Even so, I have to raise a few questions about the Big Boy locomotive celebration in Scranton, Penn., at the Steamtown National Historic Site. See, Steamtown is operated by the National Park Service, an arm of the Federal government and supported through a mix of appropriated taxpayer dollars and fees for permits, parking, entrance, and the like. It’s where Big Boy’s other surviving (but not operating) sibling, 4012, has been restored for public viewing.

Naturally, as Union Pacific’s Big Boy made its way from Omaha on to Norfolk Southern territory to wow the crowds in Ohio, New York State, and now in Pennsylvania, the plan was to stage a “reunion” of the two massive machines.

So far, so cool.

They even handed out these retro-flavored postcards (see the picture above) as a commemorative keepsake. Even cooler!

But let’s flip it over and see what’s on the back.

Hoo boy.

This postcard explicitly says the UP–NS combination “will transform the U.S. supply chain” and asks visitors to “encourage members of Congress to support this merger.” Merger advocacy, not neutral commemoration. My wife, who some of you have met at our Association events from time to time, nailed it when we talked about the postcards this morning: “Trojan Iron Horse.” (Those of you who know her know that of the two of us she is superior in every respect, including headline-crafting.)

I’m not saying this was illegal, or against the rules. There are things I don’t know about the specifics, so I don’t have enough facts to draw that conclusion. But boy, do I sure have questions.

On one hand, as an arm of the Federal government the Park Service has to recognize and respect First Amendment activity on park land, including “distribution of printed matter,” “demonstrations,” and “speechmaking,” and Steamtown’s own permits page says such requests must be treated equally. Like nearly every other Federal venue, permits may regulate time, place, number, facilities, and equipment, but not the content of the message. That means the Park Service can’t just say, “We dislike pro-merger advocacy, therefore no postcards.” In fact, I would have opposed that kind of content-based restriction if it had surfaced in advance.

But the Code of Federal Regulations is also pretty clear that commercial purposes have to be pretty limited. 36 CFR § 5.1 says commercial notices or advertisements may not be displayed, posted, or distributed on Federally controlled park land unless the superintendent has given prior written permission. More important, that permission is limited to goods, services, or facilities available within the park and necessary or desirable for visitor convenience. Think “hot dog stand,” or “rain ponchos.”

The Park Service’s own advertising memo reads that rule strictly and says Park Service or partner publications distributed in parks may not include advertisements for goods, services, or facilities outside park boundaries; it also warns against any kind of Park Service distribution that would look like endorsement.

If UP or NS employees privately handed these out in a designated area under a permit, National Park Service probably had to allow it on a viewpoint-neutral basis consistent with the First Amendment. Ugly? Yes. A publicity stunt? Absolutely. Illegal? Harder to say. Stranger things have happened lately...

If these postcards were handed out as part of the official National Park Service-managed visitor experience, at Park Service entry points, in visitor-center space, by Park Service staff or volunteers, or under a special-event arrangement that didn’t authorize advocacy material, then it becomes much more problematic.

At that point the question is not “may a private party advocate on federal land?” The question becomes “did the Park Service allow a corporate merger campaign to be embedded in an official NPS event, while using federal property and visitor flow to generate political support?”

So, here’s what I’d really like to know: Was Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern, or any contractor or affiliate authorized to distribute merger-advocacy postcards or QR-code materials at Steamtown during the Big Boy 4014 visit? If so, under what authority: the special-event agreement, a First Amendment permit under 36 CFR §§ 2.51/2.52, written permission under 36 CFR § 5.1, or some other instrument?

Don’t misunderstand me. Park Service property doesn’t have to be entirely message-free. But the government can’t turn a National Park site into a one-sided corporate advocacy platform while denying comparable access to the other side, especially given that the corporate advocacy concerns a mega-merger under active review by Federal regulators.

If the millions of Americans who want, need, and deserve a modern, well-supported, and growing passenger-rail network wanted to distribute opposing or, at least, cautionary material to the general public -- say, at some kind of educational event -- would the Park Service or Steamtown provide the same website presence, physical access, locations, timing, and visitor-facing opportunity?

But that doesn’t change the future, nor does it diminish the urgency of the questions we need to ask about this proposed mega-merger. “Will this deal make it harder to build the passenger rail network Congress is already paying to plan?” We already kind of knew the answer, but thanks to your Association’s team of data scientists and researchers, today we can emphatically declare, “Yes, without a doubt.”

Last winter, Rail Passengers warned that a merged Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern railroad would control much of America’s future passenger rail map. I told you then that our teams would keep working through filings and documents filed to the Surface Transportation Board docket, and that we’d keep you informed as we learned and understood better.

This week, our team just put the finishing touches on its analysis of the overlap with the Federal Corridor Identification program, comparing UPNS’ projected freight growth with corridors currently being examined under Corridor ID, sharing it with our coalition partners working on litigation over the transaction. Our analysts compared the applicants’ own projected freight growth with the corridors that the Federal Railroad Administration is planning -- and which Congress is paying for. Unsurprisingly, we found many places where future passenger expansion and future freight growth would compete for the same capacity. Nearly everywhere in the country, you probably live in a place where the new train service you want to see could get crimped or even vetoed by a combined Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern railroad.

Do you want more and better trains in the U.S. Southeast? Well, the proposed Charlotte-Atlanta Corridor would operate over Norfolk Southern territory where the applicants project at least eight additional freight trains every day across multiple route segments.

Have you been pining for Ohio’s long-promised “three Cs and D” (Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, and Cincinnati)? Or Toledo to Detroit? Those projects overlap with territory where the applicants project six additional freight trains under their Operating Plan and another train under their Growth Plan.

Excited about the Mardi Gras? Our closely watched and wildly successful new Amtrak Mardi Gras between New Orleans and Mobile would operate over a segment where UPNS project eight additional freight trains. You might remember that when we were all fighting about the Mardi Gras the railroads argued that adding just two daily trains would cost a billion dollars in additional capital investment...just sayin’.

Want more and better trains in Pennsylvania? Or the Lackawanna Cutoff? The Keystone Corridor west of Harrisburg? That territory would host a projected seven additional freight trains.

Commute in California? The LOSSAN Corridor in Southern California, already among the nation’s busiest passenger rail corridors, appears alongside projected freight growth in the Los Angeles terminal area.

Disclosures in the UP and NS filings before the STB show they expect to operate 89 new freight trains across places now accepted into the congressionally directed and FRA-led Corridor ID program. Overall, we found 182 new daily trains across all Amtrak routes’ territories, and 29 in important commuter areas like Chicago’s Metra and California’s Metrolink.

Am I arguing that these projects can’t coexist? No, not necessarily. And don’t say that I am. But one of our most enduring criticisms of the entire UPNS application is that the two railroads have devoted hundreds of pages to explaining why the merger won’t adversely affect today’s passenger trains, while devoting zero attention to explaining how their future freight growth plans interact with the future passenger rail network now being planned across the United States.

Moreover, they generally claim they can do this with no or minimal new capital investment, mostly relying on existing capacity and -- in a handful of places -- public investment (read, “taxpayer dollars”) already programmed and underway. That’s a pretty dramatic departure from the typical claims that even a single new passenger train demands billions in new investment.

In effect, the applicants are asking regulators at the STB to evaluate the merger using future freight projections while evaluating passenger impacts using a static passenger network from the past. If future freight growth is central to the merger’s benefits, as UP and NS claim, then shouldn’t future passenger growth be part of the public-interest analysis as well?

(An important side note: STB itself is scratching its head over some of the applicants’ projections, enough to conditionally accept their latest application while pausing their evaluation for at least two months to give UP and NS the chance to explain themselves more fully.)

When UPNS filed their “do-over” application at STB last month, they argued that the statutes and regulations only require them to consider the status quo of passenger rail. They then used that claim to explicitly sidestep any analysis of future projects, like those identified in Corridor ID.

