# Other travel option between Seattle and Albany/Corvallis?



## AC4400 (Mar 18, 2014)

I'm looking for travel options from Seattle to Albany, OR/Corvallis on Fridays.

I've tried the following options:

1) Amtrak

Last train leaves SEA at 5:30pm which is a bit early for me, and Amtrak is bit pricey too ($49 for YD bucket, and floats to $89 if the train is nearly full).

2) Greyhound

Last bus leaves SEA at 6:45pm and arrives at Corvallis at 1:25am. Greyhound is cheaper ($31), but the service is bad south of PDX (arrives late, dirty fleets, etc.).

3) Boltbus

Boltbus offers frequent, cheap, and comfortable SEA-PDX services, but infrequent PDX-EUG service. The last southbound bus leaves PDX at 1:45pm which is way too early.

I was thinking of taking 6:30pm Boltbus to PDX and then Amtrak to ALY/Corvallis, but that's impossible because of the schedule.

Anyone has better idea on this?


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## Swadian Hardcore (Mar 18, 2014)

Greyhound service is a lot better south of Portland than north of Portland. Greyhound's Seattle fleet used to be good when they had the square old-fashioned buses but after introducing the "modern" G4500 in 2004, service went bad rapidly, as the fiberglass G4500's get worn out quickly and are dirty/smelly.

Greyhound is rebuilding the G4500 fleet in Seattle which should help to improve matters. South of Portland, the buses are a LOT better. But some G4500's still continue south of Portland. The G4500 is usually confined to colder, wetter climates to reduce overheats. Over 80 G4500's have caught on fire after overheating, though everyone managed to escape.

I would ride BoltBus, or try out Fronteras del Norte anyway, but I'm sure BoltBus integrals will be much better than Fronteras del Norte. Plus BoltBus' fleet is reletively new.

I'd say go for Cascades or BoltBus to Portland, then BoltBus or Greyhound to Albany. But if you book through on BoltBus, you can save a lot of money. BTW, BoltBus is exactly the same as Greyhound non-G4500, except that in the small PNW "edge" around Seattle, Greyhound is still trying to deal with their fiberglass buses. Now, the most comfy buses in the PNW are _sometimes _on Greyhound's Denver-SLC-Portland route.


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## fairviewroad (Mar 18, 2014)

One option to bring the Amtrak cost down a bit is to book a multi-city ticket.

For instance, on Friday April 11 it costs (as you said) $49 to leave SEA at 5:30 then transfer to the 9:30 p.m. Thruway bus

in PDX.

However, if you book the legs separately it costs you $44. This is because you can then take advantage of the Cascades 14-day

advance purchase discount on the SEA-PDX leg. However, the advance purchase tickets are capacity-controlled and (obviously)

need to be purchased in advance, but under the right circumstances you would save a little $$$.


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## AC4400 (Mar 18, 2014)

fairviewroad said:


> One option to bring the Amtrak cost down a bit is to book a multi-city ticket.
> 
> For instance, on Friday April 11 it costs (as you said) $49 to leave SEA at 5:30 then transfer to the 9:30 p.m. Thruway bus
> 
> ...


Thanks.

That's what I did last week. 509 SEA-PDX for $24 followed by 5509 PDX-ALY for $20.

I kind of miss the old 509 which runs all the way down to EUG.

Why did Amtrak replace 509 (south of PDX) with 503? Is that because of the rotation of 6 train sets?

5509 is too slow as it needs to run on I-84/I-205 to hit ORC.


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## CHamilton (Mar 18, 2014)

AC4400 said:


> Why did Amtrak replace 509 (south of PDX) with 503? Is that because of the rotation of 6 train sets?


That decision was made by Oregon DOT when the new Talgo trainsets came online. They advertised the ability to do a same-day EUG-PDX roundtrip. It's planned that 509 PDX-EUG will again become a train in a couple of years, once more slots become available.


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## fairviewroad (Mar 18, 2014)

CHamilton said:


> That decision was made by Oregon DOT when the new Talgo trainsets came online. They advertised the ability to do a same-day EUG-PDX roundtrip. It's planned that 509 PDX-EUG will again become a train in a couple of years, once more slots become available.


Other way around...they advertised the ability to do a same-day PDX-EUG round-trip. (EUG-PDX was an option for many years, and continues to be albeit with fewer rail choices).

Frankly I'm a little skeptical that there's a big demand for travel south from PDX at 0600, which is when the new weekday train 503 departs.


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## fairviewroad (Mar 18, 2014)

There's also the option of buying points. You can get a Special Zone ticket for 1500 points, and 1500 points currently costs $41.25 unless you happen qualify for a points-buying bonus. That would bring the cost down a bit. But that only works a few times since there's an annual 10,000 point purchase limit.


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## AC4400 (Mar 18, 2014)

CHamilton said:


> AC4400 said:
> 
> 
> > Why did Amtrak replace 509 (south of PDX) with 503? Is that because of the rotation of 6 train sets?
> ...


I understand now.

But the current 509-5509 schedule is very bad;

The connection in PDX is only 10 minutes. Everyone needs to rush to the bus.

Also it takes 2 hour 5 minutes from PDX to ALY, which normally takes 1.5 hours on other buses. 5509 has a stop in ORC but till now, I've never seen anyone getting on/off at ORC. The driver just rest there for 1 minute and leave.

5509 is always 80% full on Friday nights.


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## AC4400 (Mar 18, 2014)

fairviewroad said:


> CHamilton said:
> 
> 
> > That decision was made by Oregon DOT when the new Talgo trainsets came online. They advertised the ability to do a same-day EUG-PDX roundtrip. It's planned that 509 PDX-EUG will again become a train in a couple of years, once more slots become available.
> ...


Exactly, I'm wondering if there is ANY passenger on train 503 except Amtrak attendants.


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