BOB2 Wrote:
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> From the aerial photos I've seen, it would appear
> that the station (I assume the old Milwaukee Road
> station???) next to the dome, will eventually
> replace the original Tacoma Amtrak station, with
> both commute and Amtrak corridor services......is
> that correct?
>
> And this reroute will then be on the old Milwaukee
> road following the more direct I-5 corridor....to
> where?
>
> How much time and how many miles will that reroute
> save?
>
> This is great coverage of this project, thanks for
> that... It is also one of the best threads on
> Altamont in a while, quite informative, and great
> shots.

I'm glad you have found the posts informative.

I see Graham has answered most of your questions. But let me expand just a little on the time savings. The first statements from WSDOT was a savings of six minutes, then it grew to 10 minutes. There appears to be only about a 3 or 4 mile savings in mileage. But really the motivation is to add two Cascades trains. BNSF would only agree to that if this route was adopted, largely because they didn't want the Nelson Bennett tunnel to become more of a bottleneck than it already is. And with the two train carrot, they improve their bottleneck.

That all comes with trade-offs that aren't really talked about a lot. One is the dramatic change in the scenery. The current run along the Puget Sound is really something special, not the same can be said for the backyards of industry through Lakewood and South Tacoma.

The other more important trade-off is life. The Lakewood sub has 24 road crossings between Tacoma and Nisqually, the Point Defiance route (current route) has only 6 between the same two points and only two of these (Steilacoom and McCarver St) are anything close to high traffic volume. Even the lure to cross the tracks to get to the water has several protected over crossings. A lot of money has been spent to minimize the grade crossing along the current route. Not the same can be said for the Lakewood sub. I think one crossing was simply closed, maybe two, to get to the 24 I've counted. Yes, there were railroad tracks there long before most of the development, but for a long time now, it's been an occasional train at about 10 mph.
Numerous trains at up to 70 mph is a different story.

Just providing a little contrast. Some people will miss the views, other people will mourn for loved ones lost.

Who is to decide what was the better choice? Maybe there's an argument to life saved in vehicle accidents from people on the Sounders and the extra Cascades, and not on I-5.