The STB has already signaled, more than once, that it views passenger rail as broader than simply the existing Amtrak timetable. We’ve been making that argument from the very beginning under the public-interest standard and the “essential services” provisions. Let’s look at 49 C.F.R. § 1180.1(c)(2) (ii) “Harm to essential services.” The regulation here is clear that STB can and should look beyond maintaining the status quo.

“The Board must ensure that essential freight, passenger, and commuter rail services are preserved wherever feasible. An existing service is essential if there is sufficient public need for the service and adequate alternative transportation is not available. The Board’s focus is on the ability of the nation’s transportation infrastructure to continue to provide and support essential services. Mergers should strengthen, not undermine, the ability of the rail network to advance the nation’s economic growth and competitiveness, both domestically and internationally.”

The merger application treats future passenger rail as a hypothetical, but our analysis suggests otherwise. The conflict isn’t between freight and passenger rail today. The conflict is between two competing visions of the future.

So yes, let’s applaud, and gasp, and even wipe a tear or two as all one-plus million pounds of Big Boy 4014 glide out of the past to awe us all over again. Let’s even thank Union Pacific for keeping it alive and Norfolk Southern for welcoming it home (4014 was built in Schenectady, NY). But let’s not mistake that beautiful reminder of the past for what UP and NS are planning for our future, a future which, evidently in their view, sees no more new passenger trains.

“We named this project Penn Station Transformation for the exact reason depicted in these renderings; a world-class, beautiful, and modern train station is coming to New York City,” said Special Advisor to the Amtrak Board Andy Byford. “With the continued support of the President and USDOT, and the expertise of Halmar, Skanska, and the rest of our partners, we are continuing to drive momentum and meet more milestones to get shovels in the ground next year and turn these renderings into reality.”

A Federal Vision for a Stagnant Rail Hub

The USDOT’s announcement strikes an ambitious tone. And while it foregoes a more radical reconstruction that some have argued for, it would replace the current confusing layout with an expansive, single-level concourse featuring a spacious train hall, natural light, and improved accessibility.

Highlights of the proposal include:

• Construction of a larger entrance on 8th Avenue to a new, expanded train hall [Nb. most passengers currently access the station through the 7th Avenue entrance];

• Replace cramped walkways with open concourses;

• Expand track capacity, including the introduction of at least limited through-running on the regional rail network;

• New retail, better wayfinding, and other passenger experience improvements; and

• Improvements to the station’s existing subterranean structure.

Notably, Madison Square Garden will remain in place—a politically and logistically significant decision that avoids the thorny question of how, where, and when to relocate the arena.

The federal government has already committed $243 million to kickstart the redevelopment, including $43 million in grants and an additional $200 million for design and permitting. And while that leaves a roughly $7 to $8 billion funding gap, USDOT is promising that construction will begin on the project by the end of 2027.

New York State and MTA Remain Skeptical

Behind the polished renderings and bold federal vision lies a simmering conflict—one that pits the Trump Administration against New York State and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) over who gets to control—and who must pay for—the future of Penn Station.

In April 2025, the federal government—under the Trump Administration—took control of Penn Station’s redevelopment, effectively sidelining New York’s established planning process. New York officials have pushed back against what they view as federal overreach, with local leaders arguing that MTA and local officials have a deeper understanding of local transit needs, and federal preemption of local taxing authority and zoning is an illegitimate power grab.

At the center of the conflict is funding. Penn Station’s redevelopment is expected to cost billions, and neither side currently has a fully locked-in financing plan.

The Trump Administration’s approach has outlined federal investment combined with private-sector partnerships, as seen with Penn Transformation Partners (a joint venture led by Halmar and Skanska) taking the role of master developer. But, as reported by StreetsblogNYC, there is also a suspicion they will ultimately pass the buck to tenant railroads—such as Amtrak, the MTA, and New Jersey Transit—through access payments.

“Gov. Hochul has been clear from the day President Trump took over this project: if he wants it, then he’ll have to pay for it,” MTA spokesperson Mitch Schwartz. “Secretary Duffy didn’t have any problem with that arrangement when he told Congress that his administration was ready to ‘give’ Penn Station $8 billion — the full cost of the project. Now, they’re admitting their real plan is to charge New York taxpayers billions. Their position may have changed. Ours hasn’t: we’re not interested in that deal.”

Amtrak’s Byford, for his part, has stated that he won’t advance a deal that would include “unaffordable” availability payments.

“I made it very clear in the RFP to the bidders: do not come with a proposal that saddles the railroads, of which Amtrak is obviously one, with unaffordable availability payments, because you won’t get through, you will not win,” said Byford. “My strategy is to minimize the gap between the overall cost and what we can raise through capital, like loans and grants, and what remains to be paid for via availability payments.”

What This Means for Commuters

For everyday riders, the details of governance battles may feel distant—but their consequences are not. Penn Station has long been criticized as overcrowded, outdated, and confusing. A successful redevelopment could radically improve commute times and passenger flow, safety and accessibility, and overall travel experience

But delays, redesigns, or funding disputes could prolong the station’s current dysfunction for years.

The Bigger Picture

Penn Station has languished for years while federal and local governments have struggled to outline a compelling vision and secure meaningful funding. Rail Passengers Association is committed to advocating for the interests of passengers in the redevelopment process, but it’s important to be clear: no one’s interest would be served by another decade of inaction. While both the USDOT and New York have made compelling points, in our opinion, the tie goes to the entity willing to actually do something.

Or to put it another way: fortune favors the bold.

The South Shore Line, running between South Bend, Indiana, and Chicago, is famous for being the last surviving example of what specific class of American electric rail transit that peaked in the early 20th century?

Leave a comment with your answer.

Leave a comment

At first glance, the phrase may strike some readers as a political slogan. In today’s environment, many transportation discussions quickly become proxies for broader cultural and ideological debates. And I’m not naïve: this Administration has used that term to score culture-war points for a while now. It has become, weirdly, a loaded term. But after reading the notice, I think that there is, nonetheless, an opportunity here for a much more useful conversation.

I think the questions FTA is asking are really, at their core, still customer-service questions. Things like “Will I feel safe?” or “Will the station be clean?” or “Can I navigate the system with my children, luggage, stroller, or mobility device?” or “Will the train or bus arrive when it’s supposed to?” or “Will I know what’s happening if something goes wrong?”

For decades, transit agencies have measured success primarily through ridership, passenger miles, and similar operational metrics. While important, they don’t fully capture the experience of the people who actually use the system or, crucially, who maybe choose NOT to use the system even if it might be the better option.

In its request document, FTA explicitly recognizes the difference between actual safety and the perception of safety. A station may have relatively low crime rates and still feel uncomfortable or intimidating. Conversely, a station located in a challenging environment may feel welcoming and secure because it’s well-lit, easy to navigate, visibly staffed, and well-maintained.

For women traveling alone, teenage girls, older adults, families with children, and occasional riders unfamiliar with the system, those perceptions can be every bit as important as the underlying statistics. If people do not feel comfortable using public transportation, they often won’t use it.

This is an area where transportation researchers have been doing important work for years.

As one example, researchers at the Mineta Transportation Institute, working with transit agencies and policymakers, have examined how women and girls experience public transportation environments and how those experiences influence travel behavior. California recently required several transit agencies to begin using a standardized survey instrument developed through this work to better understand passenger harassment and safety concerns.

The lesson from this growing body of research is that safety isn’t just an enforcement issue, but a design issue. We’ve explored this at some length in the Railway Interiors events I’ve attended or co-chaired both in Europe and here in DC, with the award-winning U.K. design powerhouse PriestmanGoode really leading the way in this conversation. Whether in stations or onboard the transit vehicles themselves, designers need to think differently about lighting, visibility, sightlines, wayfinding, station maintenance, staff presence, the ability to obtain assistance quickly, and so many other similar ideas.

