Rocky Mountaineer on the Vancouver, BC to Seattle Leg.

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https://youtu.be/Gf-AoxhmFp8

Rocky Mountaineer is owned by Great Canadian Railtours and offers Western Canadian vacation packages that operates trains on four rail routes through British Columbia and Alberta.

Rocky Mountaineer announced a new route for 2013, called the Coastal Passage, which connects Seattle, WA on a 3 day trip through the Rockies to Jasper and Banff, AB. This is the first international route for Rocky Mountaineer.  Rocky Mountaineer also opened a new station stop on the route's Coastal Passage and First Passage to the West.  Currently, the stations on the line that are used by the Rocky Mountaineer are Banff railway station and Tower Centre in Calgary.  The new station stop is Lake Louise railway station, which opened in 2013 for Rocky Mountaineer service.  The Coastal Passage, according to Rocky Mountaineer's website, operates to and from the Pacific Central Station.  This only applies to the route section between Vancouver and Seattle, while the rest of the route, like other Rocky Mountaineer domestic routes,  operate out of the Rocky Mountaineer Station.  The Coastal Passage does not operate out of a unique station in Seattle, as it does in Vancouver, but operates out of King Street Station.

This train is led by RMRX 8011, owned by Great Canadian Railtours, Co, Ltd.  It is an EMD GP40-2LW, built as CN 9595 in 1975.  Following is RMRX 8018, also owned by Great Canadian Railtours.  It is a rebuilt EMD GP40-2R, built as PC 3133 (GP40), in 9/1968.

On July 2, 2016, we videoed the train twice.  The first part of the video shows the train traveling southbound in Marysville, WA on its way to Seattle.  Later that day we caught it in Mukilteo, WA on its way back to Vancouver, BC.  Take note of the female engineer on the radio.

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My wife & I rode the Rocky Mountaineer about ten years ago between Banff and Vancouver in Gold Leaf Class service and can only dream about Amtrak providing such excellent service. The Gold Leaf cars are unique and exceed any other first class service in North America. The visability, the food, and the service provided by the crew was five star. The price is not cheap but I thought that they provided value for the price. 

Now for a question, Does the Seattle section use the same Customs facility at Pacific Central station as Amtrak does? And it appears they allow passengers to ride on the open air platforn on the BNSF. Thanks.

 

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One person who rode the train wrote: "After Birch Bay, the train returns to the water as we crossed the border. Forget the usual long lines and surly customs staff. Passengers on the train go through a very civilized customs process on arrival at the station in Vancouver so this border crossing was instead marked by a rousing chorus of 'O Canada' and our funny, friendly and charming train manager Wade Bush waving a big Canadian flag." Evidently BNSF allows passengers on the outside platforms as I've seen them on the Rocky Mountaineer and other private cars that have outside platforms; the most recent was in Tacoma aboard the CN Burrard. https://youtu.be/lPEtWFFNhAs