Travelling in via the Cascades day of cruise...

[potchak]

We are travelling in on the 745 Cascades train from Seattle to Vancouver on the day of our cruise. This is already booked and we are in business class. Should we be concerned we will not make our cruise? It is scheduled in at 1145am. I'm getting nervous...

 

Also, is it rather easy to get a cab from the train station to the port?

[Urban trekker]

Provided there isn't a derailment or washout you should be fine taking the morning train - many people do it.

 

There should be a line-up of cabs just outside the station which is also the bus depot so it has lots of traffic . It should cost around $10.00 and shouldn't take more than 10-15 to get there. Just a tip - if the taxi line-up going into Canada Place isn't moving very fast - ask to be let out a the top of the ramp or the Pan Pacific as the meter keeps running while you sit waiting. This happened to me one of the few times I took a cab to the port and it almost double the fare.

 

Hope this helps

 

Cheers!

 

Dennis

[potchak]

Getting concerned because the train has been an hour late consistently for the last week. :(

[KristyMisty14]

We are travelling in on the 745 Cascades train from Seattle to Vancouver on the day of our cruise. This is already booked and we are in business class. Should we be concerned we will not make our cruise? It is scheduled in at 1145am. I'm getting nervous...

 

Also, is it rather easy to get a cab from the train station to the port?

 

I wouldn't worry at all! Even if it gets in at 1pm, you are so close to the pier. Taxi's should be plenty-full there at that time and if for some crazy reason there is no cabs, you can walk about 50 FT to the Sky Train Station (Main St./ Science World) get on westbound and it will take you Waterfront station in about 8 minutes. Canada Place right by the station. Super easy.

[xlxo]

Thoughts...

• in general, you should be fine. Yes, I too noticed the trains running an hour behind on a few occasions.
  
• Vancouver is a great port to be stuck without a train, boat or plane. Lots of activities for a multi-day pre/post cruise experience.
  
• Don't forget if the train is late.... you still need to add additional time for customs at the station.
  
• I've seen people arrive at the terminal as late as 3pm. You'll miss the welcome lunch that you paid for.
  

[peety3]

We tried taking the Amtrak from Seattle to Vancouver in May, to then take the Ruby Princess back to Seattle the next night. It was a miserable flop. Amtrak has credited the train fare back to be reused in the next year, but that doesn't match what it cost us instead. Not to scare you, but our 6:50pm departure kept getting pushed back by 30 minutes every 30 minutes, and there were no announcements or humans to help us when we decided to punt at 8:15pm. We took the Link light rail from King St Station down to the airport, and rented a car. We parked it for the night at our hotel, then dropped it off at YVR that morning and had a cab take us to the cruise terminal. Another gentleman who seems to take the train almost weekly said it's frequently late and they often punt to buses instead, but they take forever to make the decision to go with buses. Amtrak told me the train did finally get to Vancouver seven hours late, but that they did switch to buses.

 

I guess my advice is relatively simple: figure out your plan B, and reverse-engineer the timetable so you know when you'd have to make the decision to punt. Also, get good at figuring out how to track your train as it's making its way to Seattle, as you may need to rely on that information to make your punt decision in a timely manner.

[potchak]

We tried taking the Amtrak from Seattle to Vancouver in May, to then take the Ruby Princess back to Seattle the next night. It was a miserable flop. Amtrak has credited the train fare back to be reused in the next year, but that doesn't match what it cost us instead. Not to scare you, but our 6:50pm departure kept getting pushed back by 30 minutes every 30 minutes, and there were no announcements or humans to help us when we decided to punt at 8:15pm. We took the Link light rail from King St Station down to the airport, and rented a car. We parked it for the night at our hotel, then dropped it off at YVR that morning and had a cab take us to the cruise terminal. Another gentleman who seems to take the train almost weekly said it's frequently late and they often punt to buses instead, but they take forever to make the decision to go with buses. Amtrak told me the train did finally get to Vancouver seven hours late, but that they did switch to buses.

 

I guess my advice is relatively simple: figure out your plan B, and reverse-engineer the timetable so you know when you'd have to make the decision to punt. Also, get good at figuring out how to track your train as it's making its way to Seattle, as you may need to rely on that information to make your punt decision in a timely manner.

 

Ok, you are making me even more nervous now :)

[KristyMisty14]

Ok, you are making me even more nervous now :)

 

You are leaving on the first train of the day from Seattle right? Like 7 or 8am?

 

I ask because I would think then the train would already be in Seattle the night before and not relying in it coming from somewhere else during the day..... I think the other poster said he was leaving at 6:50PM - so all day for the train to run into problems.

