Train enthusiasts — those people who plan their vacations by the lines they can ride, who can recite the numbers of their favorite locomotives, who collect vintage model trains and share photographs of them on Facebook groups — do not often get the chance to ride on the very first run of a newly opened line.

Rail travel has been retrenching for decades in this age of the jet and the interstate. Rail buffs have tried hard to change that, and the new route south from Seattle looked like one of their successes: an old freight line upgraded to smooth out and speed up Amtrak’s Cascades passenger service in Washington and Oregon.

So quite a few of the people who boarded Train No. 501 on Monday for the maiden run were rail fans. And when the train crashed off the newly refurbished rails south of Tacoma with 77 passengers aboard, at least two of the three people who were killed in the accident came from that world.

James Hamre, 61, was a train enthusiast to his marrow, the son and grandson of railway employees, who spent his retirement promoting train travel. Zack Willhoite, 35, his close friend, worked for a transportation agency in Washington State and volunteered his free time for a regional rail advocacy group. Mr. Hamre’s family and Mr. Willhoite’s employer confirmed their deaths.