As someone who took the bus bridge over the weekend and had to reschedule my return trip onto the Coast Starlight, I’m glad this is happening. The bus bridge experience was rough and painfully slow, as I mentioned previously. The much slower service wasn’t sustainable given demand for the Cascades train service.
I’ve never been on the AmFleet. Is the ride better or worse than on the Horizon cars?
A bit better, but the seats are generally very 1970’s, if you get my drift.
The Amfleets do show up in the northwest from time to time. Before the Cascades they were used on the Pacific International and Mt Rainier trains here. I’ve not been on one either, but they used to be a mainstay on things like the San Diegans and some of the other California routes before the advent of the specialized California fleet.
Only 104 total Horizon cars were built. There seem to be around 570 Amfleets still around. The bigger the fleet, the easier they are to take care of.
Also, Horizon was based on a commuter car design, so the car type wasn’t necessarily supposed to have that good a ride. Amfleets were based on the Metroliner, when there was serious discussion of 150 mph service in the northeast. So, they should be much better because the basic design was designed to be comfortable at much higher speed.
And Amfleet cars are routinely used at 125 mph on the Northeast Regional and Keystone today.
Excellent news
Really a pretty good response by Amtrak. A reminder of the dedication to day to day operations by the professionals in an underfunded organization being maligned and attacked in our current coup of miss information.
Good point. It isn’t just the propaganda. There are real changes hurting various public organizations. Reminds me of this: https://www.seattletimes.com/comics-universal/?amu=/doonesbury/2025/03/16
Good one. Although I am a fan of the Minions! The toons that is.
Will the replacement cars still carry bikes?
The passenger cars didn’t.
Checked luggage and bicycles are carried in the cab car.