The best transit systems don’t simply react to problems after they occur. They’re designed and managed to reduce risks before problems emerge and to help passengers feel confident using the system. And that brings us to one of the most difficult questions facing transit agencies today.

Many transit facilities are grappling with the visible effects of homelessness, addiction, untreated mental illness, and other social challenges. Passengers experience these realities through blocked pathways, unsanitary conditions, intimidating behavior, harassment, or facilities that no longer seem dedicated to their intended transportation purpose.

Now, let’s be clear. Transit agencies aren’t housing authorities. Or hospitals. Or social-service providers. Their primary responsibility is to provide safe, reliable transportation. But at the same time, transit agencies, station owners and operators, and Amtrak really can’t be allowed to pretend they have no stake in these challenges.

As a firefighter/paramedic for many years, I saw these challenges up close. Based on that experience, I have to tell you that if the same individual has been removed from the same station fifty times, arranging removal for the fifty-first time might well be necessary in the moment, but it’s far from being an actual solution.

Nearly 80 percent of homeless people are “temporarily” homeless...a family breakup, a person getting kicked out of their home by an angry parent or similar, medical bankruptcy, and so forth. Roughly 22 percent of the homeless nationwide are what’s called “chronic” homeless, and these are generally the ones who are the biggest problems at train stations and bus stations. For these people, mental illness, chronic physical ailments, malnutrition, and drug abuse and addiction (often from self-medicating for all of their other issues) are the big root-cause drivers, and those root causes are much, much harder to address. Rent stabilization, housing vouchers, and similar steps do nothing for people in this category.

And this is why it’s unreasonable and unfair to expect a transit or train station manager to “solve” a problem with so many interconnected dimensions. But it is equally unreasonable to think that simple enforcement alone, without addressing the underlying pathologies and poor support systems, will do anything other than temporarily move the problem along to some other doorway, hall, train platform, or station stop.

Passengers deserve stations that are clean, orderly, and welcoming. They should be able to use waiting rooms, platforms, and public facilities without harassment, intimidation, obstruction, or unsafe conditions. Maintaining that environment is an essential responsibility of every transit operator. Yet if the same underlying conditions continue to recreate the same problems, the broader system has failed.

Enforcement restores order…for a day. Lasting progress requires cooperation among transit agencies, local governments, public-health officials, housing providers, law-enforcement agencies, nonprofits, and community organizations. No single institution can solve these challenges alone. Neither can any institution honestly claim they are entirely someone else’s responsibility.

For that reason, I hope this FTA request doesn’t become a debate about politics, ideology, or competing slogans. Instead, it should focus on what passengers actually experience. Families often judge a transit environment through questions like:

• Is there somewhere to sit?
• Can I keep my children within sight?
• Is there good lighting?
• Can I find a restroom?
• Are there other people around with families?
• Can I recover from a mistake?
• If my train is late, am I stranded in an environment that feels hostile?

And that’s not just “families.” Passengers generally favor environments that appear maintained, supervised, predictable, understandable, and recoverable when things go wrong. Women traveling alone consistently report this in the literature. So do seniors, and occasional riders.

A transit agency can meaningfully influence whether a station is clean, visible, staffed, monitored, and orderly, providing safe and welcoming stations and facilities, accessible design, clear information and announcements, thoughtful wayfinding and pathways, and non-emotional, evidence-based, approaches to passenger safety. And all of this reinforces the idea that designing with the needs of certain populations in mind makes things better for everyone, and not just for those populations.

Perhaps without realizing it, FTA has opened the door to that conversation. Rail Passengers Association intends to participate, and we look forward to sharing more about our recommendations in the weeks ahead. We’re working on details, and I really hope you’ll share your thoughts on concrete recommendations after reading the FTA document, either here in our comments section or by email to us directly. But my going-in position is that passengers shouldn’t have to choose between compassion and competence. A good transportation system owes them both.

While Republican leaders framed the bill as a “modernized infrastructure” proposal for highways, ports, and aviation, transit advocates sharply criticized the bill for deep cuts to rail and transit programs and for relying on a controversial $7.9 billion repurposing of previously enacted infrastructure funds.

Rail and Transit Funding: Cuts, Restructuring, and Reprogramming

The bill provides roughly $3.1 billion in new appropriations for passenger and freight rail, alongside targeted allocations such as:

• $1.45 billion for Amtrak’s National Network

• $650 million for the Northeast Corridor

• $523 million for CRISI grants

• $100 million for rail crossing safety improvements

At first glance, some of these figures represent stable or even increased funding within the constrained discretionary topline. However, the broader funding picture is far more negative.

The legislation eliminates or repurposes billions in advance appropriations from the Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail program, resulting in a net loss of rail investment compared to FY2026 levels. By shifting previously committed capital funds, the bill trades long-term expansion for short-term operating support, undermining the pipeline of new intercity rail projects.

Public Transit: Steep Cuts and Program Constraints

Public transportation programs face particularly severe reductions:

• Total public transit funding drops to about $16.5 billion, a 22% cut from FY2026

• Capital Investment Grants (CIG)—the main program for new transit rail and bus rapid transit projects—falls to $737 million, a 78% reduction

As the American Public Transit Association was quick to point out, these reductions come despite an existing backlog of roughly $31 billion in requested transit capital projects nationwide for 49 projects in 23 States, highlighting the disconnect between demand and funding levels.

The bill also tightens congressional control over CIG spending by requiring detailed project-by-project allocations, limiting the Trump Administration’s administrative flexibility by prohibiting the USDOT from deviating from that amount by more than 10 percent.

Controversy Over “Repurposing” of $7.9 Billion in IIJA Funds

Perhaps the most contentious aspect of the markup is the bill’s reliance on $7.9 billion in “repurposed” funds from the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA)—money that had already been allocated as multi-year advance appropriations.

Instead of allowing those funds to flow toward their originally intended capital projects, the appropriations bill redirects them to annual discretionary programs, including Amtrak operations and grants, transit infrastructure grants and CIG, rail safety and the CRISI program—even non-surface programs like aviation infrastructure.

Much of the funding comes specifically from unobligated balances in the Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail program, a cornerstone IIJA initiative intended to expand rail service nationwide.

This maneuver amounts to double-counting or backfilling, using money already provided in prior legislation to meet current budget priorities identified by House GOP leadership. The House allocation for THUD is $10.7 billion below FY2026, reflecting a decision to reallocate discretionary outlays to other areas—including Pentagon spending and border enforcement.

This effectively undermines the IIJA’s multi-year investment framework, which was designed to provide predictable, sustained funding for large-scale infrastructure projects.

Redirecting these funds could lead to:

• Cancellation or delays for future rail expansion projects

• Weakening of state-led planning efforts dependent on federal matching funds

• Erosion of confidence in long-term federal commitments

Broader Policy Implications

The FY2027 THUD markup highlights a transition moment in federal transportation policy. The expiration of the IIJA leaves Congress without a new multi-year authorization framework, forcing appropriators to once again rely on short-term fixes for long-term investment problems. Rail and transit—especially capital expansion programs—are being squeezed to fit within tighter discretionary limits.

If enacted, the bill would mark a shift away from the IIJA’s emphasis on network expansion and modernization toward a more constrained approach focused on maintaining existing systems.

The fate of these provisions—and the broader direction of U.S. rail and transit policy—will depend on negotiations with the Senate Appropriators—which requires a more bipartisan approach—and the outcome of the debate over the shape of the next surface transportation reauthorization.

This is a bad bill—but there’s still time to make your voice heard!

Join our campaign asking Congress to continue investment in a robust passenger rail network for ALL Americans.

