This morning, Trains magazine reported Amtrak has removed the Horizon car fleet from all service indefinitely due to the discovery of severe corrosion on several cars. From Trains:

In a statement issued at 9 a.m. today (March 26, 2025), the [Amtrak] said, “We discovered corrosion in several Horizon railcars and, while working with the manufacturer, decided to remove the equipment from service after learning of additional areas of concern from intensive inspections of multiple cars. The removal of this equipment from service will affect services on several routes: Downeaster, Hiawatha, Borealis, and Amtrak Cascades. Some trains, such as the Downeaster, will operate with fewer cars, while other services will be provided substitute transportation until a long-term plan is developed.”

Amtrak Cascades operates six round-trips daily, with two trips from Portland to Vancouver, BC, two trips from Eugene to Seattle, and two from Portland to Seattle. Five of these trips were served by Horizon cars. The sixth trip is currently served by one of two Talgo Series 8 trainsets, with the second Talgo set out of service since it struck a fallen tree last November. Additional trips are provided by Amtrak “Thruway” buses.

With the Horizon cars out of service, rail forum chatter indicates the remaining trainset will continue to serve one round trip between Seattle and Eugene. Presumably, remaining Cascades service will be replaced by bus service with significantly reduced capacity.

Continue reading “Amtrak Cascades Service Severely Reduced” | 36 comments

45 days until the Downtown Redmond Link Extension opens on May 10.

Spring Service Change: Several transit agencies are updating service patterns this weekend. Metro is also restarting fare enforcement on March 31.

Local Transit & Streets:

• The King County Council is ordering Metro to improve tracking and reporting of “ghost buses” (The Urbanist)
• Sound Transit won $25M from the Biden administration to help cover Graham Street Station’s estimated $118M cost, but now the Trump administration is revising or cancelling grants awarded for projects which mention environmental justice, DEI, or climate change (The Urbanist)
• $125,000 grant from WA Traffic Safety Commission will fund education and enforcement but not engineering or reconstruction to reduce high-speed crashes on 140th/132nd Avenue SE corridor in Renton, Kent, Auburn (Kent Reporter)
• Sound Transit testing “wig wag” headlight pattern to increase train visibility and passenger safety on the 1 Line (Mass Transit Magazine). Also on Sound Transit’s Blog, The Platform.
• King County’s new Transit Safety and Security Task Force convened for the first time on Thursday, and as always, different people want different things (KUOW)
• Sound Transit staff recommend putting the Boeing Access Road infill station on East Marginal Way instead of near the Boeing Access Road crossing over I-5 and Sounder (The Urbanist)

Continue reading “Midweek Roundup: Wig Wag” | 69 comments

Yesterday, Sound Transit announced the Preferred Candidate for its next Chief Executive Officer, previously only identified as Candidate C, is none other than Dow Constantine. The Sound Transit Board of Directors will vote this Thursday, March 27, to confirm the appointment. Constantine, currently the elected Executive of King County, is expected to take over the position from Interim CEO Goran Sparrman sometime later this year. Sparrman, previously a Vice President of HNTB, was selected to be interim CEO after Julie Timm unexpectedly retired early last year.

The CEO search process began in earnest at the end of last year, but became mired in controversy after Dow Constantine’s candidacy was confirmed in February. Despite calls for transparency in the candidate review process, the Sound Transit Board’s Executive Committee continued the CEO selection process in secret, eventually recommending Constantine for the job of leading the state’s second-largest transportation agency.

What impact might Dow Constantine have on the future of Sound Transit? Let’s take a look at the past so we may glean the future.

Continue reading “Dow Constantine is Sound Transit’s “Preferred Candidate” for CEO” | 100 comments

Average Ridership Per Trip

The plots below show the average weekday ridership by stop in each direction, color-coded by time of day. For a more detailed breakdown of how the plots are set up, please refer to the How to Read the Plots section of the article discussing Route 70.

Continue reading “Ridership Patterns for King County Metro Route 62” | 34 comments

Munich is building a second downtown tunnel for its S-Bahn (regional rail) network, to open in 2035. Here’s a map and summary. Deutche Bahn chose to build it when ridership in the first tunnel reached 800,000 and trains were running every 2 minutes. The second tunnel has 5 stations instead of 10, at the same locations as the original stations, with the same station names except one name that’s slightly different. This will allow it to be more expressful than the first tunnel.

