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Heads up Pacific Northwest! It looks like the Amtrak Cascades Corridor will be operated with AMTRAK LOW LEVEL cars for a while. This sounds like some big-time safety issue here for the Cascade Talgo trains. This was just posted to Railroadforums dot com tonight (thrus 8-2-07): ----Daniel ========================================= http://www.railroadforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19425 Amtrak Cascades Talgos pulled from service Press release from Amtrak:
August 2, 2007 4:50 p.m. PDT
Amtrak Cascades trains will be cancelled between Eugene, Oregon and Vancouver, B.C., Friday, August 3, 2007, with the exception of trains 510 and 517 (Seattle Vancouver, B.C.), which will operate on their regular schedules.
As a result of a recent mechanical inspection of some Cascades trains, Amtrak and the states of Washington and Oregon have agreed to impose a service moratorium to inspect all Cascades train equipment.
Amtrak is contacting passengers to alert them of the cancellations. Additional updates will be provided as more information becomes available. At this time, no alternate transportation will be provided.
The Coast Starlight will operate on its normal schedule (Seattle Los Angeles).
Passengers may call 800-USA-RAIL or visit Amtrak.com for additional information and train status updates.
I was given a heads up on this around the time the press release was released...so I guess its confirmed. FoamersNW told me that he talked with a certain Amtrak engineer ( ) who was scheduled to run one of tomorrow's trains out of Eugene. He told him that the Talgos would be out of service for a siginificant period of time. He also said that Amtrak is scrounging up Horizon and Amfleet cars from all over the system and sending them to Seattle and Portland to replace the Talgos.
So I'm guessing within the next few days it'll be a great time to photograph these rare Cascades lashups. We'll see what happens in a couple days when the cars arrive. __________________ Dale Skyllingstad KE7CEU Tacoma, WA
MP 6.7 (Nelson Bennett) on the BNSF Seattle Sub
Mr. Toy Member # 311
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There is a link to the official release near the top of Amtrak's home page. It is apparently a one day cancellation. No mention of any cancellations beyond Friday. Thus anything else read into the story is at this point rumor or speculation.
I notice, as of the time of this posting, the Amtrak Cascades website makes no mention of this, but it may be related to this announcement indicating that one Talgo trainset is out of service until December for maintenence, and that Superliner equipment is being substituted. Maybe during that service, something was discovered that might involve the other Talgos, so a broader inspection was deemed necessary.
Mr. Toy Member # 311
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This is starting to look like Acela II, the sequel.
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I don't see why they cannot scrounge up some buses for alternate transportation when they cancel at the last minute. Not doing so is bad for business.
I am not surprised the Talgos developed cracks; the ride on them seemed very bumpy and noisy last year and this, even though they are neat trains.
When I was in the NW this past spring, I took 3 Cascades plus the Coast Starligh; however, just 1 of my trains was a Talgo (the trains between Vancouver and BC were substitute Superliners-one with a splendiferous view; the other with a stupidly reconfigured inward-facing-seat lounge. The one Talgo I took was fine between Seattle and Portland but broke thereafter and had no proper electricity--no air conditioning (it was 90 degrees), no automatically functioning doors (had to be opened from the outside manually) etc.
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