Amtrak Cascades

Amtrak Cascades

The Amtrak Cascades is a passenger train route operated by Amtrak in partnership with the Washington State and Oregon Departments of Transportation in the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia. It is named after the Cascade mountain range that the route parallels.

The corridor runs 156 miles (251 km) from Vancouver, British Columbia south to Seattle, Washington, continuing 310 miles (500 km) south via Portland, Oregon to Eugene, Oregon. Two daily trains travel to and from Vancouver, with Seattle or Portland as its starting or ending point; supplemental Thruway Motorcoach service connects travelers from Vancouver, BC to trains heading south from Seattle, as well as providing additional service between Portland and Eugene, and connections to other Amtrak Thruway destinations in Washington and Oregon. The second daily service between Seattle and Vancouver, BC started on August 19, 2009. As of December 2011 four trains run daily between Seattle and Portland, with two of those providing service to Eugene.

Cascades is Amtrak's eighth-busiest route, and it carries the most passengers of any of the railroad's services outside of the Northeastern U.S. or California. Total ridership for 2011 was over 850,000. During FY2011, the service had a total revenue of $30,025,126, an 8.9% increase over FY2010. Farebox recovery for the train has also increased from 48% in 2008 to 72% in 2010.