On the south bound stretch of the WES my father and I got to ride on the cab car instead of the DMU.  The sound is different, and quieter than riding on the DMU.  Ride quality is flawless just as the DMU.

On departure from Beaverton we actually had our tickets checked by the conductor.  I was rather stoked by this as I thought there wasn’t going to be any enforcement.  The conductor asking, being they have that railroad matter of fact-ness about them, is the prefect candidate to be asking for fare.  One young kid didn’t have fare, but I admit he seemed to be a bit perplexed by the whole “train” concept and how fare was supposed to work.  The conductor explained it to him and let him grab a fare at Hall/Nimbus Station.

We then cruised smoothly with our double unit consist on down toward Tualatin.  Without the engine noise of the DMU.  For kicks I decided to ride back and make possibly another round trip of the whole affair.

Once we arrived in Wilsonville we sat tight for the 20+ minutes for the return trip.

The stats so far are:

• One non-paying customer that became a paying customer.
• 43 people boarded in Beaverton.
• 12 more en route and others offloaded.
• 17 passengers detrained in Wilsonville.
• Peak load was 43.

Our departure was then set for 4:53pm.  At 4:53pm we headed north.  In Tualatin we actually picked up a number of people and barely lost anyone.  In Tigard we gained approximately 16 people on board and lost no one.  Peak load so far is approximately 30.

In Tigard we, as usual, met the south bound train.  The south bound train had an approximate load of 35-38 just from viewing the seat load.  We departed, on time, north for Beaverton.

On this north bound trip father and I sat in the DMU for a comparison.  Since I had ridden on the DMU for every other trip I’ve made this week I was able to compare that with the DMU under load of the cab car.  Let me tell ya, the vibration and extra effort the DMU had to make to get going was rather extreme.  Compared to single car operation it felt like it was just going to give a piston away at any moment.  We however got going after a few moments of acceleration and everything would quite down to regular operational levels.

At Hall/Nimbus we had 9 on, with one runner at the last second making 10.  I think at this point we lost 3-4 people, it however is rather hard to tell with the dual unit train.  I don’t think I’ve ever struggled to count so much.  With the platforms and configuration though it is not easy to see all the egress points.

• 14 People north bound.
• Peak load north bound was 32.

That’s it for the day.