Transportation officers in Washington, Oregon, protest transfer, ask for ‘partial service’
SEATTLE — Transportation officers in Washington state and Oregon are protesting an announcement by Amtrak that it doesn’t plan to restart Amtrak Cascades service between Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia, earlier than December 2022.
The Associated Press reviews Ray Lang, Amtrak vice chairman of state-supported companies, knowledgeable the rail administrators in each states that the passenger railroad doesn’t have sufficient conductors, onboard service employees, and mechanics to function the trains.
A joint response from Washington State Department of Transportation Secretary Roger Millar and Oregon Department of Transportation Director Kris Stricker mentioned Amtrak’s “lack of support for the Amtrak Cascades service cannot continue and Amtrak’s plans to delay the re-start of Canadian service for seven months or more is not acceptable to WSDOT and ODOT.” They urged not less than partial service within the interim.
Amtrak had begun qualifying runs for practice crews on the Seattle-Vancouver route in February, with a submit to the Cascades Facebook web page that it might “re-establish train service later this spring.” The service halted in May 2020 when the Canadian border was closed to non-essential journey.
That identical Facebook web page introduced Friday that the service wouldn’t return till “late 2022.”