Amtrak Cascades Service discussion

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Question for my fellow members in the Pacific Northwest as my Kirkland, WA family can't answer the following. I assume the seats in the Business Class/Cafe Horizon Car from Seattle to Vancouver ar 2 & 1. My question is that since my wife and I are traveling together, are the seats fixed or can they be rotated. I do remember from decades ago to ride on the left side going north if possible. Thanks.
 
Question for my fellow members in the Pacific Northwest as my Kirkland, WA family can't answer the following. I assume the seats in the Business Class/Cafe Horizon Car from Seattle to Vancouver ar 2 & 1. My question is that since my wife and I are traveling together, are the seats fixed or can they be rotated. I do remember from decades ago to ride on the left side going north if possible. Thanks.
On the older horizon cars, yes they rotate. However you’d need to ask the crew to rotate it for you, ppl are not supposed to do it by themselves.

On the talgo trains, seats are fixed, but there are two sets of seats that face each other in each car.
 
Two trains are sold out, and based on the prices, the other ones are very close.
The Amtrak Cascades seems to be doing very well--- and I wonder how that compares to other state-supported corridor routes, like are the Amtrak corridor routes in Northern and Southern California, and around Chicago, also running at or close to capacity? Or is this specific to the Pacific NW?
There's another thread which follows ridership on the system:

https://www.amtraktrains.com/threads/tracking-fy-2024-ridership-and-finances.86563/
 
My last two Cascades trips (Saturday on 507 and today on 508) have featured three coaches plus a coach-in-place-of-a-cafe-car.

That car has featured free snacks (mainly chips, candy and a few baked goods) plus bottled water. Unfortunately, the lack of a cafe car also means no wi-fi, which is a bummer for those of us who want to work on the train. Fortunately there's decent cell service along much of the route.

This also means decreased seating capacity and no business class. I did get a call from Amtrak in advance of my Saturday trip advising me of the lack of a cafe car, but no such call today.

According to an on-board announcement, the cafe car on this set was "hit by a truck" last week and has been sent elsewhere for repair. So it might be out of service for some time.
 
My last two Cascades trips (Saturday on 507 and today on 508) have featured three coaches plus a coach-in-place-of-a-cafe-car.

That car has featured free snacks (mainly chips, candy and a few baked goods) plus bottled water. Unfortunately, the lack of a cafe car also means no wi-fi, which is a bummer for those of us who want to work on the train. Fortunately there's decent cell service along much of the route.

This also means decreased seating capacity and no business class. I did get a call from Amtrak in advance of my Saturday trip advising me of the lack of a cafe car, but no such call today.

According to an on-board announcement, the cafe car on this set was "hit by a truck" last week and has been sent elsewhere for repair. So it might be out of service for some time.
Probably from this incident, involving 504 (3)

https://www.kezi.com/news/police-in...cle_10661874-d9a1-11ee-9b5a-ebc4d74909a1.html

Just checked it on both Firefox & Edge. The site is down as of Saturday March 16th

Why can’t Amtrak put fares at a glance on their website? Why is this so difficult? Airlines do it.

My last two Cascades trips (Saturday on 507 and today on 508) have featured three coaches plus a coach-in-place-of-a-cafe-car.

That car has featured free snacks (mainly chips, candy and a few baked goods) plus bottled water. Unfortunately, the lack of a cafe car also means no wi-fi, which is a bummer for those of us who want to work on the train. Fortunately there's decent cell service along much of the route.

This also means decreased seating capacity and no business class. I did get a call from Amtrak in advance of my Saturday trip advising me of the lack of a cafe car, but no such call today.

According to an on-board announcement, the cafe car on this set was "hit by a truck" last week and has been sent elsewhere for repair. So it might be out of service for some time.
Following up on this, just took Cascades this past weekend and ended up on this set. It's been running on trains 505 (SEA-EUG) and 508 (EUG-SEA) for the last week or so. I did not receive any notice officially from Amtrak that there would be no cafe, but I was given the heads-up from a friend. No official word on when the cafe will be back.

One of the coaches acted as the 'crew lounge' where there was also an LSA handing out free water, chips, cookies, candy bars, and snack packs. They normally sell these in the cafe, so it was a nice touch that they were giving these out for free.

Note that without a cafe, this train does NOT run with business class. For some reason though, Amtrak still lets you buy these sets until the day of. One passenger who got on with me was supposedly given no notice that their business class seat was removed and ended up in coach. While they were given an opportunity to get their accommodation fare refunded, I still wouldn't buy business class on trains 505 or 508 until the cafe has returned.
 
Amtrak just sent us Horizon club-dinette 58007 from Chicago, apparently to replace 58103, which recently went south on the Coast Starlight, probably for repairs of some sort that the Seattle maintenance base can't do. But that still leaves us with no spare club-dinettes in Seattle, and the 58007 apparently has some problems of its own. Some time ago, they took the 58104 back to Chicago and apparently have just stored it. With the Venture food service cars delayed until who-knows-when, all of these Horizon food service cars need to be in service, not stored.

Two trains are sold out, and based on the prices, the other ones are very close.
The Amtrak Cascades seems to be doing very well--- and I wonder how that compares to other state-supported corridor routes, like are the Amtrak corridor routes in Northern and Southern California, and around Chicago, also running at or close to capacity? Or is this specific to the Pacific NW?
As I understand it, the Cascades just recently got back to 100% of pre-pandemic ridership.

