The years-long process to restore regional intercity rail service and build up train ridership in western Washington and Oregon was dealt a major setback this week when Amtrak suddenly withdrew dozens of train cars from service for emergency repairs.
It means the state-supported Amtrak Cascades service is, for now, left with just one working train.
On its website, Amtrak said substitute bus service will be offered to passengers booked on cancelled trains “until further notice.”
Corrosion discovered on Amtrak’s aging Horizon-class railcars caused the trouble. The rail company immediately removed all 70 of its Horizon train cars from the fleet nationwide, including 26 used on the Amtrak Cascades line.
“Amtrak is determining how to replace the grounded Horizon trains by redistributing other trains in its national fleet,” said Washington State Department of Transportation rail division spokesperson Janet Matkin via email Wednesday. “Amtrak will notify the states of Washington and Oregon as soon as a plan is in place to move replacement trains to the Pacific Northwest.”
Matkin deferred to Amtrak to provide further details. An Amtrak spokesperson was unable to fit in an interview on Thursday.
“My guess is that it’s going to take robbing other services to come up with cars,” said rail consultant Thomas White by phone from Mountlake Terrace, Washington. “It’s not going to be easy.”
“To me, this is really disappointing,” White added, since this happened against a backdrop of rising ridership on Amtrak Cascades despite its poor on-time performance.
“Now if we wind up doing without trains for a year or more, we’re going to have to start over from scratch on ridership,” White said. “It’s kind of a habit thing.”
In 2024, nearly one million passengers boarded the state-supported trains between Eugene and Vancouver, British Columbia. That surpassed the pre-pandemic high of 829,000 riders in 2019. White is active in several groups that advocate for improvements to the regional rail service, including the Climate Rail Alliance and Rail Can’t Wait Campaign.
Spare passenger rail cars were already in short supply before Amtrak sidelined its Horizon fleet at midweek. Amtrak told WSDOT last year that it was unlikely to be able to supply additional carriages for the 2026 World Cup because of a nationwide equipment shortage.
The one remaining non-Horizon Amtrak Cascades train is now scheduled to make one daily southbound run from Seattle to Eugene during mornings (train #503) and return north to Seattle in the afternoon and evening (train #508). There is no rail service for the time being between Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia, which used to have two daily round trips.
Amtrak’s long-distance trains in the Northwest, the Coast Starlight and Empire Builder, are not affected. The Coast Starlight makes the same stops as the regional Cascades service on its once-daily departure between Seattle and Northern California, but this run is frequently delayed by freight trains that share the mainline.
New rail cars ordered, but not due before next year
The Amtrak Cascades line has new trains on order from manufacturer Siemens in California, but the first deliveries are not scheduled before spring 2026. The train car order is part of a larger transformation of the Amtrak fleet funded through the bipartisan infrastructure package passed by Congress in 2021. Amtrak Cascades is slated to get eight of the next-generation “Airo” class trainsets, along with two additional new locomotives.
Rendering of the new Airo-class trains that are on order from Siemens for delivery beginning in spring 2026. (Photo courtesy of WSDOT)
The Amtrak Cascades line was already down one trainset before this week due to a scary accident last November. An Amtrak-operated train owned by Oregon DOT hit a fallen tree north of Seattle on a stormy night. The stout tree impaled the cab where the engineer was driving, but he miraculously survived. The badly damaged, integrated Talgo Series 8 trainset remains on a maintenance siding in Seattle awaiting repairs.
The Horizon train cars were manufactured more than 35 years ago by Bombardier Transportation at a now-closed factory in Vermont. They have an aluminum body bolted to a steel undercarriage. Unhappy rail fans active in the Amtrak Cascades Facebook group said that corrosion was a foreseeable risk for the Horizon cars due to electrolysis where the aluminum comes in contact with steel.
Even before this latest setback, passenger rail advocates were trying to light a fire under the Washington Legislature and WSDOT to aim higher with the regional Amtrak Cascades service. A bipartisan legislative bill to set ambitious goals for service upgrades and reliability passed the state House earlier this month on a 68 to 29 vote.
House Bill 1837 directs WSDOT, in partnership with Oregon, Canada and BNSF Railway, to set a goal to shave about an hour off the current scheduled trip times between Seattle and Portland as well as Seattle and Vancouver. The bill also sets a target for Amtrak Cascades to provide a minimum of 14 round trips per day between Seattle and Portland and a minimum of five round trips per day between Seattle and Vancouver by 2035.
The Legislature did not provide additional funding to achieve the new targets in the policy bill. A BNSF lobbyist cautioned lawmakers last month that speeding up Amtrak trains above 90 mph would be incompatible with the slower freight trains that share the rails. The bill says that if WSDOT determines a service improvement goal is unlikely to be achieved, it must report on what the constraints are and how to fix them.
The priority-setting measure is now pending in the state Senate, where the Transportation Committee will give it a hearing next Tuesday, which coincidentally is April Fools’ Day.
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