ACT NOW

For years, the Rail Passengers Association’s partnership with the Fund for American Studies (TFAS) D.C. Academic Internship Program has brought fresh perspectives and incredible talent to our team. This year is no exception.

Our latest trio represents a diverse cross-section of America, united by a shared goal: learning how to protect, preserve, and expand the nation’s passenger rail network while building their future careers in law and public service.

Please help us welcome our summer “Class of 2026”:

My name is Lucy Whitener. I am an upcoming senior pre-law English major at Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville, Georgia. I am currently a longstanding member of Delta Gamma, Vice President of Public Relations for my service sorority Gamma Sigma Sigma, and President of the Pre-Law fraternity on my campus, Phi Alpha Delta. I am hoping to eventually work in tax law, but I love working in non-profit and writing when possible. I chose The Fund for American Studies as my Summer program because of my love for Washington, D.C., and wanting to gain more hands-on experience in the corporate world. The program has been great so far, and I feel honored to have been placed with the Rail Passengers Association! My hometown is Duluth, Georgia, which my family lovingly refers to as “Train Town” because of all the railroads that pass by my downtown. I am excited to work with a team of people who care about something so close to my home. I hope to make new connections in this internship with the team I am working with and learn how to engage more thoroughly in legal research!

I’m Christine, a rising senior at Mount Holyoke College (South Hadley, MA) studying English and history. This summer, I elected to attend TFAS because my professor referred me over here and I saw the breadth of opportunity and development it offered—and the chance to work in Washington, DC! I chose to work at Rail Passengers because, as a native of New Jersey, I am intimately familiar with the NJTransit system and the NYC Subway as well as Amtrak to get to and from school (especially the Vermonter), and I am invested in championing that ease of access to transportation, which I have personally experienced. To me, railroads and public transportation are the circulatory system of the US, literally and figuratively, and I bring my strong writing background and an interest in railway history to the table to preserve and protect the accessibility of public transportation now and for the future. Here, I am excited to develop my legal writing and research skills by contributing to RPA’s already comprehensive research as well as gain exposure to a wide range of policy issues, including on my home turf of the NJTransit. With my degree, I am hoping to work after college to gain experience in legal fields with the eventual goal of pursuing a JD.

Hello, Rail Passengers Association. My name is Trevor, and I am a rising senior at Wichita State University, majoring in political science with a minor in criminal justice and honors. I was born and raised in Wichita, Kansas, in the American heartland, where high-quality, regular rail transit is nearly non-existent. I wanted to know more about this gap, the upstream and downstream impacts on our communities, and the best policies to address these problems. This is why I chose to spend my summer in D.C. as an intern with the Rail Passengers Association. I am not only interning at the RPA this summer, but I am also spending time as we celebrate America 250 with the Fund for American Studies to further strengthen my time in D.C. by learning about our civic responsibilities as citizens and how we can protect our institutions and values moving into an uncertain future. I hope that during my time here in our nation's capital, I will better understand what I want to do after college, whether that be law school, a master's, or something entirely different, and build a lasting, professional, and valuable network of amazing people along the way.

While most of the energy surrounding the BUILD America 250 Act’s approach to passenger rail has (rightfully) focused on the precipitous downgrade in dedicated funding, there’s been an interesting drama developing in the periphery around an amendment to Amtrak’s ability to use Transit Oriented Development (TOD) to generate revenue.

The Nationally Significant Rail Station Modernization Act of 2026 was introduced by Rep. Addison McDowell (R-NC-06) as an amendment during the House Committee on Transportation & Infrastructure’s markup of the BUILD America 250 Act. The amendment—which was adopted—would enhance Amtrak’s eminent domain powers and allow it to capture value from nearby real estate development which benefits from proximity to Amtrak stations.

Specifically, the amendment:

• Enhances Amtrak’s eminent domain powers by expanding the definition of “property necessary for intercity rail passenger transportation” to include:

  • Station expansion, reconstruction, or modernization; or

  • Transit-oriented development, including revenue-generating commercial, office, retail, mixed-use, or ancillary development.

• Authorizes Amtrak to “own, lease, license, develop, ground-lease, or enter into joint development or other public-private partnership arrangements” for property located on or adjacent to its stations.

• Authorizes Amtrak to use revenues derived from these activities for “capital improvements, maintenance, debt service, or other costs related to stations and intercity passenger rail facilities”.

• Prohibits state, local, and regional governments from collecting taxes or fees on real property owned by Amtrak (alone or in partnership with others), or on improvements made to these properties.

• Authorizes Amtrak to enter into agreements requiring payments in lieu of taxes from entities occupying, leasing, or developing property owned by Amtrak, so long as Amtrak remits funds to state and local governments estimated to be equal to the taxes they would have received prior to any development or improvement of the property.

• Expands categorical exclusions and the streamlining of environmental and local review to Amtrak-led TOD.

“Amtrak can receive contractual payments from developers; this allows Amtrak to retain the revenues created from the increased value of the developed property and then pour that money back into capital improvements, maintenance, and related passenger facilities,” said Rep. McDowell during the markup. “This amendment does not raise federal taxes[, and] it does not require new mandatory spending.”

If a freshman Republican Congressman from North Carolina seems an unlikely source for an amendment that turbocharges Amtrak’s eminent domain powers, the opposition came from an unequally unlikely source: Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY-12), a staunch supporter of Amtrak. Rep. Nadler framed the policy as ceding too much power to the Trump Administration, while also arguing it would make it easier for Amtrak to structure private development deals, fast-track favored projects for federal financing, preempt state and local taxes, and override local zoning in building requirements (confusingly, Nadler presented these last arguments as a reason to vote against the amendment).

“[This amendment] would hand Amtrak and the Trump-Duffy DOT expanded authority over station area real estate, financing, taxation, zoning, and private development at the exact moment, they are already running Penn Station in New York through a rushed and closed-door [Request for Proposal] process,” said Rep. Nadler. “This amendment is very bad for Penn Station and for New York City.”

The cognitive dissonance produced by a longtime advocate for Amtrak opposing an amendment that would help Amtrak generate revenue to advance critical projects was seized upon by Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA-06), who pointed out that this amendment is based on best practices employed in other countries with successful intercity rail systems.

To quote Rep. Moulton at length:

My colleague, Mr. Nadler, basically explained why this amendment would accelerate development of Penn Station. Now, if there’s anyone in America, or the world, who thinks that Penn Station development is going too slowly, I’d like to meet that person.

This station is overdue for redevelopment by about six decades. It’s not happened. And the model in the rest of the world that’s been so successful is to allow what’s called ‘value capture’ by the railroad that actually increases the value of that real estate by the service that they provide, and not have that tax revenue go somewhere else.

That’s exactly what this amendment makes possible. This amendment makes possible the kind of station development that we’ve seen everywhere else in the world.

[The exchange is worth watching in full.]

Opposition to the amendment was fleshed out in NYC Streetsblog this week, in a post titled “Art of the Steal: Congress Sets the Stage For Trump Land Grab To Fund Penn Station”. The article directs three main arguments against Rep. McDowell’s amendment:

1. It takes away from local revenue to fund federal projects by freezing payments to local governments at a particular point in time, while putting local government on the hook for additional services that may be required (such as additional trash pickups)

2. Exempts TOD from local scrutiny.

3. The Penn Station redevelopment is a bad model for this kind of TOD since the proposal on the table is mostly cosmetic and doesn’t expand capacity.

Working backward:

- Capacity: We agree that Penn Station redevelopment should expand capacity. Amtrak’s Andy Byford, the man the Trump Administration has tapped to lead the redevelopment, is on record agreeing with this, as well. Regardless, it’s a largely non-germane argument, since:

- The bill covers the entirety of the Amtrak network, not just NYC.

