VANCOUVER WA May 2 2008 — Amtrak F59PHI 468 leads a Cascades train to a stop at the Amtrak station. EMD built the unit (s/n 996722-19) in October 1998 for Amtrak Cascades service in the Pacific Northwest. The locomotive was purchased for Chicago’s Metra as METX 91 in February 2018. My photo.
With two sections of the Empire Builder, the Coast Starlight, Seattle, the Cascade Mountains, Columbia Valley and Puget Sound, Washington state offers rail buffs plenty of variety and beauty.
From Vancouver, BC, to Eugene, OR, this route runs along stretches of Puget Sound and the Columbia and Willamette Rivers. The TALGO trainsets that were the line's backbone for many years were withdrawn from service after they were cited in the 2017 crash
