Hey people in Washington State, have you written to WSDOT to ask them to revise their Amtrak Cascades long term plans to include faster travel times? Comments close on April 18, so please write now!
@alan And for Bellingham, Alternative E isn't much of an improvement on Alternatives C & D. Instead of all trains starting/ending in Vancouver, B.C. as envisioned with Alternative E, I think it's in Bellingham's interest to have a few train trips start/end here, so they avoid some of the previously mentioned rail corridor issues in Canada, particularly at the Fraser River Bridge. We need more reliable southbound trains!
@alan Also, the Seattle-Vancouver, B.C. corridor is hamstrung by the slow, frustrating single-track chokepoint crossing the Snohomish River Delta near Everett, but the WSDOT Amtrak Cascades Service Development Plan doesn't address that.
@alan Lolz. ... Beyond the medicore top speeds others have been stressing, for Bellingham and Whatcom County, I worry that a lack of rail corridor improvements in British Columbia will continue to hamper the reliability of southbound trains south of the U.S.-Canada border, despite the increased number of roundtrips and limited track improvements at Custer, Ferndale, South Bellingham and the BNSF Delta Yard in Everett. ...
@alan I wrote and just submitted an approximately 1,700-word assessment of the Amtrak Cascades Service Development Plan Preliminary Alternatives, specifically on Bellingham and Whatcom County impacts.
@alan While I realize expanding rail capacity between Ballard and Everett and Bellingham and Blanchard is challenging due to topography, the lack of track improvements across the Skagit Valley, where trains could hit top allowable speeds, is disappointing. That means Bellingham gets stuck with sluggish service on slow tracks.
@alan For Bellingham and Whatcom County, Preliminary Alternative A is mediocre with 2 train roundtrips replacing the 2 existing bus connections. The trip frequency to/from Bellingham and Seattle is, essentially, a wash.
Alternative B is a bit better with 5 roundtrips serving Bellingham-Seattle. Alternatives C & D are a bit better with 6 roundtrips serving Bellingham-Seattle.
Sure it's unfortunate that we even need buses to complete some of the scheduled service for #AmtrakCascades, but this is pretty cool:
"Amtrak and WSDOT unveiled their first electric bus Wednesday that will transport travelers for a portion of the Amtrak Cascades route. The bus will provide transportation between Seattle and Bellingham with stops in Everett and Mount Vernon and can make the nearly 200-mile roundtrip on a single charge."
"It was 30 years ago today (no joke!) that WSDOT and Amtrak started a single daily train between Seattle and Portland. It was the start of the Amtrak Cascades legacy. Thank you for riding with us!"
The Washington State Department of Transportation (#WSDOT) released a Preliminary Service Development Plan (SDP) for #AmtrakCascades, a step towards creating a blueprint for improving the route over the next twenty years.
Check out these preliminary alternative service diagrams!
While this is not true #HighSpeedRail, these are very important incremental improvements to speed & frequency that will make a big difference in the near term.
The #AmtrakCascades 🇺🇸 #Talgo8 comes with a @diningcar and a kitchen/bar car called #Bistro. #Talgo cars are comparatively short, hence the accommodation of the bar/kitchen area and the dining room in adjacent cars. The latter one also serves as the business class lounge.
The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) co-funds the Amtrak Cascades intercity
passenger rail service with the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT).
Ridership during the first quarter of 2024 was resilient, ending with an impressive March,
which posted the highest ridership of any month since the 1994 inception of the Amtrak
Cascades in Oregon with 14,263 riders. https://www.oregon.gov/odot/About/GR/2024_Q1_Passenger_Rail_Report.pdf#AmtrakCascades#PassengerRail#oregon#WashingtonState
While Amtrak train service is suspended between Seattle and Portland due to mudslides, trains are running north of Seattle to/from British Columbia.
The conductor on my train north to Bellingham said there will be speed restrictions through various flood zones. I trust that the tracks are above the flood waters!
I've been catching up on holiday card writing and for friends in West Seattle, drew them a map for how to get from their house to our new place in Bellingham via the West Seattle Water Taxi and Amtrak Cascades.
“Bring the winter charm of Amtrak Cascades to your home!
Our exclusive Winter Posters are now available for download as desktop wallpapers, mobile backgrounds, and full-size print posters at amtrakoregon.com. Get yours today!” #AmtrakCascades#AmtrakPoster
MTR Western, which operates the Amtrak Cascades bus connection between Bellingham and Seattle, will soon be adding a 2nd all-electric battery bus to the route (according to the bus operator doing his intro remarks for the trip south). The first such bus was introduced last year: https://mtrwestern.com/sustainability/mtrwestern-launches-first-intercity-electric-bus/
While more Amtrak Cascades rail service to/from Bellingham would be nice, these all-electric buses are pretty great.
So, the Bellville ferry terminal in #VictoriaBC is being upgraded to have US CBP preclearance for the Coho (to Port Angeles) and the Clipper (to Seattle) but what would be awesome would be a passenger ferry to #BellinghamWa's Fairhaven terminal, which is right next to the #AmtrakCascades train station. Especially if it had code share and checked baggage going straight between the ferry and the train.
Reading this Cascadia Daily News article about the general lack of tech startup infrastructure in and around Bellingham makes me think: If Cascadia High Speed Rail were already developed (or in the very least, better Amtrak Cascades service between Seattle and Vancouver, B.C. existed), Bellingham would be especially well connected to those nearby tech orbits.
🚨 Action alert! 🚨 #HighSpeedRail is still a long ways away, & we need more ambitious #rail improvements in the meantime. Unfortunately, the goals set out in the latest #AmtrakCascades long term plan are moving backward not forward.