After more than two years off the tracks, the Amtrak Falls passenger train service between Vancouver and Seattle, Washington, will return in September.
Popular international service is expected to resume two months ahead of schedule.
U.S. government-owned railroad officials had it he said in May the trains would not return to the route until December, at the earliest.
No passenger trains have crossed the BC-Washington border since the first major COVID-19 outbreak in March 2020, although ground and air travel has been made. allowed between the two jurisdictions, with few restrictions.
Amtrak had blamed the shortage of staff for the long delay, saying it did not have enough drivers, mechanics and service personnel on board to operate the trains.
SERVICE IN CANADA RESUMES IN SEPTEMBER:
WSDOT & ODOT is pleased to share this train service to all cities north of Seattle, including Vancouver, BC, is now resumed in September 2022. Earlier plans said a return to Canada in December, but Amtrak was able to advance the ‘schedule. pic.twitter.com/nKmvCfJZoj
– @ Amtrak_Cascades
Janet Matkin, of the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), said the rail service managed to get creative with staff and equipment, allowing the service to resume.
“WSDOT … is very excited that we can return service in September,” he said in an interview. “Originally, Amtrak had notified us that it would not be until December 2022, with which we were very dissatisfied.”
Prior to the pandemic, approximately 159,000 people made the train route between Seattle and Vancouver each year. And almost double that number of passengers boarded or disembarked at stops between the two cities.
The Railroad Falls route has been running on a limited schedule between Seattle and Portland for several months.
When he extends his service back to northern Canada this fall, Matkin said Amtrak plans to make a round trip each day. If demand increases, eventually, two round trips will be scheduled.
Both WSDOT and the Oregon Department of Transportation are responsible for the Cascades route service, with Washington overseeing services going to BC.
Matkin said the number of passengers on U.S. parts of the Cascades route had not yet recovered to pre-pandemic levels, but that they were increasing “a lot.”
In the absence of its train to Vancouver, Amtrak had been offering a bus service between Vancouver and Seattle. Matkin said the service experienced a major uptake, carrying more than 350 passengers a day.
“The demand is definitely there,” he said. “Not just from Vancouver, but also the intermediate stations, from Bellingham to Everett.”
Washington state lawmakers this year approved $ 150 million to study and plan the high-speed rail between British Columbia, Washington and Oregon, with the intention of replacing Amtrak someday. But if that happens, construction would cost at least $ 42 billion and decades.
The BC government has backed the idea, and Prime Minister John Horgan said in 2019 that a one-hour high-speed trip between Seattle and Vancouver would “strengthen the relationship” between Washington state and BC and “would create” countless opportunities “on both sides of the border.