Canada Day revelation: Amtrak Cascades to resume service to B.C. in September

Reg­u­lar­ly sched­uled train ser­vice between British Colum­bia and the rest of the Pacif­ic North­west will be resum­ing in the fall, rather than in the win­ter, the Wash­ing­ton and Ore­gon Depart­ments of Trans­porta­tion announced today.

“WSDOT and ODOT are pleased to share that train ser­vice between Seat­tle and Van­cou­ver, BC now will resume in Sep­tem­ber 2022. Ear­li­er plans called for a Decem­ber return to Cana­da, but Amtrak was able to advance the sched­ule. Stay tuned for fur­ther details. We’ll share more info as soon as it’s avail­able,” read an email bul­letin from the agen­cy’s Rail, Freight and Ports Division.

Back in May, WSDOT informed the pub­lic that due to “staffing short­ages,” Amtrak was­n’t plan­ning on restart­ing ser­vice to British Colum­bia until the end of the year.

“Amtrak informed the states of Wash­ing­ton and Ore­gon that the pop­u­lar Amtrak Cas­cades train ser­vice north of Seat­tle will not resume until late 2022 due to Amtrak staffing short­ages,” the agency said in May 13th announcement.

“WSDOT and ODOT expressed extreme dis­sat­is­fac­tion with this plan and urged Amtrak to at least begin offer­ing ser­vice a few days a week on an inter­im basis until full ser­vice can resume in Decem­ber 2022,” that bul­letin added. “Amtrak not­ed it is com­mit­ted to an ear­li­er start date if employ­ee resources allow.”

“Sev­er­al staff posi­tions need to be filled includ­ing con­duc­tors, on-board ser­vice staff, and mechan­ics. Progress is being made in recruit­ing nec­es­sary staff; how­ev­er, once hired, they must com­plete exten­sive train­ing pro­grams before start­ing their jobs. This route – serv­ing Seat­tle, Edmonds, Everett, Stan­wood, Mount Ver­non, Belling­ham and Van­cou­ver, B.C. – has been sus­pend­ed since May 2020 when the Cana­di­an bor­der closed to non-essen­tial travel.”

“Dai­ly bus ser­vice between Seat­tle and Van­cou­ver, B.C., and between Seat­tle and Belling­ham, will con­tin­ue to be offered through the Amtrak tick­et­ing system.”

Cas­cades has a Seat­tle <> Port­land <> Eugene route as well as a Seat­tle <> British Colum­bia route. The south­ern route, link­ing Wash­ing­ton and Ore­gon, is cur­rent­ly in oper­a­tion, but as explained above, the north­ern route has not been. Soon, that will change and it will once again be pos­si­ble to take a trip to Van­cou­ver — Canada’s Van­cou­ver — by rail, which is great news.

The province of British Colum­bia and the states of Wash­ing­ton and Ore­gon are study­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of devel­op­ing a high speed rail link that would pro­vide fast ser­vice between Cas­ca­di­a’s major cities in the future. Sig­nif­i­cant resources would be need­ed for such an under­tak­ing, which would require the con­struc­tion of a new grade-sep­a­rat­ed right of way. NPI’s research has found a major­i­ty in sup­port of build­ing a new high speed rail line in the Pacif­ic North­west as well as a major­i­ty in favor of strength­en­ing Amtrak’s exist­ing Cas­cades ser­vice.

Before ser­vice can be strength­ened, though, it has to exist. That’s why we’re so glad to hear that the norther­ly Cas­cades route is on track to resume oper­a­tions in Sep­tem­ber. That will be after most of sum­mer has elapsed, but at least it’s soon­er than the Decem­ber time­frame Amtrak had pre­vi­ous­ly offered.