[Stingray2004]

Interesting tidbit today regarding the announcement of a second scheduled daily Amtrak passenger train between Seattle and Vancouver.

A railway siding will be constructed along BNSF's line running through Delta, BC with the province kicking in $4.5 million and the remainder funded by BNSF as well as Amtrak. It is projected that the second passenger train will attract an additional 50,000 passengers during its first year of operation.

It's a step in the right direction... but wouldn't it be nice to have high-speed passenger rail service between the two cities comparable to the European model?

http://www2.news.gov.bc.ca/news_releases_2005-2009/2007TRAN0007-000200.htm

[renthefinn]

That's awesome, any improvement to the rail network anywhere is encouraging and the right decision!

[officedweller]

Awesome!

[SpongeG]

great news

hopefully it will make day trips to seattle by train possible

[cornholio]

Highspeed rail probably is not a good idea especially with the current border situation. Personaly I dont see why America and Canada cant have a open border like in most of the EU, it realy doesnt make any sense since the all the problems could be hamered out in some type of treaty...all it would take is a couple polititians with some balls and patience. Anyways my point being is that if that were to hapen then within a decade I would have no doubt that highspeed rail between Vancouver, Seattle and Portland would be feesabel as iner city traffic would increase.

[SpongeG]

trains don;t stop at the border though

you go through customs at the station i think when you get there

[Coldrsx]

TGV it yo

[excel]

Good news thanks.

[tintinium]

i honestly never thought I would live to see this happen.

And I never thought I'd see Kevin Falcon putting money into a train.

[hollywoodnorth]

Go Falcon Go!

[towerguy3]

You clear U.S. Customs at the Train Station here in Vancouver but the Train does stop at the Peach Arch Boundary (right at 49 deg) where U.S. agents come on with drug sniffing dogs. The dining car opens as soon as you leave the Train station here in Vancouver and then closes as you approach the 49 degree parallel. It then reopens once they clear the drug sniffing dogs.

Coming north the Amtrak does not stop at the 49 degree Boundary and you clear Canada Customs at the Vancouver station. So going north it could be high speed, not south.

An interesting legal note. Apparently, once the train leaves the Vancouver train terminal and begins motion, technically it's in the United States and the drinking age on board that train is 21. So the train is physically in Canada (it just left the Vancouver terminal) but the Train is legally in the U.S. caused it cleared U.S. Customs. Seems crazy.

So let me understand this. I'm going to board a plane for Los Angeles at Vancouver International Airport. I clear U.S. Customs and climb aboard that plane that is bound for L.A. The plane is physically in Canada (hell it's standing on the tarmack at Vancouver Airport!), but because I cleared U.S. Customs that plane that I'm sitting in and I are legally in the United States. Yet physically the plane is sitting on the tarmack in Vancouver! Please explain these legalities.

[smasher000]

Interesting question! I'd like to know too

[SpongeG]

yes its true - once you pass US customs you are considered to be on US soil. the waiting rooms of the US departures is considered US soil

its sort of like how say you fly in from asia and are departing for another place other than can you can by pass Canadian customs here and sit in limbo

[cornholio]

So if you comit a crime past US customs your going to be charged under american law...interesting.

So next time someone pisses you of on a us to canada flight wait till you clear canadian customs untill you kick their ass.

[SpongeG]

i don't know about that - i just know that once you have cleared US customs you are considered to be on US territory territory is probably a better term than soil

[mattropolis]

This is great news! I have always wanted to take the train to Seattle but the schedule is geared towards people coming from Seattle to Vancouver for the day or two. This is a step in the right direction and hopefully by the Olympics we will have at least 3 trains per day.

Apparently the train is still quite a bit slower than driving however. The biggest bottleneck besides the border crossing is the Fraser River bridge at New Westminster. They really need to build a replacement bridge or tunnel that is double tracked and on a better curve so trains can cross faster. I also wonder if it's possible to increase the heights of the tracks above the river so that more boat traffic can pass by without having to open the bridge.

Did you know that the New Westminster rail bridge is about 104 years old? It's a wonder the thing is still standing!

[SpongeG]

yeah it takes almost 4 hours to go by train

but it stops a lot along the way - bellingham, mt vernon, everett etc.

[excel]

104 years old! that is obsurd. but cool that it is still being used.

[Nutterbug]

About fricking time.

Ideally, there would also be another station south of the Fraser (in Surrey somewhere), but as customs and immigration arrangements are concerned, that would not be possible.

