Portland Transit | TriMet/Mass Transit News

[maccoinnich]

They really need to retime the trains on the Eugene-Oregon section of the Cascades. Presently they have two trains leaving Eugene in the morning, and two trains leaving Portland in the evening. It's impossible to use the train service to take a day trip to Eugene or Salem from Portland.

[davehogan]

Originally Posted by maccoinnich

They really need to retime the trains on the Eugene-Oregon section of the Cascades. Presently they have two trains leaving Eugene in the morning, and two trains leaving Portland in the evening. It's impossible to use the train service to take a day trip to Eugene or Salem from Portland.

I'd guess the Eugene to Portland AM trip and Portland to Eugene PM trip is a result of wanting the trains to be able to start at the north and south ends of the lines. Until they get more trains to serve Portland to Seattle, Portland to Eugene seems kind of stuck with what's left over. It's odd they don't at least offer the Amtrak buses for the reverse trips.

[electricron]

Originally Posted by davehogan

I'd guess the Eugene to Portland AM trip and Portland to Eugene PM trip is a result of wanting the trains to be able to start at the north and south ends of the lines. Until they get more trains to serve Portland to Seattle, Portland to Eugene seems kind of stuck with what's left over. It's odd they don't at least offer the Amtrak buses for the reverse trips.

You're looking at the service as just a Portland to Eugene service, which it is not. it's really a Vancouver B.C. to Eugene, OR service. Trains leaving Vancouver in the morning are arriving in Eugene in the late afternoons, and vice versa.

A train leaving Portland in the morning must turn around in Eugene and return to Portland before heading further north towards Seattle and Vancouver. Will there be sufficient passengers between Eugene and Portland midday? Are there sufficient trains to keep a train idling in Eugene till late afternoon?

They have to answer these questions positively before scheduling the trains as you wish.

[tworivers]

Those are indeed incredibly ugly.

My first reaction was disbelief. Did they just let the engineers do all the design or something? How does something like this get approved and who does the approving? God... it just feels like a slap in the face, a reminder of how f*cking stupid we are as a culture. Leave it to the rest of the developed world to enjoy their sleek high-speed trains, we'll take... these things.

[tworivers]

Lest I sound overly negative, my girlfriend's reaction was: "I can't even look at that, it makes me too upset. How did that happen?"

I kind of want to give it a name, like Herbie.

[llamaorama]

Cleary the train is this:


(they call this thing "el pato" in Spain, quack quack)

breeding with this:



I think I found it's little brother:

[zilfondel]

I would say that train design isn't America's forte, but then these were designed by a Spanish company. So... lay the blame there. :\

[downtownpdx]

Amtrak rail ridership thriving in Oregon, Washington, study says

By Joseph Rose, The Oregonian The Oregonian
on March 01, 2013 at 10:43 AM, updated March 01, 2013 at 10:45 AM

Benjamin Brink/The Oregonian/2012

http://blog.oregonlive.com/commuting...l#incart_river

Is a passenger-rail renaissance picking up steam in Oregon and Washington?

A new study on Amtrak ridership and financial performance in 100 U.S. metro areas holds up the two Northwest states as models for future rail service in an era of fiscal restraint.

In fact, Portland now has the 16th busiest Amtrak terminals in the country, according to the Brookings Institute report (PDF) released Friday.

During the past 15 years, the troubled national rail system has actually experienced a 55 percent increase in passengers, with the vast majority of that growth coming from short-distance routes such as the Eugene-to-Vancouver, B.C., Cascades line, the study shows. ...

According to a 2012 story by The Oregonian, daily Amtrak ridership between between Salem, Oregon City and Portland on Amtrak has jumped more than 22 percent, making it the rail carrier's fastest growing West Coast corridor. ...

In the Brookings study, Washington and Oregon are commended for their “innovation” with generating $32.4 million in state funding through a dedicated portion of revenue from personal license plate fees, motor vehicles sales taxes and car rental fees.
“In contrast,” the report says, “other states restrict the use of other transportation funding, such as state gas tax proceeds, for anything but highways.” ...

According to the data analyzed by the Brookings researchers (XLSX), annual ridership at the Portland, Oregon City and Vancouver Amtrak has grown 97 percent in the past 15 years to more than 778,791, making it the 16th busiest metro area for passenger rail and accounting for 1.2 percent of the nation’s ridership.

That, despite the fact Portland’s Central Station has only 10 daily departures.

The Seattle metro area, with six active stations, saw 59 percent growth to 903,882 during the same period, placing it as the 11th busiest area. ...

