OAKRIDGE, Ore. — Amtrak service between the Pacific Northwest and California has been severed after the passenger railroad announced this week that it would no longer be busing Coast Starlight passengers around a collapsed Union Pacific tunnel in Oregon, the Tacoma (Wash.) News Tribune reports.
For now, the Coast Starlight will only run between Seattle and Eugene, Ore. on the north end and Sacramento and Los Angeles on the south end.
Amtrak started busing passengers around the collapsed tunnel on May 29, but spokesperson Marc Magliari tells the newspaper that “It is simply not sustainable to take people overnight on chartered buses.”
Northbound, the train usually departs Sacramento at 11:59 p.m. and arrives in Eugene at 12:36 p.m. Southbound, the train departs Eugene at 5:10 p.m. and arrives in Sacramento at 6:35 a.m.
On May 29, part of a tunnel near Oakridge on the Cascade Subdivision collapsed, affecting about 40 to 50 feet of track. [See “Tunnel collapse shuts down UP in the Cascades,” Trains News Wire, May 30, 2018.] The collapse occurred while maintenance was being conducted on the tunnel but no one was injured. UP officials said earlier this week that the tunnel will not reopen until June 23 at the earliest.
