You may have heard about the tiny bit of I-5 bridge that’s fallen into the Skagit River. Anticipating increased demand while the bridge is being repaired — a temporary replacement may come sometime in June, while a better fix could take until September — the state has talked Amtrak into adding a roundtrip train daily between Seattle and Bellingham.
It will leave Seattle at 8:15 a.m. and return from Bellingham at 5:15 p.m. The trip will take two hours and forty minutes, with stops at Mount Vernon, Stanwood, Everett, and Edmonds. Reservations are required; visit Amtrak Cascades to view ticket prices and availability. Lowest fares for a Seattle-Bellingham trip should range from $17 and $23 one-way, Seattle-Edmonds, $7 one-way.
For you early-birds, the regular morning train leaves Seattle at 7:40 a.m., and gets to Bellingham about a half an hour sooner, for the same price.
Washington Transportation Secretary Lynn Peterson thanked Amtrak, Sound Transit, and rail-freight giant BNSF for helping make the train a reality: “We are so fortunate that we have the relationships to make this urgent service a reality so quickly.” Amtrak will operate the train, but the actual cars are on loan from Sound Transit (because Sound Transit is a commuter system, there will be no diner car), while BNSF, of course, provides the rails.
The exact schedule for the bridge repair remains in flux, but the train may continue to operate until a permanent bridge is in place (that’s an illustration of a temporary fix, above) — it depends upon passenger demand. This doesn’t help trucked freight, of course. Sen. Maria Cantwell highlighted the impact when she visited the collapsed bridge, pointing out that, “Every day, trucks carry around $38 million of U.S.-Canada trade cargo across the Skagit River on the I-5 corridor.”
