electricron wrote:gokeefe wrote:This is really big news. Thanks for passing it along!
Is it good news? It’ll be interesting to see if the ridership of the Oregon sections of the trains improves or not. I guess we’ll have to wait for the reports when they come in to know.
Yeah, if the early results look good, Oregon DOT will break out the segment from the Amtrak Cascades total and put out a release bragging about the progress being made. If the early figures are bad, they will probably delay releasing them until they get better, or until some mandated deadline, like next year's annual report. LOL.
Personally I'd say it's good news, because any 6 a.m. departure is torture for me; and I know I'm not alone. Taking a larger view, passengers who really absolutely must be in Salem or Eugene early will have to take the bus, or drive I guess. We hope those who choose to get up early to drive will be outnumbered by riders coming from Washington State, and by sleepyheads like me happy to take a later train.
But the Oregon DOT had to do something drastic. The Willamette Valley segment of the Cascades has been a money loser to the point that the state legislature has been threatening to pull the plug.
Oregon needs to keep going with the subsidy and start investing in passing sidings, double tracking, etc. to allow at least one more daily round trip, and invest still more to raise the speeds. It will be easier to get state funding for upgrades after the added frequencies Seattle-Portland are a big success, and the tweaked schedule on the Portland-Eugene segment is at least somewhat successful.