There should be another station in Blaine then, with public transit or shuttle buses transporting people between Blaine and the southern Lower Mainland timed with the train's runs.

[Nutterbug]

So if you comit a crime past US customs your going to be charged under american law...interesting.

Same goes for foreign embassies.

You can be wanted for the most heinous of crimes, but as long as you're taking refuge in an embassy, the authorities can't touch you.

[SpongeG]

heres a seattle times article about it

Toot, toot, the region goes to B.C., too

In sometimes small steps, the region is binding together, almost despite itself as the connections between north and south Puget Sound become insistent rather than optional.

Such may be the case with the new agreement announced in Canada for a second Amtrak train between Vancouver, B.C., and Seattle. The object, according to the provincial Ministry of Transportation, is to "reduce traffic congestion and ease vehicle emissions on our major transportation corridors and at our border crossings."

British Columbia will put up $4.5 million, about half the cost, and BNSF Railway will build a passing track by the summer of 2008, and about 50,000 more tourists will enter B.C. the first year.

It's a private-public partnership of the kind measured skeptically in Washington state, where public-privates are not always welcome.

In dozens of countries worldwide, adding a second daily passenger train between two major cities across an open border would be ridiculously easy. But this agreement had to deal with U.S. Customs, now part of the Department of Homeland Security, whose members wanted to remain armed instead of handing over security to the RCMP — and dozens of similar bureaucratic decisions.

U.S. Customs clearance for southbound trains would take place at Pacific Central Station in Vancouver, with a stop at the border for a short inspection — for immigration, agriculture and sniffing dogs — at Blaine.

This took six years of negotiations and the change of two or three provincial and federal governments, but the obvious need for cross-border traffic during the 2010 Vancouver-Whistler Winter Olympic Games and the paucity of train travel everywhere pushed a deal together, according to Bruce Agnew of the Discovery Institute's Cascadia Center.

"Look ahead, and maybe we will see the opportunity for Canadian trains to come to Seattle," Agnew said, "like the Whistler Mountaineer or the Canadian Rocky Mountain passenger train."

The advent of another train to Vancouver — with the potential of four trains a day in the future — is reinventing old routes. Daily train service was halted, and then restarted in 1994 when Rep. Al Swift represented Washington's 2nd Congressional District.

This time, Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Lake Stevens, and Sen. Patty Murray worked on getting Customs clearance in Vancouver.

Agnew said daily trains would help a joint Seattle-Vancouver bid for the World Cup, similar to the Japan-South Korea World Cup venue.

Ah, yes, more ideas than we can count. Direct train service from Seattle to Vancouver and then to Whistler is such a no-brainer, you would think it would take six days to figure out instead of six years.

But, the region needs fixing, and rail, while not the only solution, gives us the tangible freight and passenger links along a historically rail-friendly coast. Mike Long of B.C.'s Ministry of Transportation emphasized this is just one agreement for one side track. But it's easy to mentally add on some additional cars and think of trains to come.

Correction: I was wrong last week when this column identified Seattle City Councilman Peter Steinbrueck's position on the Alaskan Way Viaduct decision. Steinbrueck, as the week's news stories emphasized, is a passionate advocate for a surface solution to the viaduct issue.

James F. Vesely's column appears Sunday on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is: jvesely@seattletimes.com

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2003598113_vesely04.html

[Nutterbug]

Agnew said daily trains would help a joint Seattle-Vancouver bid for the World Cup, similar to the Japan-South Korea World Cup venue.

Seattle and Vancouver are countries now?

Anyways, I wonder if this whole delay was BC's way of haggling and cheaping its way out of paying the entire cost of the rail improvement.

[tintinium]

Coming north the Amtrak does not stop at the 49 degree Boundary and you clear Canada Customs at the Vancouver station. So going north it could be high speed, not south.

Maximum speed of the current Talgo tilting-trains are 200kph. They are limited by signalling and track curvature and Us Federal Regulations to 125kph. 200kph would definitely be faster than a car... especially when you consider the border wait and Seattle traffic.

Infinitely less stressful too.

addendum: (from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtrak_Cascades#Future_plans))
The WSDOT Rail Office plans for eventual service of 13 daily round trips between Seattle and Portland and 4-6 round trips between Seattle and Bellingham, with four of those extending to Vancouver, BC. Due to a vote by the Washington State Legislature in 2005, the fourth round trip between Seattle and Portland began operating on July 1, 2006.

