Cascades Help - Which Train Set is the Talgo Equipment?

[rtabern]

Hi,

Hoping someone from the Pacific Northwest or who knows more about the Talgos can help here... My wife and a good friend of mine are going to Guam and Hawaii in December. On the way back, on December 31st, we have a day layover in the Portland/Salem area before leaving on the Empire Builder on January 1st.

We wanted to ride the Cascade train set that was the Talgo... NOT the Amfleet.

Does anyone know which train combo is the Amfleet generally and which one is the Talgo generally? Or does it change frequently and it would be up in the air which one we'd get?

Looking at the most current schedule:
https://www.amtrakcascades.com/sites/default/files/TrainSchedule-5-24-21.pdf
I presume 3 train sets are running (one Talgo and two Amfleet).

#503 starts in Seattle @ 7:25am and runs to Eugene. Then flips I presume to become #508 and goes back to Seattle in the afternoon/evening?

Then, #500 leaves Eugene early in the morning... arriving in Seattle just before Noon. Then goes back down to Eugene as #505?

Then there might be a #504 and a #507, too?

UGH! Help! Any insights?

 

[Cal]

I don't know, you can always study the Chehalis railcam to see if it's always on the same trains. I'm sue someone in chat will probably have an idea.

 

[user 1215]

It's the train with a cab car that looks like a pug had a head on collision with a shi-tzu.

Oh, I guess you know what it looks like. Trying to figure it's schedule.

Are they running both the new and old Talgos in the NW?

 

[Cal]

Are they running both the new and old Talgos in the NW?

Only the Talgo 8s, right?

 

[AmtrakBlue]

@Triley

 

[OBS]

It is a long time til December....things could change between now and then also...

 

[zephyr17]

Are they running both the new and old Talgos in the NW?

Only the two Talgo 8 sets owned by Oregon.

Washington sold its Talgo 6s for scrap.

 

[Chris I]

I believe they are running both of Oregon's Talgo 8s. The other cars are Horizons. You probably have about 50% odds of catching a Talgo, but I'm not sure if there is a pattern for dispatching.

 

[Siegmund]

The pre-covid schedule rotated the trainsets, so that it wasn't the same equipment spending the night "away" in Eugene every night. The current schedule would make it easy to assign one set to each Eugene-Seattle round trip and one to the Portland-Seattle trip, and maybe Oregon would prefer their equipment stay on the Eugene runs... but I suspect there is a fourth set parked in Seattle that is rotating with the other three. If so, this week's assignments will probably not be next week's assignments.

 

[Trogdor]

The pre-covid schedule rotated the trainsets, so that it wasn't the same equipment spending the night "away" in Eugene every night. The current schedule would make it easy to assign one set to each Eugene-Seattle round trip and one to the Portland-Seattle trip, and maybe Oregon would prefer their equipment stay on the Eugene runs... but I suspect there is a fourth set parked in Seattle that is rotating with the other three. If so, this week's assignments will probably not be next week's assignments.

The equipment must rotate in such a way that it can be served by the Talgo facility in Seattle.

If they stayed on the Eugene trains with the current schedule, the trainset that overnights in Eugene would never see the Talgo shop.

 

[Intercity]

I took the 6:10pm from seattle to portland on 6/21 and it was horizon cars. Surprised that there wasn’t a Charger Locomotive on the front.

 

[Willbridge]

I don't know, you can always study the Chehalis railcam to see if it's always on the same trains. I'm sue someone in chat will probably have an idea.

And when I looked at the video, Train 505 was sitting in Chehalis with Talgo equipment not going anywhere.

 

[Cal]

And when I looked at the video, Train 505 was sitting in Chehalis with Talgo equipment not going anywhere.

Correct.