- The bill makes it clear that TOD revenues would be fungible, and thus eligible to be directed at capital improvements, maintenance, debt service, or other costs related to stations and intercity passenger rail facilities across Amtrak’s network. Amtrak could, for instance, use new revenue from Penn Station TOD to fund the overhaul of its aging electrical infrastructure, which will directly benefit everyone who relies on the rail corridors that feed Penn Station.

- One of the primary goals of the bill is to allow Amtrak to capture revenue the value its transportation corridors generate. This definitionally involves finding ways to generate revenue from activities that don’t directly improve capacity or operations.

- Local Scrutiny: Good! “Local scrutiny” is the death of good intercity rail network planning and development. As just one example: “local scrutiny” has been a huge obstacle to through-running at Penn Station, which would expand capacity.

- Local Revenue: This is the most compelling argument, and something that could be corrected in a technical amendment were the bill to advance on the floor. Payments to local governments should be indexed to inflation, and there should be clarification that usage-based fees tied to providing services and utilities are exempt.

As far as Rep. Nadler’s arguments that it cedes too much power to the Trump Administration, I can’t help but feel a certain sense of exhaustion at the whole theory of infrastructure development underlying this claim. You get the sense that Democrats think it’s cheating for a politician to take a personal interest in a project that everyone know needs to be built, grease the wheels to see it get built in a reasonable amount of time, and then publicly taking credit for it getting built. It’s like watching someone get repeatedly dunked on by a golden retriever while they frantically thumb through the rulebook.

For too many officials in the U.S., infrastructure is about The Process, not the outcome. Unfortunately, The Process is bad. To paraphrase Nolan Hicks, The Process has calcified around the idea that building anything should take four years to get approved, four years to secure the funding, four years of engaging in permitting battles with holdout municipalities and fighting lawsuits filed by cranks, with a final four years to actually construct.

It would be nice if the presidential administration that helped secure the funding for passenger rail included in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law—i.e., the Biden Administration—had been willing to accelerate project development so that they could oversee the groundbreaking for these kinds of projects. But mostly they didn’t, so now the power to oversee what gets built has been ceded to the Trump Administration. That’s not cheating, that’s just reality.

Whether Penn Station, in particular, ends up being a handout to President Trump’s friends in NYC remains to be seen. But the idea that we’re better off preventing any kind of unsavory arrangement by never building anything at all is a dead letter.

I’m ready to build again.

And honestly? The decision reads less like a green light than a gentle, but unmistakable, warning shot.

The Board repeatedly emphasizes that “completeness” is not the same thing as demonstrating that the merger is actually in the public interest. In fact, the STB immediately froze the proceeding after accepting the filing, ordered a new round of supplemental information from the railroads, and made clear that major parts of the application remain “unclear or underdeveloped.”

“Although Applicants have included sufficient information to satisfy the fairly narrow procedural question of completeness, there are several aspects of the Revised Application that are unclear or underdeveloped and require supplementation at this stage of the proceeding so that the Board may have the information necessary to thoroughly evaluate — and the public has an adequate opportunity to comment on — whether the Transaction is in the public interest,” the Board said in its latest decision in the case, Decision No. 21.

So, as part of its decision accepting the application, STB said it would hold the rest of the proceeding in abeyance while it waits for UP and NS to respond to a very detailed list of supplementary inquiries the Board itself posed in the decision. It’s putting everything on hold until at least July 27 to give UP and NS time to respond.

The Board also specifically warned that it would not launch a procedural schedule that “places undue burden on commenting parties to ascertain and evaluate important information about the Transaction and how it corresponds to the new framework.” In plain English: I think STB is signaling that Applicants, not outside parties like Class Is, shippers, or public representatives like us, bear the burden of proving this merger satisfies the much tougher post-2001 merger standards.

The tone throughout the decision reflects exactly that “show me” skepticism, a skepticism we offered at the outset last year.

(You can read more about the “new” merger standards by clicking here to review my previous post on the new application earlier this month.)

The STB repeatedly references the failures and service disruptions that followed the last generation of mega-mergers and reminds applicants that the modern merger rules were intentionally designed to impose a “heavier burden” on Class I railroads seeking consolidation. The Board also pointedly notes that this is the first merger proceeding under those revised rules.

Most important for passenger rail, the Board appears unconvinced by broad assurances that the combined railroad can absorb large volumes of new freight traffic while simultaneously preserving passenger operations and future expansion opportunities.

The decision specifically calls out the need for more detailed information about capacity, competition, operations, and public-interest effects before parties (like us) can meaningfully comment. And notably, one of the Board’s own passenger-rail supplemental information requests asks essentially the same question Rail Passengers Association and others have already been asking publicly: how can anyone independently verify these claims about future capacity and passenger compatibility when so much of the underlying modeling remains shielded behind confidentiality restrictions?

That tension remains unresolved.

The Board says it does not want to force outside commenters to “ascertain and evaluate important information” on their own. And yet many public-interest organizations, states, passenger advocates, and local communities still don’t have access to the confidential workpapers underlying many of the merger’s key assumptions. We can’t sign the confidential undertaking that would permit us to access the confidential workpapers.

In other words: the STB accepted the filing, but it very clearly has not accepted the applicants’ conclusions. That’s appropriate, given that the only question on the table so far has been whether UP and NS filed a “complete” application, rather than whether the application would succeed on the merits.

Your Rail Passengers Association team and our coalition partners will continue reviewing the decision and the underlying filing in detail over the coming days, particularly as it relates to passenger-train reliability, Corridor ID expansion opportunities, host-railroad capacity, and the long-term public-interest implications of concentrating even more of the national rail network under a single private operator.

But be aware, this proceeding is very, very far from over.

Unfortunately, there’s a lot of that going on in passenger rail. I can’t tell you how many times in a typical week I get an email from a donor or supporter letting me know about some really fantastic development that I really should say something about.

Trouble is, 99.99 percent of the time, it just ain’t so.

One came to me last week breathlessly claiming that Amtrak was already running a new train called the Mountaineer ( ! ) extending Gulf Coast service (currently between New Orlans and Mobile) to Jacksonville, along with a second daily Crescent between New York City and New Orleans.

Sheer, utter, complete nonsense. How many of you have ridden this “Mountaineer” to Jacksonville yet? Anyone? It launched last year, supposedly, so somebody must have. Or, I’ll wait here while you go search Amtrak.com to book on one of the two (alleged) daily Crescents. C’mon, gang. It was reposted by MSN, the longtime online news aggregator, but look closely at the actual source. Travel and Tannins. Anyone want to tell us who “Travel and Tannins” is?

Or how about this one, just this week, contending that thanks to the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, “America is electrifying its Amtrak long-distance train network -- the passenger rail service connecting 500 cities getting the clean electric overhaul it has needed for half a century.”

Really?

Considering that the long-distance services all run on someone else’s right-of-way, how would Amtrak even do that? And if that were really a provision in the IIJA, don’t you think we’d all know it by now since the bill became law five years ago, in 2021?

Psychologists and social scientists have been looking at this phenomenon pretty closely in recent years, given how easy it is today to pass along genuine junk, blurring the line between fact and fantasy and polluting the “marketplace of ideas” with poisonous sludge.

One of the major reasons people pass along fake news is because it aligns precisely with their preconceived notions or, worse, with their deepest hopes. It’s called “motivated reasoning.” People will eagerly pass along things that they really want to be true. I really want the Washington Nationals to win the World Series...but that doesn’t make it likely.

Here’s the thing, though: study after study shows that the spread of misinformation online isn’t primarily explained by stupidity, or poor education, or the moral failures of the people who believe and share it (which is what you see in comment sections everywhere online).

Instead, those hundreds of studies in cognitive psychology, communication research, and behavioral economics, pretty convincingly demonstrate that falling for misinformation is a feature of normal human cognition, trying hard to make sense of environments for which it wasn’t designed.

