Amtrak's Subtle, Surprising Success

0:00 On the morning of Thursday, August 28th, 2025,

0:03 Amtrak train 2154 pulled out of DC's Union Station at 6:50 a.m.

0:08 headed north, like it does every weekday.

0:11 And like it does almost every other day, it quickly got delayed.

0:14 By just its first stop, the train was 13 minutes behind schedule.

0:18 In some cars, the automated doors weren't automating,

0:21 so employees had to manually articulate it at each stop.

0:25 The delays began to compound.

0:27 35 minutes late leaving here, 44 here,

0:30 and by the time it arrived in Boston, the train was nearly an hour behind.

0:35 Now, for service that's not on time, about a quarter of the time,

0:38 such delays weren't particularly notable on their own.

0:41 But while the route wasn't new,

0:43 the train set was, and it came with big promises.

0:47 This glitching northbound service was the maiden

0:50 commercial voyage of the next gen Asella.

0:53 A much anticipated brand new train

0:55 set boasting increased capacity, increased comfort,

0:58 and increased top speeds over the aging Asellas they were poised to replace.

1:02 A decade in the making,

1:04 the roll out of these new trains was anything but subtle.

1:07 As the so-called a celebration was marked by music,

1:10 fireworks, speeches articulating that for Amtrak,

1:13 for the future of passenger rail in the US, this was a moment in history.

1:17 The moment, however, felt slightly less revolutionary on the ground.

1:22 Beyond the slightly embarrassing malfunctions on Route 2154,

1:26 riders were left unimpressed by the stiff chairs.

1:29 They were amused by the outdated USBA offerings

1:32 that hinted at how long delayed the project had been,

1:35 and they were quick to note that the train wasn't reaching the much

1:38 anticipated top speeds of 160 mi or 260 km/h for long sustained periods.

1:44 The lukewarm reception continued from first-person reviews published everywhere

1:48 from YouTube and Reddit to the New York Times.

1:51 There were only five of these new active out of the 28 promised.

1:55 There were no new routes or rail lines and thus no time gains.

1:59 The trains were roomier.

2:00 The new tilting technology was more comfortable.

2:03 The food and Wi-Fi was better.

2:04 The trains were fine.

2:06 But they didn't feel revolutionary.

2:09 But for Amtrak, for Amtrak users,

2:12 for Americans hoping for better intercity rail, that's actually okay.

2:16 In fact, this slow, imperfect rollout that's far short of a revolution,

2:20 but also far from being a disaster,

2:22 is the latest example in a series of successes, many of them the small, quiet,

2:27 or imperfect variety that has Amtrak boasting some of its

2:30 best numbers ever and trending in the right direction,

2:32 even in the face of what many feared as an existential

2:35 threat to the service in the form of the second Trump administration.

2:38 To establish what counts as a series

2:40 of subtle wins for America's largest passenger rail purveyor,

2:43 it's important to establish Amtrak's real mandate.

2:46 To the general public,

2:47 it's most likely that Amtrak is understood as a vaguely government-run

2:51 service that is supposed to turn a profit but never actually does.

2:54 That's close to right, and it's close to what you'll get

2:58 from the top few lines of the Wikipedia article,

3:00 that it's a quasi public corporation

3:02 that's managed as a for-profit organization.

3:05 But this lacks some important nuance.

3:08 Take the idea of forprofit for example.

3:11 In its founding legislation, the 1970 Rail Passenger Service Act,

3:15 there was very limited flexibility in the language as it stated

3:18 that the National Passenger Rail Corporation shall be a for-profit corporation.

3:23 Ever since, the idea has been closely associated with the service.

3:26 At the time, this was a bold stance,

3:28 but perhaps one that felt viable given the fact that the service would

3:32 be inheriting all its rolling stock

3:33 from the floundering private passenger rail sector,

3:36 and it'd be borrowing rail access from the freight companies,

3:39 a decision that still haunts the corporation's meager on time percentage.

3:43 In service by 1971, Amtrak by the end of 1972 was reporting

3:47 a revenue of $160 million and an operating expense of $310 million.

3:53 It was costing nearly double the year's revenue to keep passenger rail alive.

3:58 Now, early Amtrak and its sponsor, Congress,

4:00 understood that it would take some capital investment upfront to get rolling,

4:04 but quickly it also began to recognize that running

4:07 Amtrak for profit was probably beyond the pale.

4:10 In 1978, a small edit within

4:13 the Rail Passenger Service Act acknowledged as much.

4:16 With the addition of four words that the corporation

4:19 shall be operated and managed as a for-profit corporation,

4:23 Amtrak's mandate from Congress quietly became more flexible.

