11.29.23

Amtrak Fulfills Promise to Cantwell – Adds 2 More Daily Roundtrips Between Seattle & Portland

Announcement “significantly increases capacity for riders travelling between the two busiest stops on the Amtrak Cascades Route,” says Cantwell; Total number of Seattle-Portland roundtrips to increase from 5 to 7 beginning on Dec. 11

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) and the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) announced that the Amtrak Cascades route will add two additional trains between Seattle and Portland, bringing the total number of daily roundtrips to seven. In June, Sen. Cantwell secured a commitment from the Chair of the Amtrak Board of Directors to meet the company’s deadline to increase service for the Cascades in the fall.

“Today’s announcement gives riders two more options to go from Seattle to Portland. This significantly increases capacity for riders traveling between the two busiest stops on the Amtrak Cascades Route every morning and evening. These cities along the I-5 corridor are interconnected, and growing fast – together, Portland and Seattle added nearly a million residents and 700,000 new jobs over the last decade,” Sen. Cantwell said.

Beginning on Monday, December 11, Amtrak will add one additional train in both the northbound and southbound directions in the morning and the evening departing from both Portland and Seattle. The new departures are noted in bold on the schedule below.

Seattle to Portland Departures

Portland to Seattle Departures

5:52 a.m.

6:45 a.m.

7:08 a.m.

8:20 a.m.

9:50 a.m.

10:40 a.m.

12:10 p.m.

2:10 p.m.

2:20 p.m.

3:56 p.m.

5:40 p.m.

5:55 p.m.

7:50 p.m.

7:25 p.m.

Currently there are four daily Amtrak Cascades round trips and one Coast Starlight round trip that serve stops between the two cities include Tukwila, Tacoma, Olympia/Lacey, Centralia, Kelso/Longview, and Vancouver, Washington. Other routes serve stations south from Portland into Oregon and north of Seattle into Canada. The two new roundtrips will be Cascades trains operated by WSDOT and ODOT.

Sen. Cantwell, who serves as chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, has long advocated for increasing Amtrak service along the Cascades route. In May 2022, Sen. Cantwell spoke directly with the Amtrak CEO urging him to restore service for the Cascades. She followed up with the Chair of the Amtrak Board of Directors at his renomination hearing in September 2022, pressing him on his plans to fully restore routes connecting Washington state to British Columbia – routes that had been suspended since May 2020. Amtrak has since resumed two daily trains between Seattle and Vancouver, B.C.

Through the pandemic, Sen. Cantwell was a champion of the nation’s freight network. In 2021, the committee under her leadership advanced a bipartisan $78 billion transportation funding bill that included $58 billion for passenger rail and Amtrak grants.

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