All Things Cascades incl Vancouver

Interesting thought; I personally never had any issue with getting a table in the Table car as a single rider; either I get my own table or I shared with other people. Now if I have my family with me, usually we get the seats in coach facing each other with the table and my wife just sends me up to get food to bring back.

I seem to remember that somewhere that crews are supposed to only rope off one table from the service standards publication...

I had no idea that Amtrak had a dedicated Cascades web-site: http://amtrakcascades.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In other news, two Chargers on their way: https://www.facebook.com/AmtrakCascades/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

WDOT has ordered eight (8) Charger locomotives. There's just seven (7) Cascades train sets.
Mt. Rainer purchased by Washington
Mt. Baker purchased by Washington
Mt. Olympus purchased by Amtrak
Mt. Hood purchased by Amtrak
Mt. Adams purchased by Washington, ex LA to LV demonstator
Mt. Bachelor purchased by Oregon with Talgo cab
Mt. Jefferson purchased by Oregon with Talgo cab.

When the new locomotives enter service, will they retire the F59PHI locomotives or the F40PH cabbage cabs?

The facebook page said that that retirement not been determined yet

New locomotive paint is just brutal... even the Illinois unit better matched the Talgos. That white will become gray pretty fast.

The challenge with the F59PHIs is that Amtrak owns them. There is some talk of keeping them as backups or to help speed up acceleration, but nothing concrete.
I'd much rather see the NPCUs go.

Retire any operational loco ? Very unlikely. However since the spare parts situation is a problem will be assigned somewhere to operate short distance trains near maintenance facility. Would free up a few P-42s. Maybe 4 ?

That is a beautiful locomotive! Then again I've always liked that Dark green, white, and brown livery

The large WSDOT "T" logo looks great (though I wish there was a larger "Amtrak Cascades" logo )

NorthWest wrote:New locomotive paint is just brutal... even the Illinois unit better matched the Talgos. That white will become gray pretty fast.

The challenge with the F59PHIs is that Amtrak owns them. There is some talk of keeping them as backups or to help speed up acceleration, but nothing concrete.
I'd much rather see the NPCUs go.

They're using the exact same colors on the new locomotives as the old locomotives and Talgo cars. Have their cream turned grey over the past 20 years? I don't think so.

The color itself doesn't change, but they get a nasty brown/grey coat of road grime that shows up pretty clearly on the white.
http://railpictures.net/photo/594125/
Making the entire sides that color isn't going to work very well. It would've been fine if they simply just used the same scheme the NPCUs/F59PHIs use.
It's interesting that the WSDOT logo is huge while the Amtrak logo has a grab iron through it. While Washington did pay for the units the service is still Amtrak Cascades.

Currently there are 7 sets and 5 F59s, so at least 2 P42s will be free. We'll see.

Why isn't there a Cascades that arrives in Seattle in time for the business day? Given the bad AM rush traffic, I would think there would be huge demand from supercommuters and occasional business trippers, just like there is on the Amtrak Virginia into WAS and on the Downeaster into BON.

Where the traffic is bad enough, trains can start as early as 5am as long as they get to "the downtown" by 9am (that is how Norfolk VA to DC works. The great thing about this is that it uses trainset that are likely parked in those wee hours, letting the operator squeeze an extra rotation out of the same fleet.

I seem to remember something about passenger surveys showed on the Seattle-Portland runs, there wasns't interest in early morning runs but people wanted later in the evening returns.

We probably need to wait for the two additional Cascades RTs to see if that is one schedule. The other problem is all the Sounder trains which are already causing some of the route from Tacoma - SEA having a third MT installed.

News coverage of the Chargers: Progressive Railroading

Siemens unveils first Charger locomotive for Washington DOT

Siemens has finished building its first Charger locomotive for the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), the company announced yesterday.

The new diesel-electric unit will be used for Amtrak's Cascades service that runs between Eugene, Ore., and Vancouver, British Columbia, Siemens officials said in an email.

WSDOT has ordered eight Charger locomotives from Siemens, which has been tapped to build the units for five other states.
...

Image source WADOT Twitter account:

electricron wrote:WDOT has ordered eight (8) Charger locomotives. There's just seven (7) Cascades train sets.
Mt. Rainer purchased by Washington
Mt. Baker purchased by Washington
Mt. Olympus purchased by Amtrak
Mt. Hood purchased by Amtrak
Mt. Adams purchased by Washington, ex LA to LV demonstator
Mt. Bachelor purchased by Oregon with Talgo cab
Mt. Jefferson purchased by Oregon with Talgo cab.

When the new locomotives enter service, will they retire the F59PHI locomotives or the F40PH cabbage cabs?

The F59's are toast both here and in AMTK California service, as Caltrans has also tapped its first-wave Charger options to displace the EMD fleet and their two Dash 8's from revenue service. WDOT has already stopped doing more than the bare-minimal maintenance on the EMD units, and a lot more P42's have been subbing on the Cascades as they let the F59's reliability slowly grind to dust.

The cabbages won't be replaced yet. The long-delayed bi-level coach order will send all Cali and Midwest NPCU's into storage...but the Downeaster still has to use them until the big single-level coach order delivers a new generation of cab car flats. So Beech Grove will still be fully maintaining the Downeaster and Cascades NPCU's and a couple spares until that East Coast order happens. It's quite likely that there'll be a cutoff date for continued F40 cabbage maintenance once those new East cabs are delivered and the F40 cabbages are down to just the Cascades as very last user. The cabbages are nearing rebuild age, and there's no way that'll price out anywhere close to affordable for just 4 or 5 units held over for the Cascades. Even robust ex-loco frames start developing metal fatigue after 40 years of day-in/day-out road service. Probably means 5-8 years from now WDOT will have to do a quick order of a few more of those weird-looking Talgo cabs to displace the NPCU's on the first-gen trainsets, but that won't be a big deal if cost gets rolled up in some scheduled light rehab contract for the trainsets.

Another mudslide this time around Pt Defiance. Cascades and Starlight cancelled SEA <> PDX for the normal 48 hours. Too bad bypass is not finished.
https://www.amtrak.com/servlet/ContentS ... 1649145097" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;