Passenger Trains > Second Vancouver BC Cascades train to resume Mar 5

Second Vancouver, B.C., Cascades round trip set to roll Monday

TRAINS
By Bob Johnston | March 3, 2023

SEATTLE (TRAINS.com) — Beginning Monday, March 6, Amtrak adds a morning departure from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Portland, Ore., and drops in a mid-afternoon northbound frequency from Portland that departs Seattle at 7 p.m. and arrives into the Canadian city at 11 p.m.

Including the Seattle-Los Angeles Coast Starlight, this will increase the number of Seattle-Portland round-trips from four to five; two of those continue to and from Eugene, Ore.

Although Amtrak continues to only supply timetables on demand that are cumbersome to print, the state-supported Amtrak Cascades website provides comparative grid schedules. Those effective Monday, March 6, are available here and timetables in effect through March 5 can be accessed here.

Union Pacific trackwork, which has causing intermittent conversion of an afternoon Portland-Eugene round trip to buses since January, is set to conclude next week after the new schedule is implemented, with the last outage set for March 7 through March 12.

https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/second-vancouver-b-c-cascades-round-trip-set-to-roll-monday/

CP Logen is a crossover that was installed near the north end of Stanwood on the Bellingham sub specifically so the Cascade trains could meet there, while still allowing a BNSF train to occupy the remainder of Stanwood siding.  Good to see it will get some utilization again.  Three photos October 6, 2015.

mike woodruff
spokane

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I'm glad to hear the Portland-Vancouver BC trains are back in service.  

I waited for this service from 1996 to 2010, when it finally started.  

I've only taken the trains a couple of times since then, though.  Partly because the schedule puts you in Vancouver BC at 11:30 pm, and requires you to be at the station around 5:30 am for departure.  

I'm a little disappointed that in the 3-year Covid opportunity for reconfiguration nobody has figured out a way to make the train arrive/depart Vancouver BC at an attractive, convenient time.  

How about a 9:00 departure from Portland, 5:00 arrival in Vancouver BC?  And the same coming south?  Even an 8:00 pm arrival would be okay in Vancouver, and a 9:00 am departure.  

Don't any of the schedule planners understand that it can take an hour to get through customs, so the early departure is even earlier, and the late arrival is even later, than advertized?  

Just a little complaint -- I hoped I'd be wearing out the rails on that train since I have plenty of friends in Vancouver BC.  But the interruption of normal sleep patterns hasn't been worth it.  

Ted in OR

gobbl3gook Wrote:
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> I'm a little disappointed that in the 3-year Covid
> opportunity for reconfiguration nobody has figured
> out a way to make the train arrive/depart
> Vancouver BC at an attractive, convenient
> time.  
>
> How about a 9:00 departure from Portland, 5:00
> arrival in Vancouver BC?  And the same coming
> south?  Even an 8:00 pm arrival would be okay in
> Vancouver, and a 9:00 am departure.  
>
> Don't any of the schedule planners understand that
> it can take an hour to get through customs, so the
> early departure is even earlier, and the late
> arrival is even later, than advertized? 


That would be me. There is only so much can be done with virtually no money.

It's not all that simple. The through train has to be able to meet the opposing opposing passenger trains without taking up capacity that is needed for freight trains and without conflict with other passenger trains.

There must be two tracks for passenger trains wherever passenger trains meet. There is single track at 9th Street in Portland, Vancouver (can use two tracks but one at a time), Kelso (7 miles of single track for passenger), Centralia (7 miles of single track for passenger), Olympia/Lacy (1 mile), Nisqually-Lakewood (11 miles), South Tacoma - Tacoma (5 miles), Portland Ave-TR Jct. (1 mile), King Street Station, South Portal - North Portal (4 miles), Edmonds (2 miles), Mukilteo (1 mile), Howarth Park - English (14 miles), English-Stanwood (9 miles), Stranwood-Mt. Vernon (8 miles), Mt. Vernon-Bow (11 miles), Bow-South Bellingham (11 miles), South Bellingahm-Ferndale (12 miles), Ferndale-Swift (6 miles), Swift-Colebrook (14 miles), Colebrook - Vancouver (20 miles).

All of the Seattle - Portland service must run at close to the time needed to get approximately even headways. Every one of them must be able to run the Seattle - Portland schedule running time (3h20m now 3h25m-long story) and Vancouver BC - Seattle schedule running time (4h).

Create no conflict with any of the Sounder schedules (they have first dibs because of the nature of commuter service). Work around Amtrak long distance (11 & 14 easier than 7&8).

Don't meet passenger trains on a two track segment where there is freight congestion. Don't meet passenger trains north of Everett on a siding long enough to accommodate a freight train.

All that has to be done without much money for new infrastructure (basically, there was enough money to lengthen Mt. Vernon and Stanwood, which had to be done anyway in order to accommodate another train at all.

So make a stringline diagram of the entire line, Draw each train schedule at the commercially desirable time. Is there a conflict for any of those single track segments? One or both trains have to move. Does that cause a conflict somewhere else? One of the trains has to move. Cycle through all of the trains until there is no conflict. Are all of the trains in a commercially desirable schedule? If not, try again. Can't make it work? Is there enough money to build something to make it work? Figure out what, where, and how to describe why.

If I remember correctly, the December 2017 timetable took a year and something like 50 iterations to get something that fit the needs of BNSF, Amtrak, Sounder, and WSDOT.

One reason for undependable Amtrak schedules is that they don't typically employ this process (which is why 7 or 8 has to pull out of the siding and back in to Wolf Point on the main if they are both close to on time or the same amount late).
>
> Just a little complaint -- I hoped I'd be wearing
> out the rails on that train since I have plenty of
> friends in Vancouver BC.  But the interruption of
> normal sleep patterns hasn't been worth it.  
>


I share your frustration. I have been fighting the lack of progress on this program for 17 years. I'm now working with a very active group www.climaterailalliance.org trying to get the state to finish what we started 31 years ago and was supposed to be complete five years ago. DOT doesn't want to hear it and we are pushing the legislature as hard as they can be pushed (but the 220 mph Ultra High Speed train the ultra rich folks want is sucking all the oxygen out of the room).

TAW

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I agree that the departure times out of Vancouver are an issue, especially the morning departure. I've been on that train and yes, you have to be up super duper early. It sounds like there are many portions of single track along the Cascades route, especially north of Everett. The Point Defiance Bypass is also single track in many spots south of Tacoma Dome. I know that south of Seattle, many of the stations are on one side of the tracks-for example, Centrailia and Kelso-Longview come to mind and definately Vancouver, BC.