All Things Cascades incl Vancouver

a quick google maps look says that a Milwaukee routing Mt. Vernon-Bellingham-Sumas-Mission-Waterfront *adds* two and a half miles over the NP routing by way of Sedro-Woolley

Well, I like the discussion looking more towards "how can we speed things up" rather than "where can we truncate the train at."

Some of the ideas for new/different routes into Vancouver are interesting, although likely very expensive (on that score, the exNP route looks rather twisty north of Sedro Wooley and there was clearly something about the NP route that made it non-competitive with GN). And any such proposal would take some fairly long period of time to implement.

Is there any low hanging fruit that can be harvested quickly and rather cheaply to speed things up in the near term? Once there is full preclearance, the custom stop at Blaine can be eliminated, saving some number of minutes. But are there other quick/cheap fixes?

The NP line is probably a non-starter as you lose easy access to Bellingham. The line also isn't up to passenger speeds and it has a far worse profile.
The ex-MILW is probably gone forever, as the City of Bellingham is trying to develop it into a trail and stream relocation.
I think that a White Rock bypass makes the most sense.

I would imagine that the lowest hanging fruit on the current route are adding more crossovers, sidings, and multitracking to take some of the pad out of the schedule, powerswitches to get in and out of False Creek Flats, and bumping the speed limits up

It's amazing to me the number of places with scheduled passenger service that still don't have power switches (some were never powered, others were downgraded to hand-thrown). I also seem to remember several stories about pedestrians being struck by trains in White Rock. I assume the city would resist speed increase--which would argue for the White Rock by-pass in the longer-term.

On the subject of longer-term fixes, having done some reading and looking at maps, I think Mr. Dawe's suggestion of moving the terminus to the Waterfront (exCP) Station has a lot of merit. While it would decouple trains and intercity buses, how much of a loss would that be here--how many Cascade riders transfer to/from intercity buses at Vancouver? And there are, as noted above, great transit and ferry connections. If the Cascades left Pacific Central, might VIA return the Canadian to its original terminus?

Amtrak does have Thruway connections to Pemberton, Nanaimo, and Victoria via PCH, which do come out of Pacific Central. Their own bus service that goes to Seattle is using carrier Cantrails which just boards at the front of Pacific Central. Not sure on the numbers Amtrak does on the PCH Thruway service.

However, I do like the idea of using Waterfront Station; like I mentioned before, its right next to Canada Place which was both CBSA and US CBP service and could real easily provide inspection service at Waterfront.

Station Aficionado wrote:
Is there any low hanging fruit that can be harvested quickly and rather cheaply to speed things up in the near term?

Scrap what I said earlier. The lowest hanging fruit might just be figuring out how not to have CN dispatch multiple freight trains just in time to block Amtrak from leaving.

Every time I'm out for an evening bikeride near the railway around the time of the departure from Vancouver, it seems like there's one or two freight trains to or from North Vancouver that have shown up just perfectly in time and arranged themselves just so that the Cascades have to sit and wait and crawl around as some string of empty grain cars can have the right of way

I'll be taking the 516 from Vancouver to Vancouver (ha) this Sunday...I'll make sure to note anything of interest here.

Also, apparently, the WSDOT will start testing the Siemens Chargers with select Cascades trains per the other thread.

I'd love to know if there was one heading up to Vancouver

I'll be looking for them here as well. Will be sad to see the F59PHIs go, even if the crews don't like them anymore.

I would think the WSDOT testing of the chargers would not allow "international" service unless Seimens allows it.

VIA would have to sign off on them as it goes in their yard in Vancouver....

bdawe wrote:a quick google maps look says that a Milwaukee routing Mt. Vernon-Bellingham-Sumas-Mission-Waterfront *adds* two and a half miles over the NP routing by way of Sedro-Woolley

Wouldn't that route encounter a particularly busy segment of track crossing the Fraser River between Matsqui and Mission? This is beginning/end of directional running through the Fraser Canyon with lots of transcontinental traffic. CN crossing over to run east on CP and the CP traffic that's come west on CN....... heading over to the Cascade Sub to continue into Vancouver. Although the Cascade Sub is double track.....it's still quite busy from Mission into Waterfront Station with CP intermodal and the West Coast Express.

On a per capita basis.....VIA carries about the same number of passengers per year as does Amtrak.
(Canada’s population is slightly more than 1/10th that of the United States)

In 2015
VIA: 3.8 million passengers (Canada’s population: 36 million)
Amtrak: 31 million passengers (US population: 321 million)

And there is no need for VIA to run an extensive network of long distance trains as most of Canada’s population is located within a few hundred miles of the US border and most of that in VIA’s Ontario-Quebec Corridor where they do operate a fairly extensive network of trains.

Sure they could be operating an intercity service across the prairies but what they do operate now is certainly not a joke. A daily Canadian is not going to get a Edmonton or Calgary passenger off the plane for a 3 day train trip vs: 3 hr flight to Toronto! And in the Maritimes.....VIA is currently negotiating with CN to add trains between Moncton, Campbellton and Halifax......and there is also a proposed Halifax commuter service that VIA has approached the city about operating.

And perhaps VIA should give up on their portion of the Maple Leaf. When GO started Niagara Falls..... passengers abandoned VIA not the other way around! Sure there are some that continued to ride VIA for the convenience of the one seat ride but with the GO bus from NF to Burlington now....connecting to the GO Train to Toronto (plus the summer weekend train service) many deserted VIA for the more frequent and cheaper GO service and now GO will be expanding this to an all-day train service over the next several years.

At Pacific Central, Amtrak uses VIA for Ticketing/Baggage and for the Cascades in the station. RIght next door is VIA's Vancouver Maintence Facility, where Amtrak has time to time done repairs and maintenance of the Cascades locomotives and even some Talgo work. It would be kind of hard to replace all those services in one spot in Vancouver but could be done between several contractors and facilites, which at that point, you might as well build that Scott Road station....

With that said, I asked of the Seattle engineers about the Charger showing up on the International runs and he said it would probably show up on the 510 and 517 for final evaluation so it does a quick turn that day. He said VIA could care less on what ever locomotive they put in the caged area on the platform, but their VMC team will want to look at it to see if they COULD work on it if necessary in their shops.