(The following story by Hasso Hering appeared on the Albany Democrat-Herald website on July 13.)
ALBANY, Ore. — Amtrak passenger trains serving Albany have been late most of the time.
In June, the four daily trains in the Cascades service between Portland and Eugene were on time only 25 percent of the time, according to the Rail Division of the Oregon Department of Transportation, which contracts with Amtrak to provide the trains.
And the long-distance Coast Starlight had an on-time record in June of 8.3 percent, said Jonathan Hutchison, the passenger rail coordinator at ODOT.
Amtrak trains operate on tracks owned by other railroads, in this case the Union Pacific, and the passenger trains have been severely hampered by what Hutchison called “four primary challenges” faced by the UP.
He listed them as an increase in freight business, being short-staffed because of an unanticipated number of retirements, a shortage of locomotives, and a track structure in Oregon that’s not well equipped to handle the number of trains.
Oregon is spending $15 million to make track improvements this year and next.
Despite the poor on-time record, the four Cascades trains serving Albany had a 6.7 percent increase in ridership in May, compared to the same month last year, Hutchison reported.
Another official in the Rail Division, Robert Melbo of Albany, said earlier that UP was working to deal with its problems.
“Things do appear to be better now in the Willamette Valley than they were earlier this year, and timeliness of the state-supported Eugene-Portland passenger trains is likewise improving,” Melbo wrote in an e-mail on June 28.