“Our brains didn’t evolve to process the tsunami of information we face daily. The average person encounters the equivalent of 174 newspapers worth of data every single day – a stark contrast to our ancestors’ information environment,” writes Octavio Ortega Esteban, a psychologist who works in IT and specializes in examining how brains and technology interact. “This mismatch between our cognitive architecture and modern information consumption creates vulnerabilities that fake news exploits with remarkable efficiency.”

Esteban points to a 2022 study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology which found that participants spent an average of just 2.5 seconds evaluating the credibility of news headlines before deciding whether to believe or share them. This rapid processing relies heavily on cognitive shortcuts (heuristics) rather than careful analysis – creating perfect conditions for fake news to flourish.

So, what to do? Well, this blog article is one way I’m trying to do my part. It’s my attempt at what the researchers call “prebunking,” a kind of psychological inoculation to expose you to weakened forms of misinformation along with explanations of the manipulation techniques you’re seeing used. By warning you about the threat, exposing you to the weakened version of the nonsense, explaining it to you, and giving you the opportunity to practice evaluating it yourself, I’m (I hope!) giving you some tools to help you spot the fake train stories out in the wild, where you can debunk them yourself.

There’s also a technique you can use yourself called SIFT, which stands for Stop / Investigate the source / Find better coverage / Trace claims and quotes to their original source. Esteban suggests you use that technique like this: when you encounter some breathless story about, say, new high-speed rail service seven times a day to Caribou, Maine, you stop to take a breath and ask yourself if you know this is true (Stop), Google the author and the publication (Investigate), search for the claim on fact-checking sites (Find), and follow links until you reach original data or statements (Trace).

(You can practice that right now by clicking the link I’ve included to Esteban’s article.)

We at the Association are working every single day to make better, faster trains a reality, in more places, for more people. We read the news, too. And we are in constant contact with members of Congress, staff at regulatory agencies, and leaders in industry. We aren’t a news agency and don’t pretend to be the one-stop source for all passenger-rail information. But trust me when I assure you that if Amtrak adds a second Crescent, or extends the Mardi Gras to Jacksonville, or electrifies the entire long-distance network...you’ll read all about it here.

In the 9 months since its official launch, the NextGen Acela fleet has hit the 1M customer trip milestone.

Question for the room: After the original Acela fleet launched on December 11, 2000, how long did it take to hit that mark?

Leave a comment with your answer.

Leave a comment

--

While many of the eyes in the transportation world were focused on the introduction of BUILD America 250 Act, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (THUD) quickly advanced its FY 2027 spending bill on a party‑line vote, teeing up consideration by the full committee in June.

What it does for passenger rail:

• Sharp funding cuts overall: The bill provides about $3.1 billion for passenger and freight rail, far below FY 2026 levels and representing a major reduction in federal rail investment.

• Amtrak funding reduced heavily: Direct Amtrak funding would fall to roughly $2.1 billion—a 69% cut when factoring in advanced appropriations from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs (IIJA) Act. That includes:

  • $1.5 billion for the National Network, and

  • $650 million for the Northeast Corridor.

• Zeroes key passenger rail expansion programs: The bill cuts off new funding for the Federal‑State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail (FSP) program, a major source for corridor expansion and upgrades.

• Rescinds prior rail funding: It also rescinds $5.1 billion in FSP funds approved by the IIJA, redirecting them to fund Amtrak operations, other capital grant programs, and other purposes (including the rehabilitation and repair of Washington Union Station).

• Cuts grant and safety programs: Programs like CRISI and grade‑crossing improvements are reduced by roughly half or more, limiting infrastructure and safety upgrades.

If enacted, the House FY 2027 THUD bill would mark a major retrenchment in federal passenger rail policy—shifting from the expansion-oriented funding levels of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act toward maintaining a smaller Amtrak system with far less funding for new corridors, major capital projects, and long-term growth.

This is a bad bill—but there’s still time to make your voice heard!

Join our campaign asking Congress to continue investment in a robust passenger rail network for ALL Americans.

ACT NOW!

Our evaluation is detailed in the two-part series outlined below. We invite you to follow the links for a comprehensive breakdown of the legislation.

Part 1: The Fiscal Crisis

While the BUILD America 250 Act appears to authorize $63.9B for rail over five years, there is a critical caveat: this funding is not guaranteed. Departing from the precedent set by the IIJA, the act places all funding at the mercy of the annual congressional appropriations process. Given that appropriators have historically failed to secure even a fraction of that amount for rail, the lack of dedicated revenue could lead to an 80% drop in actual funding relative to current levels.

The legislation also complicates the Corridor Identification and Development (CID) Program by imposing more rigorous non-federal match requirements and additional bureaucracy, potentially stalling the 69 expansion projects currently in development.

Looking for a deep dive into the financial and grant data? Read the full analysis in Part 1.

Part 2: Impacts on Passengers and Amtrak

The bill emphasizes an Amtrak strategy focused on “economic performance” and reduced federal reliance, which effectively reverses language established in the IIJA.

Notable policy shifts include:

• Accountability & Oversight: Introducing open-meeting and FOIA requirements for Amtrak’s Board during federal grant administration, plus mandated disclosure of executive pay.

• Auditing & Infrastructure: Directing the Inspector General to review Amtrak’s route accounting (the APT system) and ensuring recommendations for the infrastructure backlog are prioritized.

• Safety & Amenities: Mandating baby changing tables on new rolling stock (simply codifying something is already happening) and strengthening workforce protection plans to prevent assaults.

• Corridor Studies & Legal Caps: Authorizing feasibility studies for specific routes like Austin to Monterrey and Scranton to NYC, and lowers the federal liability limit for rail incidents to $323M.

To understand how these changes might affect your travel experience, click here to read Part 2 in full.

The Bottom Line

BUILD America 250 contains plenty of smart, well-intentioned policy tweaks - many of which passenger advocates have long fought for. However, a policy framework without dedicated capital is like a new car without an engine. Without guaranteed funding, the progress made over the last few years is at serious risk of grinding to a halt.

Better yet, he said we’ll see actual construction begin within a year.

“Everyone at Amtrak is thrilled to announce Penn Transformation Partners and even more excited that the project is one step closer to having shovels in the ground next year,” said Byford, whose official title is now Special Advisor to the Amtrak Board. “The rapid completion of a rigorous procurement process represents more than just delivering on a highly ambitious milestone; it demonstrates that Amtrak and USDOT are uniquely capable of making this vision a reality.”

Andy, you’re being modest: there are lot of people who would argue that YOU are the only one “uniquely capable” of pulling this program off after decades of delay and a pile of politics unlike anything anywhere else in America. Now, this being New York City, everyone will have commentary, pro and con, and I’ll share my own thoughts below. But first, the details before we move on.

The joint venture of Halmar and Skanska, called Penn Transformation Partners, will build a new station inspired by the original Penn Station that was demolished in the 1960s, bringing back classic design while fitting with the major structures already in place, namely Madison Square Garden and Moynihan Train Hall, USDOT officials said in a press release.

Station plans include a new grand entrance on Eighth Avenue to a new train hall, open concourses, expanded track capacity, new retail locations, better wayfinding and improvements to the existing subterranean structure.

As a New Yorker, and a member of the New York Penn Station Working Advisory Group, or SWAG, I’m overjoyed to see how well Andy has unstuck this perpetually stalled effort, and even more happy to see that they were able to come up with a way to increase NYP’s capacity for trains per hour without physically enlarging the existing station complex beyond the streets it now touches: 31st street to the south and 33rd street to the north, as well as Ninth Ave. to the west and Seventh Ave. to the east.

It’s an especially notable achievement when you consider that our working group was briefed in Fall of 2024 that this was an impossible goal and that, in any case, work would not be able to begin for the better part of a decade.

