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Marce Edwards is the business editor. She has been at The News Tribune for seven years and has written about technology and big businesses in the South Sound including Weyerhaeuser and Russell. Before moving to Tacoma, she worked at The Idaho Statesman in Boise. She is a Northwest native who likes to garden and refuses to use an umbrella. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and two kids.
C.R. Roberts is a Tacoma native. Before joining The News Tribune, he worked as a freelance writer and part-time cowhand on a cattle ranch in Northern Idaho. He writes about small business, personal finance and other business issues.
John Gillie writes about the aerospace and airline industries, commercial development and consumer issues. During his 30-year-tenure at The News Tribune he has covered issues as diverse as the Native American fishing rights disputes, crime and the courts, the wood products industry and energy. He lived in Tacoma with his family for 25 years, but now lives in Kent because his wife heads a five-state non-profit foundation headquartered in Ballard, and it only seemed a sensible compromise to make considering their workplaces are 40 miles apart.
Kelly Kearsley has been a business reporter at The News Tribune since 2005. She covers the Port of Tacoma and international trade. Being born and raised in Spokane she’s used to living in cities with inferiority complexes and, in fact, prefers it. Prior to working at The News Tribune, she spent three years as a reporter for The Bulletin in Bend, Oregon and another year working stints for The Associated Press and Seattle Times. She graduated from Pacific Lutheran University. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and miniature schnauzer.
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On the way back from Portland Monday, Amtrak's Cascades train was so crowded that the conductor was seating paying passengers at dining car tables because all the regular coach seats were full.
While the holiday helped created a nearly standing-room-only situation, Amtrak trains, both here in the Northwest and across the country, have been operating closer to capacity all year.
New figures show that nationwide Amtrak ridership is up 11 percent this fiscal year. And in the Northwest, ridership has been up steadily January through April.
Amtrak figures show patronage on the six daily Cascades trains that operate in the corridor from Eugene, Ore. to Vancouver, B.C., ridership was up 13 percent in January, 13.5 percent in February, 16.2 percent in March and 8.7 in April.
Those March and April figures were skewed because Easter was in March this year instead of April as it was last year.
Figures aren't yet in for May, but Amtrak regional spokeswoman Vernae Graham said those figures should be "very interesting."
Amtrak attributes about half the patronage gain to gas price increases and the economic slowdown and half to the growing interest in and availability of trains. Amtrak traffic nationwide has grown for four consecutive years even without the meteoric fuel price rises we've seen in the last few months.
Amtrak hopes to begin twice daily service from Seattle to Vancouver, B.C. beginning later this summer. One train a day now connects the two cities, and another goes as far north as Bellingham before terminating. Track improvements and an agreement with the Canadian government will allow that train to continue on to Vancouver.
Tacoma now has 10 daily trains serving its station on Puyallup Avenue. Those trains are eight European-designed Talgo trains and two are conventional two-level streamliners, the north and southbound Coast Starlight, that connect Seattle with Los Angeles.
Since the Coast Starlight is a long distance train, its ridership is not counted in the Cascades corridor traffic.
Coast Starlight service was interrupted from mid-January to late April because of a major landslide in the Oregon Cascades.
