Yes, the Coast Starlight has become much improved lately. Just a year and a half ago, the train was almost always 4-6 hours late due to poor UP track. I once picked up my parents at Tacoma at 4:30am, over 9 hours late from the 7pm scheduled arrival. Now timekeeping is usually within an hour or so of the schedule.

Also the refurbished Pacific Palour cars are very nice and the extras for sleeper passengers make for a very pleasant trip. I might suggest that you consider detraining at Portland instead of Vancouver since with the scheduled station time in Portland of 40 minutes (northbound) you can probably have someone pick you up in Portland and be to your destination in Vancouver before #14 actually leaves Portland to head toward Vancouver.