[davehogan]

Re: Amtrak rail ridership thriving in Oregon, Washington, study says

That doesn't surprise me at all. Last fall I went to Seattle for a weekend with my dad and brother, and the train was apparently sold out on the way up because of Oregon State fans who were going up to watch the game against he Huskies that weekend, and even on a non-holiday Monday afternoon (we left sometime around 2:30 or 3 pm) in the fall heading back to PDX the train was probably 70-80% full.

The guy in the bistro car said it was the first slow trip he had seen in a few days, and it still had at least three out of four seats filled. We even got in early both directions, so that was a pleasant surprise, too. I loved the video screens showing the map w/location and estimated time to the next stop as well. I can use the GPS on my phone to figure all that out, but it was really cool having it on the overhead TV's.

I can't figure out why people are opposed to such a popular method of travel that (last I read) recovers over 80% of the operational costs from ticket sales, and is projected in the next decade to get that up to 99%. Still, it's nice to know apparently I'm not the only person who loves the heck out of the Cascades.

[MarkDaMan]

Mar 6, 2013, 1:02pm PST
United Streetcar's Chandra Brown appointed to U.S. Commerce post
Erik Siemers Business Journal staff writer-
Portland Business Journal

http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/...l?ana=e_du_pub

President Barack Obama has selected Chandra Brown, CEO of Clackamas-based United Streetcar LLC, to be the U.S. Commerce Department's deputy assistant secretary for manufacturing.

Brown, who has led the streetcar manufacturing subsidiary of Oregon Iron Works since 2007, begins her new job March 18. While there, she'll help shape national policy as it relates to increasing domestic manufacturing and job creation through manufacturing...

[davehogan]

Wow, the right wing should have a field day with this.

[Derek]

That socialist commie strikes again!

[bvpcvm]

Commuter Rail to Salem

SALEM -- A proposal by two Oregon lawmakers to extend commuter rail from Portland suburbs to Salem gets its first airing Monday at the Legislature.

Rep. Mitch Greenlick, D-Portland, and Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, D-Beaverton, have sponsored a bill that would create a task force to study the viability of running trains from the Westside Express Service commuter line, or WES, down to the state capital.

[pdxtraveler]

Originally Posted by bvpcvm

Commuter Rail to Salem

Big supporter of commuter rail to Salem. However I think commuter rail should go to Union Station... Yes, I know, you have to deal with control of the lines and how that usually goes..

[jaxg8r1]

Would this necessitate bigger trains?

[dubu]

if it could go on the tracks that go threw lo and og this would be a good idea. it could connect to the max

[65MAX]

^^^^
But it would connect to 2 MAX lines at Beaverton TC, plus the Tillamook Branch through Lake Oswego needs to be completely upgraded if you want to use it for commuter service.

Extending WES to Salem makes sense because the line is too short now with only 5 stops, not an efficient set up for a commuter rail line. A commuter line works better over longer distances. I think that the Amtrak service from Salem to Union Station (which already exists) needs to be upgraded as well. It won't be WES, but there's no reason Amtrak and WES can't complement each other.

[dubu]

then you could have one of the max lines go to tualatin

[zilfondel]

"We absolutely need to have Portland-Salem commuter service"

Apparently he doesn't realize that Beaverton =/= Portland???

This is an idiotic idea. We need more rail service between Portland and Salem, not Beaverton and Salem.

Also, UP has an active rail line that doesn't need to be fully rebuilt. I've heard estimates of rebuilding the line that WES runs on to be over $1 billion, and it doesn't actually go through any towns along the way to Salem, unlock the existing UP line.

I seriously believe that Greenlick is an idiot.

[bvpcvm]

I used to commute to Salem. It really, really sucked. Having a train go from somewhere near Portland to Salem would have made it just a little less awful. I would have gladly left my car in Beaverton and taken the train the rest of the way. So I don't agree that it's critical to have a train from Portland, specifically, to Salem. There would probably be a shit-ton of people who would drive to Wilsonville and take the train from there. At least they wouldn't be driving the rest of the way.

I've also never heard any estimate of a BILLION dollars to re-do those tracks. I'm not saying it's impossible that it would be that much, I've just never heard any figure at all. Even if you just extrapolate from the $150 mil they spent to re-do 15 miles of rails x 45 miles = maybe $500 mil, and probably quite a bit less since there would be fewer crossings to rebuild south of Wilsonville. But if $1B is correct, it would probably be politically untenable. In fact, anything over $100m would probably be untenable given the political climate and the assumption on the part of many that WES is a failure.