Cascadia
OBS Chief
Tonight I took the 517 Cascades home to Bellingham from Vancouver. There was a group of people in my car, about 5 guys and one woman, each in one seat with a big briefcase. The fellows were wearing suits and they all had some kind of tag around their neck.
I overheard a couple of things when I walked by to the lounge car, one, commenting on the lack of outlets in our Superliner car, saying, "I'm used to the northeast corridor." Later I heard one say "what route is Modesto on?" and a few other things, made me think they were from Amtrak.
I was hesitant to go up and talk with them but I wanted to ask if they were working on getting the second train to Vancouver squared away and dealing with that customs funding issue in Canada.
Finally we were almost to Bellingham and I went up to the woman and asked her and indeed they were from Amtrak and had been up meeting with various parties that are interested in getting the second train going (extending the 513 from where it normally spends the night in Bellingham, to continue on the Vancouver and spend the night there). She mentioned Vancouver Tourism and several other organizations that are involved, besides the province.
Sounds like it was a diplomacy mission and the woman I talked with was very diplomatic as well. She had a lot of PR skills. She did confirm what Alan had correctly said last time this subject came up in the forum, that it is a problem at the Federal level of the Canadian government, not a provincial problem with BC.
The train will go from a few weeks before the 2010 Winter olympics and through the para Olympics, she said. I said, but not after that? She said, well the hope is, they'll see how well it works, and they'll fund it, or something to that effect (fund the customs processing - that's the holdup).
Anyway it's all still in the works and even though in my opinion it should have all been worked out long ago, no one has dropped it, from what she was saying.
I gave her a piece of paper with the name of our Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum on it and the discuss.amtraktrains.com address and told her about the forum and that we wish people from Amtrak would read here.
I'd be curious to know who all was in that group. One man in a suit came down to the vestibule when we were approaching the Bellingham station. He had a cell phone but was treating it as a stopwatch, I thought of the conductor, no pressure there, eh? He came out onto the platform and said hello to the woman working at our station, she said "it's so nice to meet you!" like she had been waiting for this.
I had to run and catch my bus so didn't hear any more of that.
I didn't think to ask where else this group had been, or if they came all this way just to talk to people in Vancouver about the second train.
(here is an aside, I don't usually jump on popular culture bandwagons, but today I was watching youtube videos at my boyfriends, and watched some of the Susan Boyle ones, so when I was hesitating to go and talk to the Amtrak people, I thought, well, if Susan Boyle can get up and sing in front of all those people, then I guess I can say hi to some Amtrak people.)
I overheard a couple of things when I walked by to the lounge car, one, commenting on the lack of outlets in our Superliner car, saying, "I'm used to the northeast corridor." Later I heard one say "what route is Modesto on?" and a few other things, made me think they were from Amtrak.
I was hesitant to go up and talk with them but I wanted to ask if they were working on getting the second train to Vancouver squared away and dealing with that customs funding issue in Canada.
Finally we were almost to Bellingham and I went up to the woman and asked her and indeed they were from Amtrak and had been up meeting with various parties that are interested in getting the second train going (extending the 513 from where it normally spends the night in Bellingham, to continue on the Vancouver and spend the night there). She mentioned Vancouver Tourism and several other organizations that are involved, besides the province.
Sounds like it was a diplomacy mission and the woman I talked with was very diplomatic as well. She had a lot of PR skills. She did confirm what Alan had correctly said last time this subject came up in the forum, that it is a problem at the Federal level of the Canadian government, not a provincial problem with BC.
The train will go from a few weeks before the 2010 Winter olympics and through the para Olympics, she said. I said, but not after that? She said, well the hope is, they'll see how well it works, and they'll fund it, or something to that effect (fund the customs processing - that's the holdup).
Anyway it's all still in the works and even though in my opinion it should have all been worked out long ago, no one has dropped it, from what she was saying.
I gave her a piece of paper with the name of our Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum on it and the discuss.amtraktrains.com address and told her about the forum and that we wish people from Amtrak would read here.
I'd be curious to know who all was in that group. One man in a suit came down to the vestibule when we were approaching the Bellingham station. He had a cell phone but was treating it as a stopwatch, I thought of the conductor, no pressure there, eh? He came out onto the platform and said hello to the woman working at our station, she said "it's so nice to meet you!" like she had been waiting for this.
I had to run and catch my bus so didn't hear any more of that.
I didn't think to ask where else this group had been, or if they came all this way just to talk to people in Vancouver about the second train.
(here is an aside, I don't usually jump on popular culture bandwagons, but today I was watching youtube videos at my boyfriends, and watched some of the Susan Boyle ones, so when I was hesitating to go and talk to the Amtrak people, I thought, well, if Susan Boyle can get up and sing in front of all those people, then I guess I can say hi to some Amtrak people.)
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