What are the present car counts of these Cascades trains?
It's supposed to be a Horizon club-dinette and four Horizon coaches. That brings the six Horizon sets assigned to the Cascades within about six-or-so seats of the overall capacity of each of the two Oregon Talgos. The difference is that the Talgos offer about 40 Business Class seats each and the Horizon trains have only 14 each.
 
As I understand it, the Cascades just recently got back to 100% of pre-pandemic ridership.
They were starved for capacity from the end of the lockdown until this year, as reported here. Lo and behold, when they added trains and added a coach to each Horizon trainset, the ridership immediately increased.

BTW, welcome to AU!
 
The WSDOT Preliminary Service Development Plan for the Cascades is on-line now, and comments are invited. It incorporates material from ODOT, with lots of interesting information.

https://wsdot.wa.gov/construction-p...lans/amtrak-cascades-service-development-plan
One big error I'm seeing in their analysis is the way they evaluate limited stop or non-stop express service. They are only grading it based on ridership projections. Equipment utilization and revenue are not factored in. This will result in them discounting and likely not launching an express service between PDX and SEA, even though it would be cheaper to run than a milk run train, and likely get higher ticket revenue. A 20 minute savings in each direction is significant. If a given trainset is doing 3 round trips per day, that's a 2 hour reduction operating hours and associated costs.
 
MODERATOR'S NOTE: A large number of posts that were about general ground transport rather than Amtrak Cascade Corridor have been moved to a Ground Transport thread, The new thread is at:

https://www.amtraktrains.com/threads/ground-transport-in-the-pacific-northwest.87101/

Please continue discussion of general ground transport in the Pacific Northwest in that thread and restrict posting in this Amtrak Cascade Service thread to Amtrak Cascade and related Thruway only.

Thank you for your understanding, cooperation and participation.
 
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OK, this is probably a more general operational question than a Cascades-specific question, but it involves a Cascades train so I'll post it here. Today's southbound 505 had some mechanical issue and arrived in Eugene 2 1/2 hours late at 4:20 p.m. This train becomes the northbound 508, which is supposed to depart at 4:30.

With an engine on one end and a "cabbage" car on the other end, one might think this would be a quick turnaround...I've seen them do this in about 15 minutes or so.

But this time, the train crew said they would need to turn the train around, which involves backing up into the Eugene yard...this can theoretically happen in about 20 minutes but at this point, they might need to stay in the yard long enough to allow 11 to come through.

So basically we're looking at a long delay to board. And here's my question:

Are passengers not permitted on "turning around" moves like this?

I mean, the train is currently heading north a mile or so to get to the Eugene yard, where it will be turned around...only to return to the Eugene station. Why not just load everybody on 508 and let us sit through the railyard turnaround, and then simply exit the yard headed northbound. Sure, we'd be late, but not nearly as late as we'll be in the current situation. It doesn't make sense to me to return the train all the way back to the station just to load people up. Is there something inherently unsafe about a yard move like this that prevents passengers from being on board?
 
OK, this is probably a more general operational question than a Cascades-specific question, but it involves a Cascades train so I'll post it here. Today's southbound 505 had some mechanical issue and arrived in Eugene 2 1/2 hours late at 4:20 p.m. This train becomes the northbound 508, which is supposed to depart at 4:30.

With an engine on one end and a "cabbage" car on the other end, one might think this would be a quick turnaround...I've seen them do this in about 15 minutes or so.

But this time, the train crew said they would need to turn the train around, which involves backing up into the Eugene yard...this can theoretically happen in about 20 minutes but at this point, they might need to stay in the yard long enough to allow 11 to come through.

So basically we're looking at a long delay to board. And here's my question:

Are passengers not permitted on "turning around" moves like this?

I mean, the train is currently heading north a mile or so to get to the Eugene yard, where it will be turned around...only to return to the Eugene station. Why not just load everybody on 508 and let us sit through the railyard turnaround, and then simply exit the yard headed northbound. Sure, we'd be late, but not nearly as late as we'll be in the current situation. It doesn't make sense to me to return the train all the way back to the station just to load people up. Is there something inherently unsafe about a yard move like this that prevents passengers from being on board?
I’ve heard the Eugene yard (which has the wye) contains a type of track with less stringent maintenance requirements, and the FRA prohibits passenger trains from being ran on such track.
 
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I’ve heard the Eugene yard (which has the wye) contains a type of track with less stingnent macitence requirements, and the FRA prohibits passenger trains from being ran on such track.
Indeed, track maintenance (or at least: inspection) requirements are less for tracks which are not used for passenger movements. Same reason why if a VIA train needs to be exceptionally turned in Ottawa (because of issues with the leading unit, if operated as a bidirectional trainset), passengers need to get off the train while the train turns around at the O&M wye before the same train returns at the same track, just facing the other direction…
 
I’ve heard the Eugene yard (which has the wye) contains a type of track with less stringent maintenance requirements, and the FRA prohibits passenger trains from being ran on such track.
They do, however, wye Cascades trains in Eugene on occasions where either the locomotive or the cab car is having PTC or other problems and can't lead. Also, we run short of cab cars from time to time. I suspect that Amtrak is allowed to wye the trains, but without passengers aboard.
 
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