SEATTLE – Starting today, the Mount Bachelor, the Talgo Series 8 trainset that has been out of service since its cab car was impaled by a tree in a November storm, is back in service with the other Talgo, the Mount Jefferson, on Cascades service linking Vancouver, British Columbia, and Eugene, Ore.
The move will add capacity at a time when fewer Amfleet cars have been subbing for the withdrawn Horizon coaches, causing sellouts on many departures.
The Mount Bachelor initially is being assigned to a daily Seattle-Eugene round-trip, train No. 503, departing Seattle at 7:10 a.m, and train No. 508, leaving Eugene at 4:30 p.m. This will allow the trainset to be serviced every night in Seattle.
The Mount Jefferson has been switched to a two-day cycle which starts in Seattle with train No. 505, the 8:55 a.m. departure to Portland, flipping to the evening train No. 518 to Vancouver. The next day it leaves in the morning as No. 517 to Portland, where it returns to Seattle as train No. 506 leaving at 5:55 p.m.
With the Talgo set the locos at least match the profile. Look much worse with conventional cars, as I saw in Tukwila, Washington, last year.
Hopefully when the Horizons and Amfleet are both gone, Amtrak cars will at least match each other and maybe the locomotives as well.
A couple of months ago there were some comments on these pages about METRA’s newly rebuilt SD70’s, former freight locos. I’d just seen a few while eating lunch trackside in Glenview, Illinois. I really liked them as they matched the high profile of METRA gallery cars. To me they looked better than all the attempts in this generation at a streamlined “passenger” look …. none of which would make us forget the E’s and the F’s.
They look better in the second picture. Cut a few holes for the crew to see and their good to go.
Happy it’s back in service but dang that’s one ugly cab car.
The original design for the cabs was deemed unsuitable for crashworthiness and thus the frankencab. Talgo recently released the 230 series with a very beefy looking cab. My guess is the lessons learnt from the PNW were applied.
I thought it was because the original design did not allow for a two person crew which was required by Amtrak.
Just in time…
Dr. Güntürk Üstün
A face only a mother could love. Patterned after the Baldwin baby-faces??