 

I have done this in the reverse twice and taken the Amtrak from Vancouver down to Seattle to board the 1 nighter's back up here and I would think the hold up in it getting in late could possibility due to the Canadian Border crossing? The train stops at the boarder and the boarder guards get on and walk through and asked random people stuff and see passports

 

I love the train ride, I think you will be totally fine.

[martincath]

To put Peety's comment in perspective - the evening train is a totally different animal than the morning train. For your run OP, all rolling stock and engines are already in place in Seattle - no dependencies on other routes. The evening train OTOH runs all the way from Eugene OR and the first part of the tracks are run by a different (and crappier) company. They also haven't been upgraded yet, while most of the WA track has.

 

KM14 is wrong about the border - there is no stop northbound at all, everything happens at the station in Vancouver. It's only Southbound where there's a token stop - and that's because the US CBP don't even trust their OWN people to do their jobs right! CBP preclear in Vancouver for southbound travel...

 

Since we live a few minutes walk from both PDX and VAC stations we're pretty familiar with Amtraking it and it's MUCH more likely for the evening train to run late. As soon as it does slip the magnitude of the lateness rapidly increases, due to the illegal policy of prioritizing freight trains. So as soon as the passenger train slips out of it's window it ends up having to wait in sidings and at stations several more times for freight trains to pass. Evening train will either be very close to on-time (say 30mins late or so) or else ~3 hours late.

 

In short - the only problem with the morning train these days is ship traffic - waiting for up to an hour south of one of the bridges for marine traffic has become unfortunately fairly common at the moment. But frankly arriving at the pier later is better anyway - as business class you'll be among the first pax off the train and through Canadian immigration, so you'll beat almost all of your fellow train pax.

 

Personally if you arrive on time or even an hour late, I'd grab lunch BEFORE heading to the pier. If it's a 1 or 2 ship day then arriving after 2pm means you'll probably walk right through security/immigration/check-in. If it's a three-shipper there may still be small queues until closer to 3pm. Since there's no way for you to arrive Day Of by train and beat the crowds (~10am arrival needed for that) the only way to reduce time in queues is to push your pier time as late as possible. As long as you're 90mins before departure you won't get left behind!

[KristyMisty14]

KM14 is wrong about the border - there is no stop northbound at all, everything happens at the station in Vancouver. It's only Southbound where there's a token stop - and that's because the US CBP don't even trust their OWN people to do their jobs right! CBP preclear in Vancouver for southbound travel...

 

 

Actually - I said "possibility due to the Canadian Border crossing"...... as I I have not done it in the reverse from USA to Canada. But thanks for clearing that up for all of us! ;p

[cuterlmt]

Oh dear. We are taking the evening train from Seattle to Vancouver the night before our ship sails. I'm glad (well, not really) to read this so I can at least look at other options, just in case.

 

From what I understand you all saying, when we get into the Vancouver station, we have to go through immigration? I thought that was done at a stop along the way. Boy are we going to be tired! I hope we can catch a few winks on the train.

[peety3]

Oh dear. We are taking the evening train from Seattle to Vancouver the night before our ship sails. I'm glad (well, not really) to read this so I can at least look at other options, just in case.

 

From what I understand you all saying, when we get into the Vancouver station, we have to go through immigration? I thought that was done at a stop along the way. Boy are we going to be tired! I hope we can catch a few winks on the train.

We had a slightly unique case: we had a prepaid hotel room, we had a very strong desire to enjoy the MDR lunch (which cuts off at 1:30), and we wanted to be sure to link up with a crew member we knew would be aboard. So we prioritized getting more sleep over cost, and "threw money at the problem". I do believe Amtrak will see that you get to your destination, even if it's by bus and after a several-hour delay (if nothing else, they need to get the train to Vancouver to operate the corresponding reverse train). Had we done a cancelable hotel room, or had we been doing a 7-day cruise where there'd be more opportunity to visit with our favorite crew member, etc., we may have been willing to sit through the delays and/or accept a deferral to the following morning's train.

 

 

We also had a particularly severe storm blow through, and it caused both power lines and trees to be across the tracks. We did have an impressive follow-up from not only Amtrak, but also WSDOT who took responsibility for the delays because they handle the contractual agreement for Amtrak to use BNSF tracks for that run.

[martincath]

Actually - I said "possibility due to the Canadian Border crossing"...... as I I have not done it in the reverse from USA to Canada. But thanks for clearing that up for all of us! ;p

Your following sentence was the erroneous one - in which you stated that that train stops at the 'boarder' and checks are done. I parsed it as you believing that there was also a northbound stop similar to the southbound, and that the immigration process at this stop could be possibly causing delays, rather than that you were indicating there might possibly be a stop at all. English grammar leaves a lot of room for interpretation...

