Amtrak — Local services in Portland

This is a quant and nostalgia-inducing place to meet friendly enough gate agents and catch an Amtrak Cascadia Bus or an Amtrak Limo-Bus without wireless internet or restrooms (unlike Flixbus) after you pay a little extra money for a flexible train ticket and get notification that the “train may be only standing-room would you like to bid on tickets for premium class?” and then arrive ahead of schedule, encounter zero security (hurrah, that’s why I wanted to take a train!), and then are informed that, oh, “you’ll like the bus, it’s actually faster, and you can get a refund for the difference after you reach your destination” and then you sit on a pretty comfortable bus and watch the vigilant driver adjust their playlist and make minor unnecessary but continuous steering corrections and sit in traffic and stare at the same highway you drove on at 75 in the middle of the night to avoid traffic while you restrict water to your daughter and monitor the train you wanted to be on arrive 5min ahead of schedule with several scenic stops while you are 45min late to the station, miss your dinner reservation, fail to get any response from Amtrak customer service on an inquiry to kindly consider matching the Flixbus price or guaranteeing a train seat in the future, and then, since you’ve joined the Amtrak family, you get all kinds of superior landscape scenes with trains moving through open country and mountain passes and you think, rail dreams, bus reality. 2- Stars!!! And then a few weeks later they refund 100% of your purchase price and now I’m wondering, is someone trying to bankrupt Amtrak - Go Brandon’s go-to transit option from when they were the poorest Senator in the nation. Consider me bought...

This review focuses on the business class experience on the Amtrak Cascades train between Seattle and Portland. (As a side note, Portland Union Station isn't as nice as it looks in photos online. The station and the walk down 6th St. are not a great introduction to the city.)

Business class is a small car with about 15 seats, so it fills up quickly. Not every seat has a window. On my way to Portland, I ended up in an aisle seat next to a friendly person. While I could see out the windows, a window seat would have been preferable. Despite arriving at the Seattle station an hour early, I was mistakenly placed in the 17 year old or people with 17 year old and younger boarding line instead of the business class line, so I was the last to board business class. I’d like to say I’ll know better next time, but I don’t think I’ll take this train again. The whole boarding situation was messed up, especially for those with luggage. I'm glad I traveled lightly. So, this train started out 20 minutes late. The person I sat next to was a regular passenger and said that it's common for this train to be about this late.

On the return trip to Seattle, I managed to get a window seat by arriving early. However, I was immediately asked to move to the one seat with no window to accommodate a couple that would be boarding at the next stop. (There is no assigned seating on this train, so it was an unexpected ask). I was especially disappointed since I had taken the train for the scenic views of the PNW.

Other than that, the train gets you where you need to go, and the people are courteous enough. They did have a vegan option, so they got a third...

I've taken Amtrak many times over the years, usually from Seattle to E WA. And lately from Portland to E WA. It's become common for trains being hours late, being halfway on your trip and having a breakdown. My latest travel during Christmas I planned to go visit family for 2 weeks. The night of departure to go back home, we waited for 3 hours for a train, no customer service available, only to go back home and continue calling and waiting on hold. Over the next 2 weeks being stuck, losing out on work, losing customers, damaging my reputation, I spent a total of approximately 25 hours total ON HOLD, being rescheduled 6 times, no information, when I finally got a hold of someone, the agents didn't have a clue where there trains were at, when they were to be expected. The worst was waiting on hold for I believe that night was 7 hours, only to be laughed at and hung up on!?!?!?? After this nightmare, to be told they wouldn't try and make up for any of this in the form of an appology, a credit for my trip, or any other possible form of standard customer service?? This company either hires any warm body with a pulse and speaks English and gives them the title of "Agent", and/or is being led by an executive team that either doesn't care or simply is incompetent to run a major corporation!?!? More than likely a mixture of the two. It's very sad to see one of the last great American passenger railway companies be so carelessly ran into the ground. They need to clean house at the corporate office and completely restructure the organization from starting from the top to...