What a difference 12 months of Byford’s leadership made...

Now, the preservationist in me still winces every time I think about the original Pennsylvania Station. It wasn’t merely a beautiful building; it was one of the great civic spaces in the world. The destruction of the original station became a cultural touchstone precisely because people realized too late what had been lost. So, I understand completely the impulse to say, “If we’re finally rebuilding Penn, shouldn’t we do it right?”

But then the operator in me looks at the existing Penn Station and reaches a different conclusion. Hundreds of thousands of people pass through that station every day. They don’t need a symbolic debate. They need wider corridors, clearer circulation, less crowding, more daylight, and enough capacity to accommodate future growth. They need a station that works. The Northeast Corridor is responsible for $100 million of U.S. GDP every...single...day. It’s THAT important.

Every previous vision tended to create a constituency large enough to stop it. Move the Garden? The Garden fights. Expand south? The neighborhood fights. Build a replica of the old station? Budget hawks fight. Build a purely functional transportation facility? Preservationists fight. At some point somebody has to produce a plan that enough people dislike only moderately.

The genius of what Byford and the project team seem to be attempting is lowering the political temperature. Not reopening the Madison Square Garden war. Not condemning an entire neighborhood south of the station. Not creating fresh enemies among property owners and elected officials. Instead, trying to assemble a coalition broad enough to actually build something.

Penn Station’s greatest enemy has never been any particular design concept. Its greatest enemy has been paralysis.

It’s no secret that I’m pretty impatient these days with the pace of passenger-rail progress. (Go back and re-read my rant about Moon landings taking less time than creating service development plans for new routes.) And that’s where I think Andy Byford’s entry into this story really IS the story.

Most infrastructure megaprojects are led either by politicians or architects. Byford’s credibility comes from being perceived first as an operator. The nickname “Train Daddy” is funny, but it reflects something real. People believe he actually cares whether passengers can get from Point A to Point B without unnecessary misery. And he proved it during his brief but visibly effective term as President of the New York City Transit Authority. That gives him a degree of trust that many previous Penn Station champions lacked.

What’s particularly interesting to me is the through-running component. The through-running debate has often become almost theological in New York rail circles — advocates on one side treating it as the solution to every operational problem, opponents treating it as either impractical or prohibitively expensive. The emerging Penn concept seems to be threading the needle: preserving future opportunities for at least some through-running capability without making the entire project contingent on solving every regional rail governance problem first.

That strikes me as politically intelligent. Build flexibility into the station. Create options for future operators. Don’t require unanimous agreement on the future of the entire Northeast Corridor before you improve the passenger experience today.

And yes — three cheers for the Molly Wee. As a young college student, I frequented the Molly Wee on Eighth Avenue between 31st and 30th streets. It’s still there, it’s still a neighborhood fixture, and my oldest son and I will still meet up there every once in awhile for a burger.

That may sound like a throwaway line, but I actually think it symbolizes something very important. For decades, Penn-area planning often carried an assumption that neighborhoods existed to serve megaprojects. The message now appears to be: we can improve the station without treating the surrounding community as expendable. That’s a healthier approach politically and civically.

The risk, of course, is that ambition outruns execution. You’re talking about one of the most complicated transportation facilities in North America, sitting atop active tracks, beneath an arena, surrounded by dense development, with Amtrak, NJ Transit, the MTA, New York City, New York State, the federal government, and countless stakeholders all holding pieces of the puzzle. Nothing about that is simple.

But if you’re going to attempt something difficult, I’d rather see a genuinely ambitious vision than another decade of studies explaining why nothing can be done.

As a New Yorker, I suspect history will be kinder to the people who finally improved Penn Station than to the people who spent another twenty years arguing about the perfect way to improve it. The original station is gone. We can’t undo that mistake. What we can do is ensure that the next generation inherits something better than the subterranean maze we’ve been asking passengers to tolerate for the last half-century. And we can raise a glass to the Molly Wee.

[Updated: May 21, 4:01PM Eastern]

This is Part 2 of our analysis of the Building Unrivaled Infrastructure and Long-term Development for America’s 250th (BUILD America 250) Act. This post looks at the “Amtrak reform” and “Passenger Rail Policy” subtitles of the bill.

You can read Part 1 here. However, to catch you up to speed, here is Rail Passengers‘ President & CEO Jim Mathews statement on the bill: “We appreciate that the Committee included several Rail Passengers priorities, and we look forward to working with both parties to strengthen the bill. But as drafted, BUILD America 250 falls short of what passengers, states, workers, and communities need. Without reliable funding and a clear commitment to growth, this bill is not enough to earn our endorsement.”

Subtitle B – Amtrak Reforms

Section 10201. Amtrak economic performance.

- Updates statutory findings/goals to emphasize competitiveness with other modes, service connecting urban and rural areas, and operational efficiency;

- Replaces ‘‘maximize the benefits of Federal investments’’ with ‘‘to maximize services and benefits to the communities Amtrak serves that is competitive with other passenger modes and ensuring Amtrak’s long-term performance’’;

- Replaces striking ‘‘established long-distance routes’’ with ‘‘a robust Northeast Corridor and National Network, including long-distance and State-supported routes,’’; and

- Highlights need to “promote Amtrak’s long-term financial performance”.

--

Section 10202. Amtrak transparency and accountability for passengers and taxpayers.

- Applies FOIA and Government in the Sunshine Act-style open meeting requirements to Amtrak’s Board of Directors when receiving federal grants; and

- Allows closed sessions for contracts, labor negotiations, personnel matters, and sensitive commercial/safety information.

--

Section 10203. Implementing Amtrak Office of Inspector General recommendations to address infrastructure backlog.

- Requires Amtrak to implement OIG recommendations on asset management/state of good repair within 2 years.

- Requires Amtrak OIG evaluation after 3 years.

--

Section 10204. Amtrak executive bonus disclosure.

- Requires public posting and congressional reporting of “the annual base pay and any bonus compensation paid to each member of the executive leadership team (including the chief executive officer, president, and each officer) of Amtrak, including the criteria and metrics used to determine any such bonus compensation”.

--

Section 10205. Amtrak and intercity passenger rail workforce assault prevention and response plans.

- Requires USDOT to issue best practices, after consulting with appropriate stakeholders;

- Requires passenger rail operators to submit and maintain assault prevention/response plans, training, reporting, and passenger notice to the USDOT;

- Requires operators to display, through its website and through signage, a written statement that informs passengers and personnel of the procedure for reporting an assault or harassment; and

- Adds safety and workforce protection requirements across passenger rail programs.

--

Section 10206. Baby changing table requirements on Amtrak trains.

- Requires baby changing tables in all Amtrak-owned trains purchased after the date enactment; and

- Does not include trains that Amtrak operates but does not own.

--

Section 10207. Report on Amtrak long-distance equipment maintenance costs.

- Requires Amtrak to issue a report on the anticipated costs of maintaining, rehabilitating, refurbishing, and replacing the existing long-distance equipment of Amtrak to maintain the passenger capacity of its long-distance service;

- The report would include:

(1) A current inventory of long-distance equipment, including trainsets, baggage cars, dining cars, sleeper cars, and nonsleeper passenger cars;

(2) A determination of the minimum amount of equipment necessary to maintain the passenger capacity of the long-distance service of Amtrak;

(3) The anticipated cost of maintaining and refurbishing this equipment in working order through fiscal year 2033;

(4) Specific challenges that Amtrak may experience in maintaining the passenger capacity of the long-distance service;

(5) The potential for and effects of delays in the acquisition of new replacement equipment if such equipment is not acquired until after calendar year 2035; and

(6) The effect of establishing new or restored long-distance routes on the cost and availability of existing and additional long-distance equipment.

--

Section 10208. Inspector General review of Amtrak accounting and reporting practices.