This is an open thread.

61 comments

As Sound Transit continues to grow the Link light rail system and works to establish a “state of better repair” for its existing infrastructure, more impacts to its critical trunks of transit service are expected. Ongoing and upcoming work expected to impact service includes replacement of rail clips at Wilburton Station, construction at the upcoming Pinehurst Station, and replacement of 600 feet of rail near International District/Chinatown Station.

Continue reading “Link Disruptions: Spring 2025” | 37 comments

Since this restructure was last covered on the Blog in February 2024, a few routes have been changed:

• Route 240: Now serves 112th Ave SE and East Main instead of running on 108th Ave SE.
• Route 249: This route has been converted to DART (Dial-a-ride-transit) with a new DART deviation area in Beaux Arts.
• Route 203: Weekday peak frequency changed from 20 minutes to 30 minutes.
• Route 215: Weekday peak frequency changed from 15/45 to 30/90 (frequency between Mercer Island and Issaquah/North Bend).
• Route 218: Weekday peak frequency changed from 15 minutes to 30 minutes.
• Route 223: Mid-day frequency improved from 30 minutes to 20 minutes.
• Route 251: Weekday daytime frequency changed from 30 minutes to 60 minutes. The start of weekend service was pushed back from 6am to 7am.
• Route 256: Weekday peak frequency changed from “12-30 minutes” to 30 minutes.
• Route 342: Now deleted.

For more information on how Metro used the feedback it received to adjust the above routes, please read Appendix B of the East Link Connections Equity Impact Review and Recommendation Development Report (page 595) that John F shared in a recent comment.

Continue reading “East Link Connections” | 96 comments

Countdown: 52 days until the Downtown Redmond Link Extension opens (May 10).

Local Transit & Streets:

• Fremont Bridge drawspan operator Jared Hickman says the job “has its ups and downs” (The Seattle Times, $)
• The Seattle Times ($) discusses ST’s confidential pick for its next CEO, and provides examples of other recent agency leadership hires conducted in secret. STB coverage here. Word on the street is “Candidate C” actually is Dow Constantine (Seattle Nice).
• Nearly 75% of King County Metro buses have ORCA readers on all doors, but all-door boarding is still limited to RapidRide routes and routes serving 3rd Avenue (The Urbanist). All-door boarding was supposed go systemwide last year, but is delayed.
• Early data shows Seattle halved pedestrian deaths and had zero bicycling deaths in 2024 (Seattle Bike Blog)
• HB 1837, which sets “ambitious” goals in WSDOT’s service plan for the Amtrack Cascades route, passed out of State House and is now under consideration by the Senate (The Urbanist).
• Seattle-area transit ridership keeps climbing, especially in Everett (The Seattle Times, $)
• As expected, Sound Transit has chosen the shifted-center-platform concept for the future Graham Street Station (The Urbanist)
• More mechanical issues hit the Link 1 Line on Monday (The Seattle Times, $)

Continue reading “Midweek Roundup: Ups and Downs” | 86 comments

Spring is in the air, and with it, changes in transit service across the Puget Sound region.

King County Metro (March 29)

The most substantive changes in Metro’s service change are reshuffling of Seattle Transit Measure funded service hours. There are also bus routes in Federal Way and Redmond moving into nearby light rail stations, and the usual miscellaneous changes.

Seattle Transit Measure service additions:

• Route 8 will see a handful of added trips on Saturdays, and Sunday frequency jumping from every 20 minutes to every 15.
• Route 36 will also get some added Saturday trips and a frequency boost on Sunday, going from 12 minutes to 10 minutes.
• Route 107 is set to gain the most, with 124 new weekend trips. Service on both Saturdays and Sundays will double during the day, going from 30 minute frequency to 15. About 6 trips are also added on weekdays.
• Route 124 will get 1 new trip on Saturdays and 2 new trips on Sundays.
• RapidRide G Line gets 2 new late night trips every day.
• RapidRide H Line gets 5 new trips on weekdays and 3 new trips on Saturdays and Sundays.

Continue reading “Spring 2025 Service Changes” | 60 comments