All Things Cascades incl Vancouver

Woody wrote:So chill.

Wow... Already pulling out the punches? What'd I do to piss you off on Christmas? Forget to bring you a gold plated Lionel train?

Regardless, a number of P&W senior management folks have left the company and not under the best of terms. Current P&W/GWI management has made it clear it wants no more expansion of WES, for example (whereas a previous P&W President suggested if it could manage it on its own without TriMet, it could expand it to Forest Grove.) Another former P&W President suggested rebuilding the Westside Line from McMinnville to Forest Grove (for what purpose?), and another P&W President spent millions on rebuilding the Astoria Line after numerous washouts...just to see the line washed out again. And not a single revenue car of freight moved when the line was open. It's clear that past P&W senior management was far too ambitious with ideas that did not translate to money and they were replaced.

Woody wrote:two new Talgo trainsets and nearly a Billion in upgrades, two more daily frequencies will allow an early departure from Portland/Seattle that will get you to Seattle/Portland in time for a full day's work, with an evening return. Another thru train (no changing trains in Portland) from Central Oregon to northern Washington, or even Vancouver, B.C., is possible, as well. I'd hesitate to forecast results after that package of changes, except to say that Oregon ridership will rise. The Legislature could decide to stay with the program.

The train you speak of is required for the Portland-Eugene run, so if you want another train north you have to pull it from down south. Meanwhile, ODOT owns that set and doesn't exactly want to see $40 million in Oregon taxpayer funded subsidies be given away free of charge to the State of Washington. So unless you cancel the Eugene trains and convince WSDOT to buy the trains from Oregon...that's a no go.

Besides, Amtrak could easily run Portland-Seattle with just four trainsets, if it properly managed the route and eliminated the ridiculous boarding process, and got trains turned around within an hour, instead of watching millions of dollars of taxpayer investment sitting on a station track for hours on end. Boarding a train at Portland or Seattle makes flying a pleasure. (Whereas, I love to ride trains in California. You just wait for the train to show up and get on.)

Woody wrote:from Central Oregon"

From Bend? Through the Deschutes River Canyon? It'll take a whole day just to get to Wishram (since there's no way you'll get UP to allow the train on their track). With virtually no en-route passenger boardings.

Woody wrote:except to say that Oregon ridership will rise

It hasn't. Cascades ridership is down across the board. And the Oregon Legislature is facing a major budget shortfall. Cutting the Cascades subsidy is one that that will easily sail through the State Capitol without much objection, since it does not favor a majority of Senators and Representatives.

AgentSkelly wrote:P&W showed them potential routes for trains based upon common destinations between freight and tourism; It died as I understand after the jokes about the Lake County Limited came about. Personally, he said he would like to see P&W provide passenger services Portland-Astoria and then a short Corvallis shuttle.

There's no tourism in Toledo; it's a paper mill town. Newport is a good 10 miles or so to the west and has no rail, so you'd end up needing a bus, after a long four hour backwoods tour of the Coast Range. And M&E is non-existent.

Portland-Astoria didn't work out for tourism, and probably couldn't fill half a boxcar with M&E.

Corvallis shuttle...you'd have to get permission from the UP since the Amtrak station is on the UP main, and P&W already has problems having to sit and wait to cross the UP just to get between their two yards. It's not uncommon for a train to leave the SP yard...sit for an hour (while nothing goes by) before UP will let them cross. There's a reason P&W got the State to pay millions of dollars to build a new track off the Toledo Line to the Santiam Lead, so that P&W trains entering Albany could go to the OE yard without crossing or entering the UP.

There's already a bus that runs between Corvallis and Albany that takes about a half hour, connects the Albany Amtrak Station with LBCC, downtown Corvallis and OSU directly, plus a stop at Hewlett Packard's campus. The train might be faster Corvallis to Albany, but then you'd need a bus to get you to your final destination (which could possibly mean backtracking) that won't be time competitive.

And the bus is much cheaper to run.

Again, this is all from circa 1998-2001 when we all know things were different verses today. I'm only bringing it up because it was more of the werider ideas that came up from the "Network Growth Strategy"

I agree a train going to Todeo would be pointless; it stops 10 miles short of the Newport where your big tourism dollars are; even my acquaintance agreed that it would of been two hours too long. He has no idea why the people above him thought of that idea; unless there was something there that we can't see ha.

Corvallis I would like to see only because you have track that runs right thru OSU and a would be a handy stop for game day. Maybe not daily service but special event service would be nice. However, like mentioned, getting to switch from the Albany SP yard to P&W track is a pain, but its not a total show stopper. I suppose you could just even Bypass Albany station if your running out of Portland and cross over to OE in Salem.

As for Bend, you could always instead of going via Wishram, go from Eugene and cross the Cascades th

another through train to Vancouver would be good for everyone.
When do the new trains start, the end of the year?

wigwagfan wrote: It hasn't. Cascades ridership is down across the board. And the Oregon Legislature is facing a major budget shortfall. Cutting the Cascades subsidy is one that that will easily sail through the State Capitol without much objection, since it does not favor a majority of Senators and Representatives.

ridership is up on the cascades route this year

Look out for fast trains as Point Defiance Bypass tests begin

The action could begin this week as a Tacoma Rail locomotive pulling freight cars is to begin running up and down the line.