4:27 It was a subtle concession that saving

4:29 a deeply unprofitable and thus cratering private passenger rail

4:32 system in the US was not exactly going

4:35 to be a money maker for the US government.

4:37 Now, turning a profit was not a necessity or an expectation,

4:41 but operating in a similarly ruthless

4:43 bottom lineoriented manner of a for-profit was.

4:47 This difference matters, but this difference is also easy to overlook.

4:51 A common talking point on Amtrak is that in its 50 plus years of existence,

4:55 the service is yet to turn a profit.

4:57 What gets left out here is that since 1978,

5:01 it hasn't explicitly been mandated to.

5:04 The myth that Amtrak exists to turn

5:05 an eventual profit is not only an oversimplification,

5:08 but also an offiscation of the services guiding purpose outlined in 1970.

5:13 As the top of the act outlines,

5:15 the National Passenger Rail Corporation's purpose was to procure

5:18 something that the private sector no longer could, an efficient, modern,

5:23 interconnected passenger rail system for the good of the country.

5:26 For 50 plus years, then Amtrak has not failed a mandate to turn a profit,

5:30 but more accurately has failed to procure

5:33 a quality intercity passenger rail system

5:36 largely on account of the myth that it's supposed to turn a profit.

5:40 And yet, misunderstood, mocked and maligned, politicized,

5:44 and subsequently villainized,

5:45 perpetually hamstrung by ebbing and flowing support,

5:48 Amtrak, within its narrow confines, is fulfilling its mandates better than ever.

5:55 to far less media fanfare than the Asella launch.

5:57 Amtrak released this report at the end of 2024.

6:01 And the topline highlight was that the passenger rail

6:03 service had set itself a new annual wrership record.

6:07 Unsurprisingly, when broken down by the three major characterization of routes,

6:11 the Northeast Corridor, the state supported routes,

6:13 and the long-distance routes, the first two categories with similar

6:16 ridership numbers and similar percent change increases

6:19 from the year prior are nearly entirely

6:22 responsible for reaching the all-time mark in 2024.

6:25 Outpacing prepandemic numbers too,

6:27 it's not just a return to normaly after CO that explains this high water mark,

6:31 but some deaf maneuvering by the passenger service and its partners.

6:35 These are Amtrak's stateup supported routes.

6:38 They are regional routes often connecting big and less big cities on the coasts

6:42 and in the Midwest and they account

6:44 for about 40% of the company's total ridership.

6:47 Stateup supported is a bit of a misnomer.

6:49 They could just as easily be called Amtrak supported

6:52 as it's the individual states that pitch these routes,

6:54 but then it's Amtrak that plans and operates them.

6:57 But that's all Congress will allow Amtrak to do.

7:00 as 2008 passenger rail legislation established that only minimal federal aid

7:05 would be available for routes fewer than 750 mi or 1,200 km

7:10 more or less any nonoververn overnight routes in some ways the existence

7:14 of these state- funed routings highlights the limitations of Amtrak it

7:18 can't actually lead or fund the establishment of regional routes no

7:22 matter how promising this helps explain the lack of coverage and seemingly

7:26 random assortment of Amtrak routings across the US but While perhaps

7:30 a flawed concept in the bigger picture of a streamlined national rail system,

7:34 Amtrak and its state partners are creatively

7:36 expanding and optimizing these routes to great success.

7:40 Look no further than the Borealis line.

7:42 In 2024, Amtrak partnered with the states of Illinois,

7:46 Wisconsin, and Minnesota launched this new service.

7:50 It connects Chicago to St.

7:51 Paul through Milwaukee.

7:52 Averaging nearly 55 m or 88 km/h and taking 7.5 hours to run its full course.

7:58 It is not fast.

8:00 Running both directions just once daily,

8:02 departing near midday, it is not frequent.

8:05 And traveling along a corridor that is

8:07 already serviced by two other Amtrak routes,

8:09 one a long-distance route, the other a higher frequency state supported route.

8:13 It's not a terribly novel routing either.

8:16 And yet, this route has been a revelation.

8:18 in its first full year of operation nearly doubling expected writership.

8:23 With passenger count steady on both the long-d distanceance Empire

8:26 Builder and the higher frequency Hayawa that connects Chicago and Milwaukee,

8:30 it doesn't seem that this success is attributable

8:32 to cannibalizing ridership from other corridor connectors either,

8:36 but rather a function of increased optionality and induced demand.

8:40 For the St.

8:40 Paul resident headed east,

8:42 there's now an offering that takes off in the middle of the day and is far less

8:45 likely to be delayed than the alternative Empire Builder

8:48 headed in all the way from the Pacific Northwest.

8:50 For the Chicago in, there's another easy option to get to Milwaukee.