These reductions in travel times are also planned:

* Seattle to Portland – 3:30 (2006); 2:30 (planned)
* Seattle to Vancouver BC – 3:55 (2006); 2:57 (planned)
* Vancouver BC to Portland – N/A (2006); 5:37 (planned)

In order to increase train speeds and frequency to meet these goals, a number of incremental track improvement projects must be completed. Gates and signals must be improved, some grade crossings must be separated, some track must be replaced or upgraded and station capacities must be increased. In order to extend the second daily Seattle to Bellingham round trip to Vancouver, BNSF must make track improvements north of the US-Canadian border, to which the government of British Columbia has been asked to contribute financially.

[Nutterbug]

Word from Kirk at WSDOT is, the second train should start running sometime around summer of 2008.

[hollywoodnorth]

Word from Kirk at WSDOT is, the second train should start running sometime around summer of 2008.

GO FALCON GO!
GO KIRK FROM WSDOT GO!

[Nutterbug]

The expansion plan gains an unexpected adversary...

Nudists and residents' group unhappy with plan to double Amtrak runs from Seattle

Tom Zytaruk
Surrey Now

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

SURREY - Surrey United Naturists Association is planning to register its dismay over the imposition of a second Amtrak train along the city's coastline by staging a mass mooning under the banner "B.N.S.F. Butt Out of the Beach."

The event would likely take place during the June solstice.

Don Pitcairn, association president, noted that at least four people have been hit since Amtrak began running passenger trains along the Burlington Northern-Sante Fe line. Of those, three were killed, including a 12-year-old boy who'd been playing on the beach with his family.

Last week, B.C.'s Ministry of Transportation announced it will contribute $4.5 million toward building a passing track in Delta, near Colebrook Road, to allow one train to move aside while another passes. This will allow Amtrak to double its Seattle-to-Vancouver service to two trains per day.

"What we're doing is doubling the number of tourists coming into our communities to be able to spend money," Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon said. "These are very small trains, they're 12 cars, they carry about 25 passengers [each].

"What it means now is we get two of those a day instead of just one and the doubling of the track will allow them to pull a train over so we can let the Amtrak train go through. It's really very positive."

Concerns about adding such a "small" train to the line, he finds, "is a little over the top."

A group called Semiahmoo Peninsula Citizens for Public Safety, representing a couple hundred residents, is watching carefully.

The idea of an extra train, says spokesman Paul LeMay, "is annoying the residents of the area.

"No Amtrak train is going to stop in White Rock to pick up and discharge passengers," he said.

"What does White Rock and south Surrey get out of the deal except more noise and more train traffic and greater risk of hitting more people? We get nothing out of the deal."
© The Vancouver Sun 2007

[tintinium]

I have a solution.

Barbed wire fence along the entire White Rock Coastal line.

Nobody dies.

And nudists are concerned about their privacy on a public beach?

[raggedy13]

^Ya, I don't understand the nudist reference. I assume it must be due to people who go to the more secluded area of coastline between White Rock and Crescent Beaches so that they can go nude, even though it isn't a designated nudist beach area, and don't like the idea of more trains passing and invading their privacy. The way I see it is that if you're regularly naked in a public area, why are you so self-conscious?

Having grown up in the area and only a block or so away from the rail lines on the peninsula, I don't see it as a big issue. It's already noisy enough with all the freight trains that one extra, relatively quiet Amtrak train isn't a big deal. I always kind of liked falling asleep to the sound of trains anyways. Just one of those things that made home home. They're distant enough and sound-buffered enough by the cliffs and all the trees anyways so it's not like they're all that intrusive. As for the people that literally live next to the lines at Crescent Beach, if you don't like noise and are stupid enough to move there then you're not allowed to complain about it. And as for the people that get hit... look both ways before crossing and don't play on railroad tracks! These are the kind of things you should learn when you're 5.

[Nutterbug]

I suppose there's some legitimacy in their complaint that the train does not stop there and serve them. Ideally, there would be a stop in White Rock, but US Homeland Security doesn't want that. Hence my suggestion for a stop at Blaine as a compromise, since it is close enough for a short drive or even a walk from WR.

[SpongeG]

the creme de la creme is whining :haha: the people who live close to the tracks not the nudists - those places affected by the noise live in million dollar homes - its not like they didn't know the trains went by when they bought

[raggedy13]

I suppose there's some legitimacy in their complaint that the train does not stop there and serve them. Ideally, there would be a stop in White Rock, but US Homeland Security doesn't want that. Hence my suggestion for a stop at Blaine as a compromise, since it is close enough for a short drive or even a walk from WR.

