New trains begin serving passengers on Amtrak Cascades, reaching Vancouver | Daily Hive

Amtrak Cascades' new Siemens Venture/Airo train fleet, September 2026. (Washington State Department of Transportation)

The long-awaited new generation of Amtrak Cascades trains has officially begun carrying passengers in the Pacific Northwest.

The first new Siemens Venture trainsets entered regular passenger service last week, marking the beginning of a major fleet replacement for the interregional rail service linking Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, and other communities in between within Washington state and northern Oregon.

These initial new trains are being used on both the Vancouver-Seattle and Seattle-Portland segments of the Amtrak Cascades route.

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This milestone comes more than four months after the first of eight new trainsets dedicated to Amtrak Cascades arrived in Seattle in May 2026.

Since then, the very first trainsets of the new fleet have undergone extensive testing, inspections, and completed preparations for regular scheduled passenger service. As of Sept. 18, 2026, according to the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), the eighth and final trainset has left the Siemens factory in California and is out for testing on the East Coast of the United States.

Amtrak’s version of the Siemens Venture train is branded as the “Airo.” The new trains specifically for Amtrak Cascades are also a subvariant of the broader Airo model.

The Siemens Venture trains are also used by VIA Rail for its busy Windsor-Quebec City route and by Brightline Florida for its Miami-Orlando route.

Amtrak Cascades is the very first Amtrak route to benefit from the U.S.-wide network order of 73 new Airo trainsets from Siemens.

amtrak cascades airo siemens venture september 2026

Amtrak Cascades’ new Siemens Venture/Airo train fleet, September 2026. (Washington State Department of Transportation)

The fleet dedicated to this north-south Pacific Northwest route consists of eight new trainsets, two additional locomotives, and a spare cab car. More of the new trains will gradually enter passenger service as they complete final testing and receive approval.

Each train can accommodate more than 300 seated passengers and features larger windows, upgraded seating, additional table seating, electrical outlets and USB ports, free Wi-Fi, digital information displays, and a redesigned cafe car. The trains are also designed to be more fuel-efficient and produce fewer emissions than the old fleet they replace.

The new trains retain Amtrak Cascades’ distinctive evergreen, cream, and mocha colour scheme, complemented by graphics inspired by the Cascade Range.

Amtrak Cascades serves 18 stations, with its northernmost terminus north of the Canada-U.S. border at Pacific Central Station near Downtown Vancouver. It also has a station serving the “other” Vancouver in southern Washington state.

Currently, during optimal conditions, the entire Amtrak Cascades train journey between Pacific Central Station and Eugene is about 10 hours and 30 minutes, including about four hours for the segment between Pacific Central Station and Downtown Seattle’s King Street Station.

Typically, there are 12 daily trains (six roundtrips) between Seattle and Portland, and four cross-border daily trains (two roundtrips) between Vancouver and Seattle. Some trains travel direct between Vancouver, B.C. and Portland.

It should be emphasized that the new trains will neither increase service speeds nor reduce travel times, but they will provide greatly improved reliability and significantly enhanced passenger comfort compared to the previous old trains.

Amtrak Cascades’ new Siemens Venture/Airo train fleet, September 2026. (Washington State Department of Transportation)

Amtrak Cascades’ new Siemens Venture/Airo train fleet, September 2026. (Amtrak)

Slight ridership decrease in 2025

For years, there has been a critical need to prioritize Amtrak Cascades’ fleet replacement, made even more evident by the sudden decision and resulting service impacts in March 2025 to pull the entire fleet of aging Horizon cars out of service due to their poor and unsafe condition. Within days, Amtrak restored services by deploying a temporary replacement fleet of Amfleet I trains that typically operate on the Empire Builder route from Chicago, but this reduced Amtrak Cascades’ passenger capacity by 20 per cent.

According to WSDOT’s report for Amtrak Cascades’ 2025 annual ridership, the service saw a total of 916,000 riders last year, representing an eight per cent drop from the all-time historic record of 993,000 in 2024. But this was still the service’s second-highest annual ridership ever.

The ridership decrease was partly due to the lower capacity from the interim replacements used for the remainder of the year following the suspension of the entire Horizon train fleet.

Moreover, 184,000 riders travelled between the Vancouver, B.C. and Seattle segment, with 149,000 boardings/exits recorded at Pacific Central Station — behind 556,000 at Seattle and 431,000 in Portland, but ahead of Vancouver, Washington’s 122,000.

Overall, 58 per cent of Amtrak Cascades riders travelled within the Seattle-Portland segment, and 20 per cent within the Vancouver, B.C.-Seattle segment. There was also a specific year-over-year drop in passenger miles for the Vancouver, B.C.-Seattle segment in 2025.

VIA Rail’s Pacific Central Station, Vancouver. (Kenneth Chan)

VIA Rail’s Pacific Central Station, Vancouver. (Kenneth Chan)

The Vancouver, B.C.-Seattle segmented pulled in US$7.2 million in fare revenue in 2025, which is just behind the US$12.6 million from the Seattle-Portland segment. Total fare revenue on Amtrak Cascades in 2025 reached US$39.5 million, which means the service had a 54.5 per cent farebox recovery rate compared to its US$72.4-million annual operating cost.

Over the long term, ridership growth on the Amtrak Cascades route could help improve the business case for Washington state government’s proposed high-speed rail service linking Vancouver, Seattle, and Portland.

Vancouver’s Amtrak Cascades station is now the first passenger rail station in North America to offer full U.S. preclearance

Just before the start of FIFA World Cup, on June 8, 2026, Pacific Central Station became the first passenger rail station in North America to offer full U.S. preclearance, streamlining cross-border travel for southbound Amtrak Cascades passengers. Travellers now complete the required U.S. customs and immigration process in Canada — before boarding in Vancouver.

Previously, passengers underwent an initial inspection at Pacific Central Station before facing a second U.S. Customs and Border Protection inspection when the train stopped in Blaine, Washington. Eliminating the Blaine stop and inspection cuts at least 10 minutes from the schedule.

The change followed years of planning and upgrades to Pacific Central Station to accommodate expanded inspection and security requirements.