Amtrak

More opinionated ramblings but this time from someone who has in all likelihood ridden more trains in more countries than you ever will...

Amtrak seems to try hard - the Cascades service which runs from Vancouver to Portland has nice rolling stock (albeit rather dated by European standards) clean, fresh and leather reclining seats with (even for me) sufficient legroom - I would certainly recommend it as a route to Portland if expense/stress is a concern but timeliness isnt - unfortunately whereas everywhere else I have ridden the train passenger trains have precedence over freight - in this transit-confused country the tracks are owned by the freight hauling companies which can (and did on Friday) lead to extremely annoying periods of "waiting for freight traffic" - three 20+ minute stops en route.  As with trains everywhere you get a wonderful voyeuristic view of the communities through which you pass (I would hang myself within a month if I lived in one of those small towns along the way - Winlock, Kelso etc - they looked like death incarnate) - as a result we arrived in Portland about 2 hours later than scheduled.  The trip home on Sunday was a different matter - we were within 3 minutes of the scheduled time.  Maybe some day a dedicated  high speed (300kph) line will provide a one hour service between Seattle and Portland - and maybe 4 hours to San Francisco - which when you compare to the time to get to, from and through airports is comparable (or better).  As a lifelong train fan I can hold out hope but in this country I will not be holding my breath.