I always thought it would be cool if the old White Rock station was revived for its original use instead of just being a museum and archives. It has such a great location and is an interesting heritage building.

[SpongeG]

Surrey eyes for Amtrak station


Amtrak passenger trains from Seattle could some day stop in Surrey instead of Vancouver, U.S. studies suggest.

Moving the terminal from downtown’s Pacific Central Station east to a “Greater Vancouver Terminal” beside Surrey’s Scott Road SkyTrain station is one option that has been studied to achieve a potential major increase in cross-border rail service.

The existing single daily Amtrak round trip to Vancouver is now planned to increase to two daily by 2008, thanks to an agreement unveiled last week between the province, Washington State and the BNSF Railway.

B.C. will contribute $4.5 million to help build a siding in Delta so trains can pass.

But longer-range hopes to expand further to three or four daily Amtrak trains depend on much costlier rail line upgrades – including an estimated $675 million to replace the century-old rail bridge across the Fraser River between Surrey and New Westminster.

Because the costs are so high to address congestion on the tracks into Vancouver, studies commissioned by the Washington State Department of Transportation conclude it may make sense to pull out of Vancouver and establish a new Amtrak station in Surrey instead.

“At first glance, the potential has various attractive features,” says an analysis of the Scott Road site in the 2003 Cascade Gateway Rail Study.

Foremost would be the lower price tag – about $86 million to build the station and carry out rail upgrades.

The Scott Road site would also offer easy access to SkyTrain, the study says, allowing travellers to transfer and take the transit line to downtown.

A map and aerial photo show the “possible station” just east of Scott Road Station, north of 110 Avenue along 126 A Street.

But the study cautions many U.S. passengers who want to go to downtown Vancouver won’t like having to transfer and take the 26-minute SkyTrain ride, and some business may be lost.

However, Washington State’s draft long range plan for the Amtrak line notes more Canadians may jump on board to visit the U.S. because the Scott Road station would be more convenient for much of Greater Vancouver “as the station would be more centrally located and more accessible for a greater number of people.”

The plan, tabled last year, estimates moving to the Surrey terminal would increase Amtrak’s ridership here by three to seven per cent.

It says the “surge in rail passengers converging on the area” could mesh well with Surrey’s plans to revitalize the neighbourhood.

The long-term U.S. wish list calls for a high-speed rail bypass around White Rock costing $370 million, along with another $110 million for high-speed tracks continuing to the Fraser River.

Matched with high-speed tracks planned in Washington, the upgrades would cut Amtrak’s Vancouver to Seattle travel time from nearly four hours now to just over two and a half by 2023.

Planners see Amtrak’s Vancouver ridership, which has nearly tripled in the past decade, ballooning from a current 164,000 per year to as much as 950,000 in the next 15 years.

But Kirk Frederickson, the state’s rail policy and planning co-ordinator, says U.S. planners aren’t holding their breath for major Canadian rail upgrades.

He said they’re focusing on getting the second train in place in 2008 and using it to gradually build ridership.

Fredrickson said the Scott Road station concept is being explored, but isn’t likely to be a priority anytime soon.

One sometimes-mooted scenario Frederickson all but rules out, is setting up an Amtrak stop in White Rock.

He said a secure metal “cage” would have to be built to enclose the train for border inspections and it’s hard to see how that could be done without wrecking White Rock’s picturesque promenade.

“Nobody can come up with a solution to that,” he said.



http://www.peacearchnews.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=44&cat=23&id=846704&more=

[tintinium]

I'm sure the ones complaining would rather have an extra train, than a secure metal cage.

Actually, since much of what people consider White Rock is practically a part of Surrey... and since Crescent Beach IS Surrey, a potential station at Scott Road would serve them better than Vancouverites.

[Lee_Haber8]

If they add a Scott Rd. station they shouldn't abandon Pacific Central. They should have trains going to both those going to central Vancouver and those visiting the periphery

[SpongeG]

the river crossing is a problem

but most great cities have multiple train stations -pacific central still has VIA, rocky mountain etc etc

[Nutterbug]

If they add a Scott Rd. station they shouldn't abandon Pacific Central. They should have trains going to both those going to central Vancouver and those visiting the periphery

But they want all the customs and immigration work done at one place (ie. Pacific Central), without the "seal" broken at any other stops until the border.

[tintinium]

Vancouver has two train stations now. Pacific Central and Waterfront.

[brown_supahero]

Ya! there going to fix the tracks ya!.