Washington "High Speed Rail" Work to start this fall

Looks like the Cascades will be seeing faster and service:
http://blog.seattlepi.com/transportatio ... this-fall/

WSDOT will start spending its federal high-speed rail money this fall when construction begins on new tracks to improve Amtrak Cascades service.

WSDOT signed an agreement Thursday with BNSF Railway that “clears the way for work to begin on rail improvements that ultimately will generate hundreds of jobs and improve Amtrak Cascades service between Seattle and Portland,” WSDOT announced in a news release.

WSDOT will start with about $400 million of the $781 million it received in high-speed rail stimulus money from the Federal Railroad Administration.

Here’s more from WSDOT:

Building bypass tracks and making upgrades to existing tracks shared by Amtrak and BNSF will result in faster and more reliable Amtrak Cascades service while also allowing BNSF the ability to provide world-class freight rail service. The ARRA money will also be used to purchase new locomotives and passenger coaches.

The agreement allows BNSF to move forward on projects, worth nearly $400 million, that are expected to generate 1,000 jobs through 2017. The first rail-improvement project will occur in Everett, where two new tracks will be built for freight trains entering the rail terminal, taking them out of the way of oncoming passenger trains. These added tracks will eliminate a substantial rail-yard bottleneck and the work is expected to support about 30 local jobs.

WSDOT - ARRA Funded High-Speed Passenger Rail -- more projects.

They are now building it: Sound Transit Projects: D-to-M Street Track and Signal Work in Tacoma. It should be done in late 2012. It will enable Sounder commuter-rail service to Lakewood, and it will enable the Amtrak Cascades to avoid the northerly detour of the Point Defiance route. This gap is rather curious, since it is a leftover from the heyday of railroad construction 1 to 1.5 centuries ago.

The project includes a grade separation at Pacific Ave., with that street being depressed under a bridge for the railroad line.

Further improvements should be done by 2016. WSDOT - Project - Rail - Tacoma - Bypass of Point Defiance -- it's not clear what that project will involve in addition to the work for Sound Transit, and when the Amtrak Cascades will start using this route. 2013 (D to M Street)? 2016 (these improvements)?

According to DOT website on the Bypass project, that will have to wait until EIR is approved. Earliest start over the Bypass is 2016. Hopefully time reductions will be achieved through the $400 million. I am hoping for a more ambitious proposal though in the future. Brad Owen, our lieutenant governor met with the Rainier Club of Seattle to talk about a 200 mph train proposal. The Cascades Long Range Plan which has 12 years to go and is behind by 3 years plans on an eventuall 2:30 trip from Seattle-Portland, 2:37 from Vancouver, B.C-Seattle. Oregon is planning on purchasing two trainsets so perhaps if we can get the time reductions completed, then one of those sets could do a 3rd trip to Vancouver B.C.