Amtrak’s decision to remove 70 passenger cars from service this week, following the discovery of corrosion on several of them, has disrupted passenger service from the Midwest to the Pacific Northwest. 

On Wednesday, Amtrak decided to park its entire Horizon fleet, which includes 61 coaches and nine café cars, after a routine inspection. Sources close to Amtrak indicate that corrosion on the cars’ jacking pad (where the car is lifted to change the wheels) is at least one point of concern at this time. The Horizon cars were manufactured by Bombardier between 1988 and 1990 to supplement the Amfleet I fleet.

It is unclear how long the cars will remain out of service and what kind of plan Amtrak is developing to repair them. What is clear is that many Amtrak passengers will be taking buses in the coming weeks. Perhaps no route has been affected more than the Cascades between Vancouver, B.C., and Eugene, Ore. Currently, there is only one non-Horizon set of equipment on the route, so most trips will be covered by buses until at least March 30. The non-Horizon equipment will be utilized on trains 503 and 508 between Eugene and Seattle. 

In the Midwest, Amtrak warned passengers on the Hiawatha route between Chicago and Milwaukee that it would be replaced by buses for half of its dozen daily trips for the foreseeable future. 

The Borealis between Chicago and the Twin Cities was also affected by the recall and was replaced with a bus on Wednesday. However, on Thursday, only one run would be affected, and by Friday, service was expected to return to normal using two three-car sets of Superliners. It was unclear whether Superliners would also be used on the Cascades and Hiawatha, although it seemed unlikely given how stretched that fleet is as well. —Justin Franz