Day 3: Amtrak Cascades from Portland to Seattle

After a short night at the Holiday Inn, I walked over towards Union Station for my 8:45a departure time. On the way, I took some pictures of MAX Light Rail trains and the Steel Bridge. Portland is quite a nice city and it definitely has a nice train station. I decided to check my large bag for the trip to Seattle, nice I had no need for anything in it.

At 8:30a, the first boarding announcement came - I didn’t pay too much attention, but the train must have arrived from Eugene more or less ontime.

Since this was my first trip on a Cascades train (even on a Talgo train - I never had a chance to ride on in Europe either), here are a few comments about these trains: my seat was in Business Class in the first “car” at the front of the train, right behind the F40-sans-engine that served as the cab car and the power car (I guess the Talgos are incompatible with US HEP power). The cars are very short compared with say Superliners or even Amfleet/Horizon coaches. But moving from one car to the next is very easy and convenient, thanks to them being semi-permanently coupled and having a special connection between the cars to facilitate moving about. There are screens in the car that sometimes will show a movie and at other times show a moving map display similar to what you can see in an airplane. It also shows the temperature outside, but that thing must have been broken (or maybe the sensor was exposed to direct sublight) - it showed 94 degrees! At the beginning of the trip, they even show a safety movie …

So we left Portland and ran along and then across the Willamette river - and then a bit later the Columbia river, which we then followed for quite a while. Later, we passed Mt. St. Helens. We rode along at a nice speed, but at times, the ride was quite rough. Not sure if this is due to the quality of the track or the Talgo trainsets. Also, the interior of the cars looks pretty worn - they could use a good overhaul with some new carpet, etc. Before arriving at the Tacoma station, we ran along the Tacoma Narrows and had a good view of the bridge there (both of them - the existing one and the new one that is being constructed). We arrived in Seattle pretty much ontime.

Train consist #500(20):
Mount Baker trainset
- F40 (cab car) #90253
- Power car #7901
- Business class car #7451
- Business class car #7551
- Diner #7801
- Bistro car #7301
- Coach #7501
- Coach #7521
- Coach #7409
- Coach #7408
- Coach #7407
- Coach #7406
- Coach #7405
- Baggage car #7101
- F59 #470

Schedule and actual times:
Portland - 8:46a (8:45a - 0:01L)
Vancouver - 9:04a (9:03a - 0:01L)
Kelso-Longview - 9:42a (9:36a - 0:06L)
Centralia - 10:26a (10:17a - 0:09L)
Olympia-Lacey - 10:48a (10:37a - 0:11L)
Tacoma - 11:28a (11:17a - 0:11L)
Tukwila - 11:56a (11:48a - 0:08L)
Seattle - 12:12p (12:15p - 0:03E)

Posted in: Uncategorized | March 20, 2006 9:06 am