- Requires review of Amtrak’s financial systems (APT, ERP), internal controls, GAAP compliance, and FRA oversight systems, focusing on whether:

(1) Amtrak’s use of systems in data processing accurately tracks expenditures, revenues, and Federal funds;

(2) Internal controls within such systems are sufficient to prevent accounting errors;

(3) Amtrak’s systems in data processing and consolidated financial statements are in compliance with applicable Federal financial management standards and generally accepted accounting principles;

(4) Amtrak’s reporting practices accurately reflects route performance;

(5) Increased adherence to generally accepted accounting principles for APT would improve cost transparency; and

(6) The Federal Railroad Administration’s use of systems for Amtrak oversight are in compliance with applicable Federal financial management standards and generally accepted accounting principles.

--

Section 10209. Amtrak annual reporting.

- Requires linking adjusted operating metrics to audited financial statements.

- Requires validation by Certified Public Accountant or Amtrak OIG.

--

Section 10210. Invoices and reports.

- Allows states to hire independent auditors for billing disputes under PRIIA §209.

- Requires Amtrak to provide underlying cost and operating data.

--

Section 10211. State-supported cost and service policy.

- Expands authority of the §209 committee to administer, implement, and update cost and service policy;

- Requires regular meetings, subgroups, and transparency in implementation; and

- Broadens from “cost methodology” to “cost and service policy.”

--

Section 10212. GAO study on Amtrak customer experience.

- Requires GAO review of fares, service quality, reliability, accessibility, and customer communications across routes.

--

Section 10213. GAO study on Amtrak service to privately owned rail cars.

- Reviews costs, pricing, profitability, and access policies for privately owned railcars.

--

Section 10214. The Donald M. Payne, Jr. Transit Center at Newark Penn Station.

Renames Newark Penn Station as the “Donald M. Payne, Jr. Transit Center at Newark Penn Station” in honor of the late Congressman.

--

Section 10215. Public notice and comment on Amtrak’s corporate structure.

- Requires Amtrak to issue notice in the Federal Register, allow for public comment, and congressional reporting before any major corporate restructuring;

- Notice must include the legal authority for the restructuring; and an explanation of the purpose of the plan and how it would facilitate Amtrak’s statutory mission and other goals established by the Amtrak Board of Directors;

- Amtrak must produce a report to Congress on which comments it intends to implement, justification for comments that Amtrak does not intend to implement, and an implementation strategy and timeline for the restructuring; and

- Strategy must outline any potential impacts of the restructuring on Amtrak service, capital projects, and workforce.

--

Section 10216. GAO examination of international passenger rail.

- Directs GAO to produce a report comparing governance, funding, and performance of foreign rail systems.

--

Section 10217. Food and beverage service.

- Directs Comptroller General to examine cost and quality of dining services, possible improvements, feasibility of returning traditional dining to all passengers, and a comparison of current dining options to established dietary guidelines;

- Requires Amtrak to report annually on adoption of recommendations, with advisory committee input.

Subtitle C – Passenger Rail Policy

Section 10301. Intercity passenger rail equipment pools.

Section 10301. Intercity passenger rail equipment pools.

- Authorizes the FRA to contract with interstate rail compacts to establish and run shared rolling stock pools, as well as finance procurement and long-term fleet management;

- The Agreement will:

- Establish governance rules, staffing, and procedures by which states may join the pool;

- Include a plan operations and management of the equipment pool;

- Govern procurement or acquisition of equipment for the equipment pool, including Buy America compliance;

- Establish a set of engineering standards, technical standards, and design standards applicable to all such procurement or acquisition of common fleet rolling stock equipment;

- Receive technical support for the interstate rail compact from the FRA and Amtrak;

- Funding would be provided largely through an expansion of eligibility in the Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing (RRIF) program and the newly-created NIPR;

- Secretary “may not prohibit an interstate rail compact from using a third-party entity to support the maintenance, distribution, oversight, and leasing of equipment”; and

- Amtrak cannot be compelled to provide equipment or facilities, and cannot be compelled to participate (though it may voluntarily participate.

--

Section 10302. California High-Speed Rail working group.

- Directs Secretary to establish a working group to conduct an assessment and make recommendations regarding the California High-Speed Rail project;

- Working group shall be made up of political appointees chosen by Congressional leadership and the Senate; and

- USDOT may not issue a grant to CAHSR until the report is published.

--

Section 10303. Route-specific reports.

- Directs USDOT to conduct an examination of intercity passenger rail service and an evaluation of the feasibility of establishing or expanding services for specific routes;

- Directs USDOT to focus on whether a route will require local, State, or Federal economic support and the degree of such support; cost and timeline estimate for initiating passenger service; benefits and impacts; and other factors;

- The section identifies the following routes for study:

(1) Between Kansas City, Missouri, and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, by way of Newton, Kansas.

(2) Between Akron, Ohio, and Canton, Ohio.

(3) A rail corridor between the District of Columbia and Florida, including an examination of all motive options.

(4) Between Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Luis Obispo, California.

(5) Between Austin, Texas, and Laredo, Texas, by way of San Antonio, Texas, with an extension to Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico.

(6) Between Scranton, Pennsylvania, and New York City, New York.

(7) Additional routes, as identified by the Secretary.

--

Section 10304. Study on commuter rail passenger transportation and transfers.

- Directs GAO to initiate a study identifying the benefits of commuter rail passenger transportation and major obstacles to providing commuter rail passenger transportation that does not involve a transfer for passengers;

- GAO will consider economic, logistical, and quality of life factors in analyzing the major obstacles to implementing single-seat trips on commuter rail; and

- Directs GAO to use the NJ Transit Raritan Valley Line as a case study.

--

Section 10305. Adjustment of liability cap.

- Lowers liability cap to $323 million per incident

- Liability cap will be adjusted every five years; minimum of 2% and maximum of 10%

- Directs the Secretary shall convene a working group to suggest an increase to the liability cap based on recent history of accidents and their severity, and changes to safety technology or other safety factors;

- Automatic 10% increase if working group fails to reach a recommendation

Rail Passengers Association Thanks Amtrak CEO Roger Harris for His Tenure As He Announces His Exit

Washington, D.C.—Amtrak announced late this afternoon that Chief Executive Officer Roger Harris will depart Amtrak on July 31, at which point Byl Herrmann will lead the company as Interim President while the Board conducts a search for a permanent CEO.

“On behalf of our members, I want to extend our thanks to Roger for his work on behalf of America’s passengers,” said Jim Mathews, President and CEO of Rail Passengers. “Roger’s seven years with Amtrak have included some of the most critical points in the railroad’s history—from ridership records to an almost-total shutdown of the network during the pandemic, back to new ridership records. We wish him well in his next chapter.”

Amtrak Board Chair Tony Coscia highlighted Herrmann’s impressive reserve of experience with the railroad, emphasizing he’ll oversee a smooth transition as the railroad looks conducts a search for his replacement.

“Byl Herrmann is a natural fit to lead Amtrak for what’s directly ahead of us,” wrote Coscia. “Byl is a 27-year veteran of Amtrak, with a deep knowledge of Law, HR, Labor and our business lines. As Interim President, Byl will work closely with the Board and executive leadership team to maintain continuity, support our workforce, and keep our focus on safe, reliable service, and delivering on our commitments to customers, partners, and the communities we serve.”

###

About Rail Passengers Association: with 127,000 members, donors, and supporters, the non-profit Rail Passengers Association is the oldest and largest national organization serving as a voice for the more than 40 million rail passengers in the U.S. Our mission is to improve and expand conventional intercity and regional passenger train services, support higher speed rail initiatives, increase connectivity among all forms of transportation, and ensure safety for our country’s trains and passengers. All of this makes communities safer, more accessible, and more productive, improving the lives of everyone who lives, works, and plays in towns all across America.