2 ms·

The last time I tried to take Amtrak, from Seattle to Vancouver, shortly before covid19 started... It arrived 3+ hours late at 1:20 in the morning, so late tha

The last time I tried to take Amtrak, from Seattle to Vancouver, shortly before covid19 started... It arrived 3+ hours late at 1:20 in the morning, so late that the Vancouver metro system (skytrain )was already shut down, and I ended up taking an additional $90 taxi ride. It was overall quite a miserable experience compared to just using my own car. And the return trip ticket cost was actually more than gas+mileage expenses on an ordinary economy car.

Mountain_Skies 5y ago
That's a beautiful route, especially if you are on the west facing side of the train but it sounds like it was dark most of your trip. Quite the pity because during the day the view makes up for the slowness of the trip.
gcheong 5y ago
I believe the main reason for the terrible on-time record of Amtrak has to do with prioritizing freight rail over passenger rail as they have to use the same lines.
wenc 5y ago
Seattle to Vancouver is a 2.5 hour drive (if you don't count the time spent at the border checkpoint -- but even that is a 5 minute affair if you have NEXUS). Whereas crossing the border by train is miserable because CBSA/CBP have to clear everyone on the train. I once took the train from Toronto to NYC (nominally a 12.5 hour trip). We were stuck the border for 2.5 hours (a bunch of passengers had to go through secondary inspection), which made it a 15 hour trip. I could've flown it in 1.5 hrs total. Lesson: never try to cross a national border by train. We're not Europe -- we have neither a Schengen-like agreement or pre-clearance for trains like we do for airports. Though we theoretically could have pre-clearance for trains (there have been efforts [1]) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_border_preclearance#Rail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_border_precleara...

2 ms·

The last time I tried to take Amtrak, from Seattle to Vancouver, shortly before covid19 started... It arrived 3+ hours late at 1:20 in the morning, so late tha

by walrus01 5y ago

Mountain_Skies 5y ago
That's a beautiful route, especially if you are on the west facing side of the train but it sounds like it was dark most of your trip. Quite the pity because during the day the view makes up for the slowness of the trip.
gcheong 5y ago
I believe the main reason for the terrible on-time record of Amtrak has to do with prioritizing freight rail over passenger rail as they have to use the same lines.
wenc 5y ago
Seattle to Vancouver is a 2.5 hour drive (if you don't count the time spent at the border checkpoint -- but even that is a 5 minute affair if you have NEXUS). Whereas crossing the border by train is miserable because CBSA/CBP have to clear everyone on the train. I once took the train from Toronto to NYC (nominally a 12.5 hour trip). We were stuck the border for 2.5 hours (a bunch of passengers had to go through secondary inspection), which made it a 15 hour trip. I could've flown it in 1.5 hrs total. Lesson: never try to cross a national border by train. We're not Europe -- we have neither a Schengen-like agreement or pre-clearance for trains like we do for airports. Though we theoretically could have pre-clearance for trains (there have been efforts [1]) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_border_preclearance#Rail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_border_precleara...