Travelers stuck for hours after freezing weather stops train miles short of Portland

PORTLAND, Oreg. — It was a weekend trip to Portland cut short for travelers, after their Amtrak train was literally stopped in its tracks midway due to extreme winter weather.

We were Seattle’s King Street Station on Sunday where we spoke with those travelers who faced delays in both directions of their trip.

When the women we talked to left on Saturday, it was a total of nine hours just to get stopped miles short of Portland. Then, it was another five hours back to Seattle on the train on Sunday.

It started as a girls trip to Portland to see a show, until a frozen switch stopped their train on the tracks for four hours just four miles outside of Portland.

That had them rerouted to Vancouver, Washington, where some travelers ended up spending the night.

“It was frustrating and a really long two days,” one traveler told us. “The only good thing with meeting new friends on the train, and when the reschedule, hopefully soon, we’ll all go down and get together and try this again one more time.”

The show they were going to see ended up getting postponed anyway due to weather.

At the train station, we counted about nine delays in arrivals and delays, and another three trains cancelled within a single hour on Sunday evening.

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