Amtrak to continue running two trains a day into Vancouver.
Common sense at last.
Amtrak will continue to rumble Seattle to Vancouver route twice daily
The Amtrak Cascades train from Vancouver to Seattle.
Photograph by: Vancouver Sun files, .
The second daily Amtrak Cascades train between Seattle and Vancouver, which was scheduled to end in October, has been given a reprieve and made permanent.
Public Safety Minister Vic Toews made the announcement this week at a media briefing after a meeting with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.
“Despite some significant financial constraints, the Canada Border Services Agency has decided that it will continue to provide publicly funded border-clearance service to Amtrak’s second daily train,” Toews said.
During the 2010 Winter Olympics the second train carried 1,872 passengers during the two-week event, and 16 trains were sold out.
“This was an issue that was raised in British Columbia and by Washington state and … a matter of very great importance to the business and other travellers there,” Toews said.
It’s unbelievable this was ever up for discussion. On a fundamental level, why should train travellers be forced to pay Border Services salaries when car travellers do not? If anything, screening people on a train takes less time per passenger, since there are far fewer cars to search, and those cars are much easier to search.
It’s the anti-passenger train culture pervasive in our senior governments that tried to cut this immensely successful service back, who were finally shamed into doing the right thing by the business lobby and the USA.