posted
From a friend of mine, a fellow Brit by the name of Clive Feather. This was part of an email exchange but with his permission I've posted the relevant extract here.
The light rail is running from Sea-Tac airport to the centre of Seattle. It was cheap and convenient and probably faster than a taxi. Geoff was right that the trolleybuses no longer use the tunnel under the central area - the light rail does, and so do various diesel buses. It's odd to sit in one of the latter and watch it obey rail signals (in one case we were held at the inner home until a light rail train cleared the platform).
I took the monorail to the Space Needle and back. The entire network has exactly one signal! I didn't try the new tram line, though I did see it, but I did ride a trolleybus.
Some friends suggested that I catch the train from Seattle to Vancouver instead of flying so, after some investigation, I decided to do so. It was Amtrak train 510, departing 07:40 and arriving 11:40.
==== Contemporaneous notes ====
Boarded with no formalities. I've got a window seat facing forward on the left ("water") side. There's a power socket at floor level and the tray in the seat back ahead of me is easily big enough for my laptop. Of the 36 seats in this carriage (2+2; two bays and 5 airline rows), perhaps 8 to 10 are occupied.
Americans need announcements telling them how to walk along a train in motion?!
Why are the power cars so much bigger than the passenger ones? It's like a TGV classic, only more so. Is it to put the drivers at the same height as on freight locos? Why bother?
Depart on time at 07:40.
On the north edge of Seattle, beside a freight yard of some kind, the brakes suddenly come on hard and we stop (we were only doing 20 mph or so). We sit for 20 minutes or so (the PA has gone on the fritz so I can't understand the announcements); I see staff walking along the outside of the train looking at it. We start off slowly and stop at a station, then start off again. When a member of staff comes along I ask her what's going on. It turns out that the wheelchair lift is pneumatic and powered off the main air line. Something dislodged on it, causing a full brake application!
Someone asks whether we'll miss "our slot". Not to worry, she says. Not only does the schedule have some allowance in it for problems, but passenger trains have precedence over other traffic, enforced by fines.
At Everett there's some minor problem and we're told that the engineer is going to push a button in the rear power car. A man in overalls runs down the platform, and a minute or two later we're off again.
Approaching Mount Vernon there's an announcement that passengers wanting to alight should make their way to cars 3 and 4 (I'm in 6; 7 is the front passenger car). We stop at the station, then start off again. A minute later an old lady walks through the connection between 7 and 6 complaining that she wanted to get off! A little while later we stop at an unnamed platform for a moment. The next station is also a short platform and the announcement says "we don't want to have to stop again like we did after Mount Vernon".
At one point there was a branch track with a train of 60 or so cars on it. It was being pulled by what looked like a road truck with standard road tyres on it, though I could just see it had rail wheels as well between them.
Two or three times I notice a level crossing, with flashing red lights and barriers down ... but the road has been closed. In one case there's even a metre high embankment to ensure no cars.
10:47: a brief "Welcome to Canada" announcement. A minute or two later we pass a couple of dozen people strung out along the shoreline (perhaps 20m away), and they're *all* looking at the train.
11:20: looking at the little map in a leaflet I found on the train, I've just realized that we've been in the suburbs of Vancouver ever since crossing the border. There's some announcement I didn't quite catch about crossing a bridge and we might have to stop (we didn't), and shortly afterwards we cross - very slowly - one of three parallel bridges over the river (I later discover it's a swing bridge). The one carrying the Skytrain is spectacular.
11:48: we're stopped, apparently just outside the station (actually just before VCC/Clark station on Skytrain). "We just have to flip a couple of switches so that we can get on the right track" (though this is a single-track line). Huh? Isn't that the signaller's job?
12:00: arrived - 20 minutes later. We're on a single platform that's fenced off, presumably to ensure we don't avoid Customs and Immigration. We've been told that we'll be detrained one car at a time. It turns out that I have to wait 5 minutes to detrain, then another 5 or so for C&I.
Overall, the journey isn't fast, but it's comfortable and the scenery is spectacular - sea and forests, snow-capped mountains in the sun. Well worth the $35 I paid.
==== End of contemporaneous notes ====
In Vancouver I had quite a lot of spare time, so I rode the Skytrain. All of it. All three lines, from end to end.
[s] = stations omitted B = Broadway K = King George M = Main St (interchange for Amtrak) R = Richmond V = VCC/Clark W = Waterfront X = (I forget the name) Y = YVR (the airport)
The line from W to R and Y (the "Canada Line") is new, only open a few months. One oddity is that after the last station before both R and Y, the line is single for the run into the final station. A bit like the old East London Line (if you ignore Shoreditch). Indeed, it was very like the ELL off-peak; only one of the platforms at Waterfront was in use, with an out of service train in the other.
The entire network is automated and there are no drivers, so you can just sit and watch out of the front.
Posts: 2426 | From: Apple Valley, CA | Registered: Sep 2000
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posted
I'm wondering why all of the doors didn't open and the passengers had to walk to certain car numbers...on the Cascades, don't all doors open automatically?
Posts: 2355 | From: Pleasanton, CA | Registered: Apr 2007
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