The Washington State Department of Transportation released its final Amtrak Cascades Preliminary Service Development Plan on Friday, which explores different options and considerations for expanding intercity passenger rail service within Washington state along the Interstate 5 corridor. 

As WSDOT notes, the Amtrak Cascades Preliminary Service Development Plan (.pdf) is “a blueprint for future capital improvements and service changes and is at the core of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) requirements for improving and expanding passenger rail service on the corridor. Preparing a Preliminary SDP improves our ability to compete for federal funds for future infrastructure and service improvements.” 

An Amtrak Cascades train at a train platform with a digital sign that reads "Amtrak Cascades No. 518 / To Vancouver / Status - Last Call"
Bellingham's Fairhaven Transportation Center is the last northbound Amtrak Cascades stop before the international border. (Photo by Michael Grass / BhamByBus)

There’s a lot in the Preliminary Service Development Plan and WSDOT’s report is certainly worth your time, especially for regular Amtrak Cascades riders. There are some important takeaways for Bellingham and other cities served by Amtrak Cascades north of Seattle:  

  • Due to track limitations along the BNSF-owned rail corridor north of Seattle, WSDOT lays out an important expectation for potential future service: The upper limit for roundtrip Amtrak Cascades trains between Seattle and Vancouver, B.C., is six, something that WSDOT points out “represents a three-fold increase from the current two roundtrips.” (For Bellinghamsters, the two current Seattle-Vancouver, B.C. roundtrip trains are supplemented by two Seattle-Bellingham Amtrak Cascades roundtrip bus trips via Interstate 5, which would be converted to rail roundtrips in all of the preliminary alternatives studied.)
  • WSDOT also recognizes the limitations of intercity passenger rail service along the Amtrak Cascades corridor north of Seattle due to constrained rail infrastructure in British Columbia: “More train trips to Vancouver, BC are not viable without support from Canadian partners. However, additional trains to Bellingham, with connecting buses across the border could capture most of the ridership between Seattle and Vancouver, BC and should be analyzed further if infrastructure improvements in Canada become a challenge.” It’d be a shame if rail service improvements between Seattle and Bellingham are hampered by a lack of meaningful track improvements north of the international border, something BhamByBus stressed in WSDOT’s Preliminary Service Development Plan public feedback process this spring. It’s heartening to see WSDOT acknowledge this in the final report. 
  • Some of the ridership comparisons for preliminary alternatives for Seattle-Vancouver, B.C. rail service and Seattle-Bellingham rail service with cross-border bus connection to Vancouver are interesting. “Ridership sensitivity results indicated a slightly lower ridership growth potential north of Seattle for options with Seattle-Bellingham trips compared to those with Seattle-Vancouver, BC trips during development of the service options.” Looking at Preliminary Alternative C, which has three Seattle-Vancouver, B.C., rail trips and three Seattle-Bellingham rail trips with connecting bus service, WSDOT’s sensitivity analysis shows that “a service option with identical service frequency but all rail service between Seattle and Vancouver, BC instead of rail-bus trips was projected to have 13% higher ridership than Preliminary Alternative C, and 4% higher corridor-wide ridership.” That, WSDOT notes, “suggests that providing Seattle-Bellingham rail service should be studied further” in the next phase of study if providing additional rail service across the international border to Vancouver Pacific Central Station “is not viable in the near term.”  
  • All the Preliminary Alternatives studied all envision some limited track improvements in the Amtrak Cascades corridor north of Seattle, including double-track extensions in Custer and Ferndale northwest of Bellingham and a rail siding extension in “South Bellingham,” which BhamByBus, a regular Amtrak Cascades rider, assumes is the rail siding south of Marine Park in Fairhaven and along the shoreline of the Edgemoor neighborhood. Aside from some track upgrades in the vicinity of BNSF’s Delta Yard in Everett, there’s nothing else envisioned between Bellingham and Seattle on WSDOT’s conceptual list of track improvements. If BhamByBus had a magic wand or billions to throw around to make rail improvements materialize, we’d also expand track capacity along the relatively straight sections through Skagit County and northwestern Snohomish County, plus new rail bridges crossing the Snohomish River Delta to support higher-speed trains, a frustrating stretch that currently force trains to crawl across the aging bridges between Everett and Marysville. 
  • And speaking of higher-speed trains, don’t anticipate any improvements that will significantly reduce travel times on the Amtrak Cascades corridor north of Seattle, where trains max out at 79 mph but often go much slower due to slower, curving stretches of track, e.g., BNSF’s rail right of way paralleling Chuckanut Drive between Bellingham and Bow. The Preliminary Service Development Plan acknowledges that shorter travel times could increase ridership, but WSDOT cautions: “Simply raising the maximum speed to 90 mph may be viable in some locations, but more analysis and host railroad discussions are needed to confirm if these increases are viable. An assessment of opportunities to increase speeds in locations with current speed restrictions through infrastructure investments will be considered in the upcoming Step 2 SDP work.” WSDOT does, however, note in its Next Steps section that this work “will continue to be coordinated with other transportation planning efforts, including Cascadia High Speed Rail and the I-5 Master Plan.” 
Two railroad tracks cut across a street and serve an adjacent train platform at a red brick station.
WSDOT envisions more Amtrak Cascades roundtrip trains serving Bellingham's Fairhaven Transportation Center (Photo by Michael Grass / BhamByBus)

If you’re a regular Amtrak Cascades rider, the improvements that are envisioned in the Preliminary Service Development Plan — especially increased frequency of roundtrip trains between Seattle and Bellingham — would be welcome, but they aren’t going to materialize in the near term. There’s a lot of additional study and intergovernmental cooperation ahead. 

But Amtrak is scheduled to introduce its new Siemens-manufactured Airo trainsets on the Amtrak Cascades corridor in 2026, which will be something to celebrate.