More travellers are choosing Amtrak Cascades for their trips between Vancouver and Eugene, Oregon than ever before.
Amtrak Cascades achieved significant ridership growth in the second quarter of 2011, carrying nearly three quarters of a million people and breaking the record reached in 2010.
After an unusually rough start in the first three months of this year, ridership for April, May and June recorded the highest second quarter totals since 1994, with 231,194 passengers.
Compared to the second quarter of 2010, this is an increase of nearly 8%, or more than 16,550 new passengers. The month of June had the highest increase of nearly 10% and 78,839 passengers.
Ridership on Amtrak Cascades was down 10% after the first quarter of 2011.
The unusually high number of mudslides that cancelled many trains contributed significantly to the decrease, as well as the absence of the tourism created last year by the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
Total ridership on Amtrak Cascades this year to date is 398,207 through to June 30.
In 2010, total ridership on Amtrak Cascades finished with a 16-year high of 838,251 passengers and exceeded 2009 by 76,641 for a 10% increase. The final ridership total capped a year of record breaking numbers where eight of the 12 months set new benchmarks.
Train ridership nationwide has been soaring as Amtrak service has set annual ridership records in seven of the last eight years.
Factors contributing to the continuing success of train travel include ‘high gasoline prices, the increased appeal and popularity of rail travel, and effective marketing campaigns’.
