US federal government announces funding for high-speed rail proposal linking Vancouver, Seattle, and Portland

Love seeing the buzz around this announcement. I desperately hope the projects don't get mired in development hell for political reasons

That would be great if they did extend it to Eugene was well. There is also a proposal to link Fort Collins, CO to Pueblo, which would be very convenient.

The current rolling stock for Portland to Eugene through cascades is a Siemens Charger, which can achieve a top speed of 200km/h. So it's surprising that the 177km route takes over 2h30, which is ~70km/h. Perhaps it's due to the frequent stops between each station, but I feel that it might simply make sense to add supplementary tracks (portland-canby and salem-albany) so it would have a straighter line (allowing sustained speed) and fewer stops. This would be significantly faster to build and leverage existing stock.
- Yeah. that's often the problem with buses and trains. Along populated routes it takes twice as long as the actual drive because they stop at each city along the way.
As a Eugenian, I was looking for this in the article. I guess it's a potential future extension.
It would be awesome to have high speed rail to Eugene, and I think it'd be the cheapest part to build given the terrain. But I'm not sure a metro population around half a million could serve as a terminal stop.
- I think it would work. I guess anyone who needs more services could get off in Portland. What they're looking at in CO would go from a town of about 300,000 (Fort Collins) to an area of about 150,000 (Pueblo), with Denver and Colorado Springs in between.
- It wouldn't be a great terminal stop, but there are worse ones. I also feel like this route would probably try to bake in commuter rail improvements along the route, so an extension to Eugene isn't that farfetched.
We’ve been paying for at least half of that Pueblo to Fort Collins route for about 20 years now… expected to be done in 2074 last I heard. The railroad is a real fuckhead, but also, the project has been mismanaged for sure. Hopefully this kick starts some action.

I wish that it would come a little (see: a lot) further and connect to Alaska. It would be so convenient to take a high speed train down to Seattle.

It really should also connect to SF/LA/SD.
- Eventually. If the northwest high speed rail is successful and California High Speed Rail is successful, there’s incentive to extend each and eventually connect, assuming there’s suitable land. Unfortunately, not likely to be in my lifetime
- maybe just SF and catch CHSR... i mean a plane to LAX
I think it would be cool to take a high speed train up to Alaska.

When I lived in Seattle a few years ago, the rail service to Vancouver was terrible. Presumably still is.

Several times a year, the tracks would get shut down by weather or mudslides, and train passengers would be forced onto busses with what can only be described as the world's least comfortable seats.

When the tracks were open, the train was pleasant enough. Not anything like high speed though. Always seemed to have delays.

I took the Amtrak down from this side of the border once and I swear there were pensioners walking beside the tracks faster than the train was going.

Me on my island looking across the water to those exact three cities my island neighbours and waiving my fist “mainlanders and their big projects”.

It’s for a study. The result is to be whether it fits the criteria

It is kinda nice to see Amtrak swing for the fences, but there are so many huge gains that could be made on the Cascades with smaller investments. Stuff like the Point Defiance bypass.