 

Thanks to Peety's additional info that particular trip can very much be dumped into the 'this is not remotely normal' bucket per Dennis' original response. There's always a chance that some weird thing will cause a huge delay - but as always Amtrak will eventually get you there. When we had a bus-requiring issue one trip it only delayed our trip by 30mins - Amtrak are usually on the ball with swapping in buses as they're very aware of the normal circumstances which can require them, so the WSDOT issues make that particular super-long delay much more understandable.

 

CuterLMT - the train is pretty comfy for napping. We certainly caught a few winks on our '2am instead of 11pm' arrival! You will hear something about the immigration process at the last WA stop (Bellingham) when there will likely be customs forms handed out to declare anything you're bringing into Canada along with a reminder that you'll need to have your passports, NEXUS, EDL etc. in-hand to show to CBSA.

 

 

Since various airports no longer bother with the forms for US/Canadian citzens - with the new kiosks it's a much slicker process and forms are pretty much redundant - it's possible that something similar might be happening with Amtrak too, so if nobody hands out forms ask the conductor. The process is usually quick - we almost always end up in the last carriage so are among the last people allowed off the train and we've still never taken more than 30mins after arrival to get through.

[peety3]

When we had a bus-requiring issue one trip it only delayed our trip by 30mins - Amtrak are usually on the ball with swapping in buses as they're very aware of the normal circumstances which can require them, so the WSDOT issues make that particular super-long delay much more understandable.

We were in the waiting area sitting across from a man who seems to make the train trip quite regularly Seattle-Vancouver. He gave us the impression that the northbound train, at least on Thursday nights, is frequently delayed, is frequently punted onto buses, and that they rarely commit to the buses quickly (it's usually several hours before they pull the trigger, at least on Thursday nights). They'll offer to credit your ticket value towards a future date, but the Friday train carries a price premium which they don't cover.

 

In our case, because of (reportedly) trees and wires across the tracks before Tacoma, this gentleman gave us the impression that if they switched to buses, they'd have the buses meet the train along the route, THEN drive those passengers to Tacoma, unload/reload as appropriate, THEN drive passengers to Seattle, unload/reload as appropriate, THEN drive passengers to Vancouver. In other words, tracking the inbound train could be enough to know right off the bat if there's at least hope of an on-time train for you.

[martincath]

^I concur that tracking the inbound train is a good indicator of timeliness. You're also correct about buses being used to 'hop' between trains - IF there's actually a train available of course.

 

Our particular issue was back in the day when spring rains caused minor landslides each year, before the route was upgraded to help avoid these. When cleared they can move freight again, but passenger trains need to wait an extra day for safety. So they dump all pax on buses the station before the landslide site, drive to the station after it, and the train moves through with no pax onboard (but all of our suitcases were left onboard).

 

When there's a situation like you described - where I would imagine there were various time estimates given by WSDOT and BNSF about clearing track blockages - half-hourly updates seem to be the norm by Amtrak, but decision to bring in buses does take at least 2 hours (have to call in many drivers, plan routes to pick up/drop off at all intermediate stations, decide if train can move through and catch up or new train can be brought in and if so where to, or if buses have to drive the whole way etc.)

 

In my experience they are willing to stick to the train if it's just expected delays (other trains, signals) regardless of how long that delay is. If there's a real issue though buses do get brought in as soon as they can tell the train cannot get through at all. It's the in-between situations - where the train should be coming, but with unknown ETA - that things drag on. e.g. we had one trip where an idiot truck driver took a too-high load under a railway bridge and hit it.- the train was not allowed to proceed until a WSDOT engineer was brought in to verify that the bridge was structurally-sound.

 

That was supposed to take about an hour - but actually took over two as the engineer got caught up in traffic backlog caused by the damaged truck. We sat on the train in the station before the bridge so that we could be taken off and put on buses if needed and received updates every 30mins from the conductor - even if those updates were mostly "sorry, we have no idea how much longer it will be but we do know the engineer is en route."

 

Despite the recent derailment, that bridge thing, landslides, and our occasional super-long homeward trip caused by BNSF dickery, we still feel that Amtrak is the nicest and most reliable way to travel in this neck of the woods. We've had far more issues driving I5 than taking Amtrak - and if we are to seriously consider these unusual Amtrak occurrences then the 'no road bridge on I5 over the Skagit at all for weeks' also needs to be factored in when comparing it to bus or car travel.