Amtrak to restart Cascades trains from Vancouver to Seattle soon

Feb 15 2022, 9:50 pm

After being suspended for nearly two years, since the pandemic’s sudden onset in March 2020, Amtrak is now in the process of preparing a restart of its services reaching Vancouver.

The Amtrak Cascades trains are now in the process of making required regulatory test runs, according to a post on the dedicated Facebook page for the service.

“Amtrak crews are making re-qualification runs necessary to resume service north of Seattle. It’s an important step toward re-establishing train service later this spring,” reads the post. An exact date for the restart of service will be announced soon.

Since late 2021, Amtrak has been operating four daily buses in each direction between Vancouver and Seattle.

But with Canada-US border and travel restrictions now lifting, and the pandemic appearing to turn a real corner, there is renewed confidence in a restart of the high-capacity service with sustained demand.

The Cascades train corridor runs a distance of 752 km (467 miles) from Pacific Central Station at the edge of downtown Vancouver and ends at Eugene, Oregon, with a total of 18 stops including Bellingham, downtown Seattle, and downtown Portland.

The entire train journey from Vancouver to Eugene is about 10 hours and 30 minutes.

Each one-way trip between Vancouver and Seattle is just over three hours in optimal conditions, with this segment of the route running twice daily Cascades trains prior to the pandemic. The train service usually takes longer than driving due to its slow speeds at long sections, indirect route, and prioritization for freight trains. Fares were roughly US$40 each way from Vancouver to Seattle.

amtrak cascades train

The entire Amtrak Cascades corridor from Vancouver, BC to Eugene, Oregon. (Amtrak)

amtrak cascades train

Amtrak Cascades route segment from Vancouver, BC to Seattle, Washington. (Amtrak)

Based on statistics from the Washington State Department of Transportation, ridership on the entire Cascades route from Vancouver to Eugene steadily increased in recent years, with total annual ridership reaching 672,000 in 2015 to 753,000 in 2019.

In the year before the pandemic, about 193,000 passengers travelled on the segment between Vancouver and Seattle, 499,000 between the Seattle and Portland segment, and the remaining 61,000 travelled across both segments.

The segment from Vancouver to Bellingham saw its average capacity utilization grow from 44.9% of seats filled in 2015 to 48.6% in 2019. However, this capacity utilization rate was the lowest for any of the segments along the Cascades corridor, with the other 12 segments seeing rates of between 52.6% and 64.4% seats filled.

To attract more ridership through an improved passenger experience, Amtrak is planning to replace the existing fleet of three-decade-old Cascades passenger cars with a new fleet of 48 passenger cars with a modern design and ample creature-comfort amenities. The new trains are expected to go into service between 2025 and 2026.

Washington State is leading the effort of planning a high-speed rail service linking Vancouver, Seattle, and Portland. The state legislature is expected to approve an expenditure of as much as USD$150 million on advancing planning for the proposed service, which could offer all-day, frequent train services of one-hour trips from Metro Vancouver to Seattle. This state funding could be matched by hundreds of millions of dollars from US president Joe Biden’s recently approved infrastructure investment plan.

Highly preliminary estimates peg the project’s construction cost at US$24 billion to US$42 billion, based on completion by 2035. In its first year of operations, it could see 2.1 million riders — growing to 3.3 million annually by 2055.

Kenneth ChanKenneth Chan

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