page_title: Pacific Northwest Corridor
section_title: Portland–Seattle
hierarchical_section_title: Pacific Northwest Corridor / History / Development of the corridor / Portland–Seattle
caption_attribution_description: Map showing the Western Washington portions of the en:Northern Pacific Railway route circa 1900.
context_page_description: The Pacific Northwest Corridor or the Pacific Northwest Rail Corridor is one of eleven federally designated higher-speed rail corridors in the United States. The 466-mile corridor extends from Eugene, Oregon to Vancouver, British Columbia via Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington in the Pacific Northwest region. It was designated a high-speed rail corridor on October 20, 1992, as the fifth of five corridors called for in the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 although it is now called a higher-speed rail since the minimum speed for a high speed rail is designated as 125 mph. The corridor is owned by BNSF Railway in Washington and British Columbia, and by Union Pacific Railroad in Oregon, and is used by a mix of freight and passenger trains operated by BNSF, UP, and Amtrak. If improvements to the corridor are completed as proposed in Washington State's long range plan, passenger trains operating at a maximum speed of 110 miles per hour would travel between Portland and Seattle, in 2 hours and 30 minutes, and between Seattle and Vancouver in 2 hours and 37 minutes by 2023.
context_section_description: In 1864, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Northern Pacific Charter, which established the Northern Pacific Railway (NP) with the charge of constructing a rail connection between the Great Lakes and Puget Sound. Work on the first section of the railway's right-of-way in Washington Territory began at Kalama in 1870. After an 1873 decision to place the Puget Sound terminus in Tacoma, Washington, scheduled service on the NP's Pacific Division between Kalama and Tacoma began on January 5, 1874. The NP-affiliated Puget Sound Shore Railroad connected Tacoma to Seattle on July 6, 1884. Rail service between Tacoma and Portland, Oregon (with a ferry between Goble, Oregon and Kalama) began on October 9, 1884. The original line was extended south from Kalama to Vancouver, Washington in 1901 by the Washington Railway & Navigation Company, which was soon acquired by the NP. In 1906, the Portland and Seattle Railroad Company – a joint venture of the NP and the Great Northern Railway (GN), both owned by James J. Hill, began construction of the final link from Vancouver into Portland. The 1908 opening of the Columbia River bridge completed the all-rail route ("Prairie Line") between Seattle and Portland, eliminating the need for the ferry crossing at Kalama.
  By August 1909, the NP ran four daily round trips between Portland and Seattle. The next January, the NP signed an agreement with the Oregon–Washington Railroad and Navigation Company – a subsidiary of the Union Pacific Railroad (UP) – giving the UP trackage rights over the Prairie Line. A similar agreement with the GN was reached that June. By May 1914, three railroads ran some 11 daily Seattle–Portland round trips (4 NP, 4 UP, and 3 GN) plus a number of freight trains. The GN used the 1884-built NP route into 1906-built King Street Station in Seattle, while the UP used the 1909-built Milwaukee Road line into Union Station. The substantially increased passenger service on the NP required the original single-track mainline to be straightened and double tracked. This was completed between Portland and Kalama in 1909, and between Kalama and Tenino, Washington around 1915.
  However, the section of the Prairie Line between Tenino and Tacoma had a 2.2-mile (3.5 km) section of difficult 2.2% grade. The NP opened Tacoma Union Station and the new water-level Point Defiance Line around Point Defiance in December 1914.  The southern 6 miles (9.7 km) between Tenino and Plumb, Washington was reused from the Olympia Branch of the Port Townsend Southern Railroad, purchased earlier that year, while a short section east of Olympia used the 1891-opened Tacoma, Olympia & Grays Harbor Railroad. Although slightly longer than the Prairie Line, the Point Defiance Line was substantially flatter. The UP moved all service to the new line, and the NP moved most service, though the GN continued to use the old line.
  By the mid-1920s, the GN, NP, and UP began operating "Pool Service", where tickets were cross-honored between the three railroads on their Seattle–Portland services. In 1933, the three railroads reduced service to one daily round trip each – a level maintained for several decades. The GN trip was moved to the Point Defiance Line on August 8, 1943, ending through service on the Prairie Line north of Tenino, and the last passenger service between Tacoma and Grays Harbor via Olympia and Lakewood ended in February 1956. The GN and NP were merged into the Burlington Northern Railroad (BN) in 1970. Final pre-Amtrak BN-UP Pool Service consisted of three daily round trips – one (UP) to Union Station, and two (BN) to King Street. The original line was upgraded in the 2010s, with Sounder and Amtrak service added via the Point Defiance Bypass.
caption: Extent of Northern Pacific Railway in Western Washington, c. 1900.
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