A couple of years ago, there was a petition, to WSDOT, to make Blaine, Washington a regular station stop for the Amtrak Cascades. Now the stop is only for customs officials.
A permanent station stop would allow the renovation of the historic 1908 Blaine Train Depot. BNSF was going to demolish the station.
Anyone know what has transpired over the last 2 years with regard to a regular Blaine stop?
They say that many Canadians, in communities between Vancouver and the US border, would like to drive over the border to the Blaine station, rather than have to double back to Vancouver to board the train. I have to think the reverse could also be true. People living between Bellingham and the Canadian border might wish to drive up to Blaine to board the train to Vancouver. Blaine is a really picturesque little town.
Richard
Posted by Vincent206 (Member # 15447) on :
It's very true that many Canadians that live between Vancouver and the US border would rather not back-track to downtown Vancouver and endure the slow running that slows down Cascades trains in the highly congested Fraser River area. So a Cascades stop at Blaine might catch some of those potential riders. I don't know if those passengers are already heading to Bellingham to catch a train or if they are just driving all the way south. Bellingham's airport also offers many low cost flights to tourist destinations (LAS, PSP, OGG, AZA) that are clearly marketed to Canadians, so many Canadian travelers are already making the trip over the border to start their vacations.
BNSF is in the design phase for the Blaine Customs siding project with construction scheduled to begin in January 2014. I haven't heard any other news about a passenger stop at Blaine, but it would be up to WSDOT and local government to design, build and fund the construction of a Blaine passenger station--BNSF won't be paying for that. WSDOT is also still looking at the possibility of building a new intermodal station south of the Fraser River where passengers would transfer to Skytrain or other local transit providers and get a faster ride to downtown than the Cascades trains can provide.
WSDOT has been getting numerous requests from local communities about adding Cascades stops, so they have defined new criteria for adding station stops. For a stop to be established at Blaine, it will have to be shown that adding the stop will add new riders without cannibalizing ridership at other stations and that the time needed to make the stop won't deter other riders from taking the train. Adding a station at Blaine seems to make sense at first glance. The train is already stopping for customs work and there is a local market; but some entity needs to be identified to pay for the design and construction costs.
Don't make any near term plans to take Amtrak to Blaine.
Posted by yukon11 (Member # 2997) on :
Well, if the Blaine silding project is going to build 9000 ft. of new track, I would think they could at least build a station platform if not a depot for the Cascade train. One possible problem, with a Blaine depot or platform, might be whether or not they would have adequate parking space for the influx of passengers.
Richard
Posted by George Harris (Member # 2077) on :
With a fairly normal power to weight ratio, a station stop from 79 mph requires 3 minutes and a couple of seconds plus the standing time in addition to the non stopping time through the area. The question then becomes how much loss of ridership will 3 minutes added to the run time cause, particularly since most schedules already have more time than that added to pure run time for meets and make up time.
Posted by Ocala Mike (Member # 4657) on :
Didn't know there was a Blaine, Washington. Maybe they need a stool company to make them famous and put them on the map:
Didn't the old Mt. Baker International (predecessor to the Cascades) make a stop in Blaine back in the late 70's or 80's?
Posted by Vincent206 (Member # 15447) on :
The Pacific International used to make a daily stop in Blaine and New Westminster BC. I notice that the southbound station stop at Blaine was 18 minutes and the northbound stop was 2 minutes. I wonder where customs and immigration checks were performed.
Posted by RRRICH (Member # 1418) on :
Vincent -- traveling northbound back then, they may have still had the traveling customs agent who boards at Bellingham and gets off at Blaine or New Westminster. Obviouslsy, Blaine was the southbound customs stop.