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).

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...