8:54 And for the Wisconsin resident, while the train doesn't pass through

8:56 the state's second and third largest cities,

8:59 Borealis stops are within a quick drive

9:01 for more than half the state's population,

9:03 which then connects to two of the Midwest's most important cities.

9:07 Without new stops or untested routings and requiring just two train sets,

9:11 the Amtrak and multi-state partnership boosted regional ridership

9:15 and seemed to offer proof that the more options offered,

9:18 the more people will choose to take the train.

9:22 A similar boost on account of increased

9:23 frequency came about in the Pacific Northwest.

9:26 Across all state supported routes,

9:28 the Cascades route connecting the region's three major cities

9:31 saw one of the largest year-over-year writership growths in 2024,

9:35 which happened to coincide with Washington

9:37 and Oregon's respective Department of Transportations

9:39 announcing another daily connection between Seattle and Portland in late 2023.

9:44 Already an established and popular routing,

9:46 increasing frequency only made it more convenient

9:49 for the average Pacific Northwest traveler to opt

9:51 for the regularly available 3 and 1 half

9:53 hour train ride instead of the 3-hour drive.

9:56 Another ridership boost that didn't cost

9:58 Amtrak much beyond rolling stock and labor.

10:01 These state-led ridership boosts aren't just

10:03 the result of smart route and service modifications,

10:06 but outgrowths of decadel long network developments.

10:10 Virginia, for example,

10:11 has relied on Amtrak to operate its passenger routes since 2009,

10:14 with state leading an extension from Washington DC to Lynchburg,

10:18 then the following year establishing a service from DC to Richmond.

10:21 With ridership immediately outperforming expectations,

10:24 these routes marked only the beginning

10:26 of the state's investment into its passenger rail system.

10:29 In 2012, Virginia extended the Richmond service to Norfolk.

10:32 A year later, it announced plans to extend the Lynchberg line to Rono.

10:36 Then the state went further.

10:37 It put $3.7 billion towards acquiring 223 mi of track outright,

10:43 another 386 mi of right ofway from freight rail owners,

10:46 and to build a bridge across the battoic that broke ground in 2025.

10:51 Altogether, this project built upon the foundation of the success of two

10:55 route extensions in' 09 and 10 may well come to double total passengers.

11:00 But for now, as of 2025,

11:02 with eight total daily roundtrip trips running across these routes,

11:05 Virginia's already become a poster child for stateup supported rail expansion.

11:11 Now, Amtrak's agency over the expansion

11:13 and investment in these routes is limited.

11:15 They can't start them, they can't fund them,

11:18 but they do operate and support them in any way they can.

11:21 Where they do have more agency is

11:23 within the northeast corridor where Congress has been

11:25 happy to take sole responsibility of funding

11:27 because these unlike the rest turn a profit.

11:30 And here too, Amtrak maneuvered fairly quietly but smartly

11:34 in 2023 and 2024 to stimulate wrership growth.

11:38 Adding four more weekday services between New York and DC,

11:41 a new morning service from Philadelphia to New York,

11:44 and a weekend trip between Philadelphia and Boston,

11:47 Amtrak announced an extra million seats

11:49 for the Northeast Regional in early 2024.

11:52 Even in a year where overall ontime

11:54 performance proved pretty pedestrian by Amtrak standards,

11:57 increased options and available seats helped

11:59 push Northeast Corridor ridership over 14 million.

12:03 Within tight constraints, Amtrak is doing some smart business.

12:07 Without the investment afforded to other national rail systems,

12:10 Amtrak is nowhere near competing as a worldclass national rail carrier,

12:14 but as a scrappy rail company, they're making it work.

12:18 The deaf maneuvering has gone beyond

12:20 just reconfiguring and adding routings, too.

12:23 There's also the infrastructure of it all.

12:25 Take Amtrak's 5-year plan published in 2021.

12:28 The vision before understanding exactly when the world

12:31 would start to get back to normal again, before the Biden infrastructure bill,

12:34 before the second Trump presidency, looked like this.

12:38 It consisted of considerations over new rolling stock,

12:41 increasingly successful networks,

12:42 and important replacement of aging infrastructure.

12:45 Nearing the end of those 5 years, this fairly lofty,

12:48 fairly vague plan is actually looking surprisingly fulfilled.

12:53 With the new Asellas and the cleaner burning ALC 42 locomotives coming online,

12:57 Amtrak can check these boxes.

12:59 With Virginia's heavy investment in its passenger rail system,

13:02 the long bridge officially under construction,

13:05 and with the establishment of a more

13:06 streamlined process to establish state supported systems,

13:09 Amtrak can begin checking these boxes, too.

13:12 But perhaps of most significance to the future of Amtrak service,

13:16 there's been real progress on these two objectives.

13:19 to move the gateway program forward and get

13:21 going on the Baltimore and PTOIC tunnel replacement.

