All Things Cascades incl Vancouver

Amtrak reporting SEA <> Vancouver BC servicee cancelled due to damage to Frasier river bridge damage. Leaves a train set stranded d in Vancouver

Amtrak Cascades: Upgrade vs. High Speed Rail: Seattle Times

Upgrade Amtrak Cascades or build high-speed rail? The choice is clear

There are two visions for future passenger rail in Washington: Cascadia High Speed Rail and Amtrak Cascades. Because they run at different speeds, the cost, infrastructure and land requirements are vastly different. We oppose the proposed HSR plan and recommend Amtrak Cascades as a wiser use of land.

British Columbia, Washington and Oregon signed an agreement to build ultra high-speed rail to run at speeds of 220 miles per hour or more from Vancouver, B.C., to Portland.

The high-speed rail proposal would be costly, chiefly in infrastructure and land requirements. An independent consultant summary and full final report to the Washington Legislature’s Joint Transportation Committee details the approach’s complexity, decades-long timeline and cost — likely up to $150 billion. Land requirements are vast: 220 miles of straight level right of way and 90 miles of tunnels under cities. To achieve high speed, only three stops are indicated. There are no published stations or routes. The track would need a strip of land the area of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport — about 3,000 acres — and take decades, not years to build, as is occurring in California.
...
The Washington State Department of Transportation’s new Amtrak Cascades Service Development Plan has five options. None will achieve reliable 2.5-hour trip times without new infrastructure investments. Among them: Point Defiance Bypass curve revision, where speeds are now limited to 30 mph, a new fast-rail bridge over the Nisqually River for both Amtrak and Sound Transit trains, a 110-mph third track between Lacey and Centralia, and more.
...

Brightline suddenly increases traffic Orlando <> West Palm beach & south over Amtrak failures to attract those passengers. That IMO proves just getting HrSR and not HSR. So why not just improve present tracks and the customers probably will come?

west point wrote: ↑Wed Nov 29, 2023 9:23 am Brightline suddenly increases traffic Orlando <> West Palm beach & south over Amtrak failures to attract those passengers. That IMO proves just getting HrSR and not HSR. So why not just improve present tracks and the customers probably will come?

Exactly. Maybe have provisions for stretches to be HSR, later, but having large stretches over the Doc Brown speed is enough, if the service is good and frequent enough.

I'm assuming the highest cost introducing either HSR or HrSR in Washington would be property acquisition, and the difference in those costs for the two probably won't be that different, so it may make sense to just buy the property for HSR.

https://wsdot.wa.gov/about/news/2023/am ... cQGQfsm1Vo

Having a later train out of Seattle is a nice addition, as well as a few other adjustments. I feel like the Seattle to Vancouver BC pairings are timed a bit better as well.

There are some good improvements in the new schedule for me. I live in Seattle and I used to ride Amtrak frequently to PDX and occasionally to Bellingham. I wish this schedule had been in effect when I was traveling frequently.

• Two more roundtrips between Seattle and Portland with better timed options. For me, the 552am southbound departure from SEA would be kind of an "oof", but the 708am departure will still arrive early enough in Portland. The new 555pm northbound departure from PDX is a perfect time for returning home to Seattle. The 725pm northbound train from PDX has always been subject to delays because it originates in EUG, so I often fly back to SEA instead of risking a late train and arriving home at 1230am.
• The revised SEA<>VAC times might reduce the number of people making a daytrip to Vancouver, but I don't think that number was very large.
• I don't think very many people in EUG are going to regret moving the 530am northbound departure to 745am, either. Maybe some riders in Salem will be inconvenienced by the later arrival time in PDX, but the train still continues to SEA.

I have 2 trips booked in December using the old schedule, so I'll have to revise my plans soon.

The Washington State Department of Transportation’s new Amtrak Cascades Service Development Plan has five options. None will achieve reliable 2.5-hour trip times without new infrastructure investments. Among them: Point Defiance Bypass curve revision, where speeds are now limited to 30 mph, a new fast-rail bridge over the Nisqually River for both Amtrak and Sound Transit trains, a 110-mph third track between Lacey and Centralia, and more.

A reliable and frequent schedule with trip times around 3 hours will draw plenty of people from their cars. The drive time on I-5 is steadily increasing and if Amtrak can offer a reliable 3-hour trip between Seattle and Portland, the train will be popular. The infrastructure improvements needed for 3-hour trips would also benefit Sound Transit and BNSF while HSR 220 would take a lifetime to build and cost a fortune.

It's 157 rail miles between Vancouver BC and Seattle WA. taking a full 4 hours to travel between these two cities. That's averaging 39.25 mph.
Math = 157 / 4 = 39.25 mph
Amtrak's bus service takes just 3 hours per its own schedule, averaging 52.33 mph.
Math = 157 / 3 = 52.33 mph
Believe it or not, the bus gets you there an hour faster with an average speed 13 mph faster.

If eliminating slow tracks and adding higher max speeds third track only achieves a 3 hour elapse time as a goal, why not save billions of dollars and just repave 1-5 sooner? Then everyone wins, Drivers and riders.

Service to Vancouver, BC is always going to be problematic. Between Seattle King Street Station and Bellingham, the train averages almost 45 mph. That's not great, but it's not where the worst slowdowns are located. The train's average speed from Bellingham to Vancouver is less than 33 mph. Even allowing for the border stop, the slowest sections of track are between the border and the station in Vancouver. It's a frustratingly slow trip north of the border. The track speeds are low and there's always a delay trying to cross the Fraser River. But Amtrak isn't going to pay for a new bridge across the Fraser River and there isn't any plan that I know of to upgrade the tracks in BC, so the trip to Vancouver will continue to be slow.

