Amtrak Cascades Service Development Plan

Planning for the future of Amtrak Cascades

WSDOT is developing a blueprint for future capital improvements and service changes for Amtrak Cascades. This Service Development Plan is at the core of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) requirements for improving and expanding passenger rail service on the corridor. Its completion greatly improves our ability to compete for federal funds for future infrastructure and service improvements.

In December 2023, WSDOT was awarded a Corridor Identification and Development grant from the Federal Railroad Administration. The $500,000 award designates Amtrak Cascades as a  national rail corridor that is now part of the federal funding pipeline for future intercity passenger rail projects. The CID process developed by the Federal Railroad Administration includes six steps to advance from planning to construction and operations along the corridor. They include:

Step 1: Systems Planning (no matching funds needed)

Step 2: Project Planning (10% state matching funds needed)

Step 3: Project Development (20% state matching funds needed)

Step 4: Final Design

Step 5: Construction

Step 6: Operation

WSDOT is currently in Step 2 of this process, which focuses on finalizing the Amtrak Cascades Service Development Plan. This plan builds upon the Preliminary Service Development Plan published in 2024 and will include much more detailed analysis of service options, needed capital improvements, costs, and a phased implementation plan. This step will include several opportunities for public feedback. Once finalized this Step 2 SDP then will provide the direction needed to move to Step 3 of the CID process and begin developing identified capital construction projects. 

Step 3 includes analysis required under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the completion of preliminary engineering for the identified capital projects. Using the NEPA process, WSDOT will evaluate the environmental and related social and economic effects of their proposed actions. WSDOT also will provide opportunities for public review and comment on those evaluations.

Preliminary Plan

The Amtrak Cascades 2024 Preliminary Service Development Plan (PDF 3478KB) provides a summary of possible alternatives to improve the Amtrak Cascades service. The final version of the Preliminary SDP was published June 28, 2024. This will serve as the foundation for further analysis in completing the Step 2 SDP.

The Preliminary SDP includes these components:

• Intercity passenger travel demand research to identify travel trends likely to affect ridership and develop future scenarios that reflect these trends.
• Preliminary Purpose and Need development to explain the goals of the project and the needs it is intended to address.
• Service option development to define options for changing Amtrak Cascades to address future travel trends and analyze how the current route would need to be modified to accommodate them.
• Alternative development to forecast ridership for the service options under the different scenarios we developed, then use a screening process to determine which ones should be the focus of further SDP analysis.

Information in other languages

• Español - Spanish (PDF 97KB)
• русский - Russian (PDF 312KB)
• tiếng Việt - Vietnamese (PDF 236KB)
• 한국어 - Korean (PDF 440KB)
• 中文 - Chinese (PDF 429KB)
• Af-soomaaliga - Somali (PDF 235KB)
• Arabic (PDF 241KB)

Service partners

Several partners are directly involved in developing, funding, or operating Amtrak Cascades. They are closely involved in developing plans for the future improvement of Amtrak Cascades, contributing their expertise to the work.

• Federal Railroad Administration
• Oregon Department of Transportation
• BNSF Railway
• Amtrak
• Sound Transit

Get involved

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