Pacific Northwest Corridor
[5] By 1940, the SP operated six daily round trips between Portland and Eugene: five long-distance trains – the Beaver, Cascade, Klamath, Oregonian, and West Coast – that continued to Oakland via the Shasta Route, and the Rogue River local service that ran to Ashland, Oregon, on the older Siskiyou Line.
The 1908 opening of the Columbia River bridge completed the all-rail route ("Prairie Line") between Seattle and Portland, eliminating the need for the ferry crossing at Kalama.
[13] The substantially increased passenger service on the NP required the original single-track mainline to be straightened and double tracked.
Final pre-Amtrak BN-UP Pool Service consisted of three daily round trips – one (UP) to Union Station, and two (BN) to King Street.
[21]: 73 However, the inland SLS&E route had numerous curves and steep grades; Hill had considered purchasing it in 1890, but deciding that constructing the Seattle and Montana would allow superior service.
[25][26] Construction began in 1901 on the Chuckanut Cutoff, which ran at water level along Bellingham Bay between Fairhaven and Belleville (north of Burlington, Washington) to bypass the numerous sharp curves on the original F&S route.
[28] The Great Northern and VV&E opened a new coastal route with lower grades from Brownsville to Blaine on March 15, 1909.
[29] The construction of the Lake Washington Ship Canal in Seattle, which began in 1911, necessitated the replacement of the single-track bridge connecting Interbay Yard and Ballard.
[34] By the time Amtrak began operations, the Burlington Northern ran a single daily International round trip.
The Empire Builder also ran on the corridor between Seattle and the connection with the ex-Northern Pacific mainline at Auburn, Washington.
[37] The Seattle–Salt Lake City Pioneer displaced the Puget Sound on June 7, 1977, with no change to service levels on the corridor.
[38][39]: 140 From June 11, 1973, until its discontinuance on October 8, 1979, the North Coast Hiawatha also ran on the corridor between Seattle and the connection with the ex-Great Northern mainline at Everett.
[42][43]: 52 The stops at Edmonds and Everett were restored on October 25 when the Empire Builder was rerouted over the ex-GN mainline.
[45]: 1–5 In 1993, the Washington legislature allocated funds for the development of incremental improvements to Amtrak service in the state.
[42][52] Current investment in passenger rail in the Pacific Northwest Corridor will not be used to create a dedicated high speed passenger rail corridor from the ground up, but will instead create more modest systematic improvements to the existing railway used by the Amtrak Cascades line that uses trackage owned primarily by private freight railways.
On January 27, 2010, the federal government announced $590 million of ARRA stimulus funds would go to Washington State for higher speed improvements of its section of the corridor.
Additionally, the state of Oregon received $8 million to improve Portland's Union Station and trackways in the area.
[54] These investments funded the construction of the Point Defiance Bypass, which reduced travel times and enabled the addition of two extra trips in the Seattle-Portland Amtrak Cascades corridor daily.
[55] This study[56] was completed by December that year, and analysed technology options, route options, preliminary financing and funding models, and recommended conducting a more detailed business case analysis that will examine ridership projections, governance, funding and financing models in greater detail.
[58] In July 2018, Washington governor Jay Inslee travelled to Vancouver, British Columbia, to meet with B.C.
[59] In October 2018, the Cascadia Innovation Corridor Conference, a Microsoft co-sponsored, cross-border initiative to encourage cross border business investment and collaboration, met for the third time, where one of the topics was to discuss updates on the high-speed rail business case analysis.
[65] [66] Later in the year, various groups held conferences to discuss the findings of the business case analysis and promote ultra-high-speed rail in general.