Amtrak's new schedule, effective 12.11, shows buses between Seattle and Vancouver BC taking 3.5 hours. The point that the trip between Seattle and BC is maddingly slow is still valid, but it isn't the condition of the pavement on I-5 that is the problem. Any significant project to increase lanes or capacity on I-5 is going to be much more costly than upgrading the Cascade's infrastructure.

Puget Sound is likely amongst the most scenic waterways anywhere in North America - and the existing GN/BNSF route enables passengers (or at least those seated Fireman Northward; E; S) to enjoy these views.

By contrast, the 5, which I have driven while I was with the MILW but not since, is a scenic "blah", and as Mr. Vincent notes, becomes more a rolling parking lot with every passing day. He has also noted the Sea-Van BC travel time of 3 hours vs. 4.5 on a Cascade.

But WSDOT needs to recognize that 21st passenger rail is not about scenic excursions. While of course the TEV Princess Marguerite II is long gone (was THAT ever an experience - especially her First Class), Apparently, there are catamaran vessels with one class of service offering rather spartan (especially when compared with the CP operated Princess) on-board "amenities". So for those who yearn to see the water, they have options should WSDOT "start excavating" roundly along the 5, with the goal of providing transportation (maybe even with on-board border protection agents such as there were when I first traveled X-Border during '56).

Vincent wrote: ↑Fri Dec 01, 2023 11:38 pmAny significant project to increase lanes or capacity on I-5 is going to be much more costly than upgrading the Cascade's infrastructure.

What the Cascadia Rail proponents fail to point out is that spending money on I-5 will improve conditions not just for people travelling from, say, Vancouver/Seattle/Portland, but all the people who have to use I-5 to travel to those towns Amtrak skips by at 79 MPH; to people who use I-5 to complete west-east connections that Amtrak physically cannot do; to travel to suburban communities (yes, believe it or not, the majority of people do not travel city center to city center); not to mention freight.

The $45 to $120 Billion or more spent on high speed rail will serve literally 1% of the travellers in the corridor, and absolutely zero freight movement. And worse - we'll STIILL have to spend the money on I-5. Even if we run 12 trips per direction a day with trainsets that carry 500 people each (which is far more than the current Amtrains), that's a maximum of 6000 seats per direction per day. Parts of I-5 today carry over 274,000 vehicles per day. Even if you assume the train is at 100% load factor and the cars only carrying one person each (both assumptions we know are wrong but in order to benefit the train and disadvantage the car mode shares) - you still only have 2.2% mode share by train. And I-5 could achieve higher throughput simply by people adjusting their travel times. Trains? Not so easy.

west point wrote: ↑Wed Nov 29, 2023 9:23 am Brightline suddenly increases traffic Orlando <> West Palm beach & south over Amtrak failures to attract those passengers. That IMO proves just getting HrSR and not HSR. So why not just improve present tracks and the customers probably will come?

You have a part of the equation right, but there is more to it than just HrSR.

From what I understand, travel patterns south of Portland, PDX-SEA, and SEA-VAN are radically different. But we try to serve those radically different patterns with through trains (one from LA!) that were until recently fixed consist. If I I were searching for success in the PNW, I'd have three different routes - Eugene-PDX, PDX-SEA, SEA-VAN with departures and consist optimized for those routes.

I'd also have a lot more backbone to the Oregon/Washington agencies that run the service, with crew training and procedure reflecting local management rather than the indifferent management at the far end of the country. Brightline doesn't contract out operation to Amtrak despite having hubs in MIA and Sanford for a reason. They don't want them.

Same thing for equipment. 30yo Horizon cars are not my idea of banner equipment. Said bi-state agency had a good thing with locally-branded Talgo cars with big windows and ample business class seating that reflected a much better premium offering than just the "quiet" end of the Amfleet cafe, which is rarely quiet. Again Brightline could've bought a bunch of used gallery cars, geeps, etc... and painted them yellow but they didnt for a reason. They didn't want a third-rate commuter train, they wanted a premium offering in a densely populated area.

There are a lot of good lessons to be learned from Brightline and a few other independent operations.

Eric and Tad,

60 odd years ago, the NP-UP joint service ran no fewer than five round trips daily Portland to Seattle. Amtrak, Brightline, or a consortium would need to do some things to drag cars off I-5 and put passengers on trains…

1) on hand Ubers. Most passengers need to get someplace else after the station.
2) High bandwidth secure Wi-Fi.
3) Quality food and beverage service.
4) Most importantly, a vector of advance faster than I-5.

Point is this. A driver can suffer the trip on I-5, or an alternate mode can offer excellent added value.

John_Perkowski wrote: ↑Tue Dec 26, 2023 9:38 am Eric and Tad,

60 odd years ago, the NP-UP joint service ran no fewer than five round trips daily Portland to Seattle. Amtrak, Brightline, or a consortium would need to do some things to drag cars off I-5 and put passengers on trains…

1) on hand Ubers. Most passengers need to get someplace else after the station.
2) High bandwidth secure Wi-Fi.
3) Quality food and beverage service.
4) Most importantly, a vector of advance faster than I-5.

Point is this. A driver can suffer the trip on I-5, or an alternate mode can offer excellent added value.

Agree with all but the speed issue. We once had a discussion in these parts about the difference between windshield time and train time. I can handle a 30pct+ longer train ride if I can read or work on a laptop. I get nothing done in my car other than talking on the phone.

The "work on a laptop" means your point about the wifi is well made. Also, a premium speed wifi for paid upgrade might be a good idea on public transport.