That train's job will be to stabilize the new tracks and ballast, Cunningham said.

After the stabilization efforts, other trains will test the signals at five at-grade crossings along the route.

Service should start in the fall.

Jan. 17--A new rail line ... designed to speed Amtrak service between Seattle and Portland is ready for testing.

The test trains will travel up to 79 miles per hour during February and March.

... officials hope the bypass will shave 10 minutes off the travel time between Seattle and Portland, make room for at least two more daily round-trips and improve reliability.

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Do you see what I see? ... hope to "make room for at least two more daily round-trips".

That's a big little "at least". LOL. Don't think I've ever seen that in print.

It's now 4 daily Cascades plus the Coast Starlight. We've been promised 2 more frequencies, to make 6 Cascades plus the Starlight. But if they can squeeze out *at least* one or two more slots, by all means. We'd all be happy to see 7 or 8 Cascades plus the Starlight.

No worries about more frequencies draining off riders from existing trains. Ultimately the idea is to make this corridor operate like mass transit.

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Don't know how I fouled up the formatting but I did. Sorry. -- Woody

Woody wrote:Ultimately the idea is to make this corridor operate like mass transit.

If I can just pick up a ticket at a fixed, known price, stand on the platform (even in Seattle or Portland), get on the train as soon as the doors open...two minutes later the train departs...that would drastically improve service in so many ways (ease of boarding, turnaround times, better equipment and crew utilization). No reason Amtrak has millions of dollars in equipment tied up sitting around in Eugene for half a day, or in Portland for half a day, when that equipment could be making money (or at least losing less money).

Meanwhile, the convoluted boarding process makes going through TSA seem like a cake walk. If Amtrak/WSDOT wants to insist on seat assignments, do that during the ticketing process - NOT another line to stand in before getting on the train. Surely the folks at IBM have come up with systems that can do that process rather efficiently. The European (and Californian) way of just being able to wait on the platform, board when the doors open, find a seat, and then two minutes later the train departs...is a far more welcoming and painfree travel experience.

Getting seat assignments at the same time the practice of "street faring" in the station far as I know, its unqiue to Amtrak operations in the NW.

As someone who started riding Amtrak in the Northeast, you never got an seat assignment on day trains, conductor would tell you where to board for certain destinations and thats it.; only trains you did were long distance ones and even then, your ticket was checked once the train left the station and you were at your seat.

But I have been told that the practice only started in 1997 with the start of the Cascades; previous Amtrak service did not have this...

Seating and rooms were assigned in parlor cars in parlor cars IIRC.

Also coach seats in all-reserved trains, such as the Pacemaker, Trail Blazer, and many southern trains--and this was in the days of diagrams, pencils, erasers, and rotary dials. Germany and many other European countries have handled complex reservations for decades.

ARROW, which is based upon the legendary IBM TPF system that every transportation carrier I think in the world uses some form of does have the ability to input seat assignments into the system, but as I was told by someone who works at American, it needs a 3rd party program to handle the management of seats, which were an addition in the late 80s-90s by most airlines. That makes sense as airlines until then still assigned seats at the gate with a chart....sound familiar?

I'd also be happy eliminating the practice of seat assignments altogether. The problem is, Portlanders are notoriously selfish and disregard polite instructions as far as where to sit, or for keeping the tables or group seats clear for groups who actually need four seats.

Maybe the Conductor can ONLY assign those seats, plus cars 3 and 4...everything else be open.

ANYTHING...has got to be better than the current process.

I liked the semi-open seating system used in the Northeast; on my old regular ride circa 2004-2006, the Maple Leaf, the first 3 cars after the Cafe were usually for those either going onto Toronto or getting off at Niagara Falls, NY; the rest of the train was for passengers getting off at intermediate points.

I have to wonder about these possibilities:

1. Switch cars 3 and 4 (the ADA accessible cars) ahead of the Table car, so that they are grouped together with the Business Class cars.

2. Move the "Conductor's Station" from the Table Car to Car 3.

This would open up two or three tables in the Table car for revenue passengers to improve customer satisfaction (right now it's nearly impossible to get a table unless you grab it at Portland or Seattle), and the ADA cars have quite a bit of extra space to put in a Conductor's Desk and a seat for the Talgo tech.

It would shorten the walk for Coach passengers by two cars to get from their car to the Bistro car, making it more convenient (and possibly generate more sales).

Finally...some rules for the Table car: 1. No more than 60 minutes in the car (UNLESS absolutely nobody is waiting and there are open tables for other riders). 2. You MUST have a meal purchased from the Bistro car for each patron. 3. Single passengers must use the seats in the Bistro car, not the tables.

The Bistro/Table car is a key selling point for this train, and it's quite frustrating to be seated in Car 9, to trundle up to the Bistro (with children in tow) to get a nice breakfast or dinner, only to find that the tables are occupied by people who aren't eating, and some tables are occupied by a party far less than the capacity of the table...and the train crew has two or three tables roped off for themselves.