Amtrak Cascades begins restoring canceled service

Amtrak is moving train cars to the Northwest from other parts of the country to swap in for 26 cars abruptly pulled from service in late March due to corrosion problems.

The issues with the Horizon-class railcars left Amtrak Cascades with just one working trainset.

With the arrival of the additional cars, two trains between Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia, — trains No. 516 and No. 519 — resumed service Tuesday, Washington State Department of Transportation rail division spokesperson Janet Matkin said in an email.

Amtrak is moving train cars to the Northwest on the Empire Builder line from Chicago.

Matkin said more trains will return to service later this week, including trains between Seattle and Portland, Oregon, and a train between Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver.

“The goal is to quickly restore all trips, but with a limited number of cars on each train,” Matkin said.

This will mean trains with fewer seats available in the near term — less than half as many coach seats as normal in some cases. How long it will take for Amtrak to return to full seating capacity on the line is unclear.

In 2024, nearly 1 million passengers rode Amtrak Cascades trains, which run in a north-south corridor between Eugene, Oregon, and Vancouver, British Columbia.

The Coast Starlight, a long-distance Amtrak train, makes the same stops as the regional Cascades service on its once-daily departure between Seattle and California. Service on that route has not been affected.

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