13:24 In the past, it's been projects exactly like

13:26 these that have held up Amtrak from providing better service.

13:30 Projects that require heavy capital funding upfront,

13:32 projects that aren't deemed absolutely necessary because

13:35 the infrastructure in place technically already works.

13:38 But that changed in 2023 with the announcement of the Frederick Douglas Tunnel,

13:43 a massive decade plus long project set to replace the BNP tunnel.

13:48 For all rail passengers along the southern portion of the Northeast Corridor,

13:52 the BNP tunnel connecting Baltimore Penn Station and BWI has been a speed bump.

13:57 First, the approach curve from the southwest is prohibitively tight,

14:00 requiring a slowdown before even entering.

14:03 Then on the northeast end, the entrance curve hits a comparatively sharp 8°,

14:08 requiring passenger trains to slow all the way down to 30 m or 50 km/h.

14:13 This slowdown creates bottlenecks as 150 trains pass

14:16 over these two sets of tracks each day.

14:19 And across the 1.4 m or 2.3 km, the tunnel has a vertical grade of 1.34°,

14:25 which is the steepest along the northeast corridor

14:27 and ensures the train stays slow throughout it.

14:30 Not only is it an operational disaster,

14:33 infrastructure experts have called it a literal disaster waiting to happen.

14:37 It's exceptionally cramped.

14:38 It's a single point of failure

14:39 for the multiple passenger systems moving through it.

14:42 It's nearly a century and a half old.

14:44 And currently, it requires millions in maintenance every year to ensure

14:48 the water seeping into the ancient structure doesn't roted out.

14:51 It's tunnels like this that all

14:53 but ensure passenger rail inefficiencies across the Northeast.

14:57 And it's projects like this, the $6 billion Frederick Douglas

15:01 tunnel set to run a two-mile path along a more gentle

15:04 routing in the 2030s that has Amtrak bullish on the future

15:07 of a rail system with fewer glaring points of failure.

15:11 Similar progress has been made through

15:12 another painoint through the Northeast Corridor.

15:15 Through a series of projects collectively called the Gateway Program,

15:18 the Northeast Corridor is getting a facelift across

15:20 its path into and through New York City.

15:23 While the goal was to have a plan for the Hudson Tunnel figured out by 2026,

15:26 things are actually moving faster as ground has been broken

15:29 and Amtrak hopes the project can be completed within a decade.

15:33 That these projects are going forward at all feels surprising given

15:36 the Trump administration's general stance towards passenger rail in the past.

15:41 An interesting sign has begun

15:42 to appear on government-ledd construction sites recently.

15:45 In MAGA red signs like this one at the Seattle rail

15:48 yard have come to be associated with recent rail related infrastructure.

15:52 The same occurred with the roll out of the Asellas.

15:55 A lot of red and a note that they were delivered by the Trump administration.

15:59 Technically for both that much is true.

16:02 These projects are being completed during Trump's second term.

16:06 But these signs and statements are leaving out some context that they were

16:10 made possible by fairly far-sighted leadership

16:12 and funding from years and decades prior.

16:15 For the Seattle project and a host of others,

16:17 this began with the Biden administration's bipartisan infrastructure bill.

16:21 The same transformative bill that's the funding base

16:24 for both the Frederick Douglas and Hudson tunnels, too.

16:27 It may be political opportunism for the Trump

16:29 administration to claim these as their own successes,

16:31 but it also is helping Amtrak advance its own goals.

16:35 Amtrak's quiet winds and subtle successes also keep

16:38 the service out of sight and out of mind,

16:40 which may prove its way forward when dealing with hostile administrations.

16:44 While the development of high-spe speed rail

16:45 corridors like the projected line connecting Houston

16:48 and Dallas are the hope for every

16:49 American transit enthusiast to a historically anti-rail administration,

16:53 they serve as lightning rods, opportunities to pull funding and prove a point.

16:59 The more humble projects,

17:00 the quieter route additions along with the longerterm projects already underway,

17:04 however, are seeming to fall under the radar and thus are being left alone.

17:09 And this may well prove the winning strategy.

17:12 Radical incrementalism.

17:14 It's not fast.

17:15 It's not terribly ambitious or satisfying.

17:17 But for a service as infrastructure heavy and capital thirsty as passenger rail,

17:22 getting better 1% at a time may well be

17:24 the best way to ride the roller coaster of public opinion.

17:28 wavering congressional support and presidential backing that seems

17:31 to do a full 180 about every four years.

17:34 It's difficult to project another 5-year window

17:37 as tumultuous as the past 5-year window for Amtrak.

17:40 One that saw the moment of record wrership

17:42 in 2019 immediately undercut by a global pandemic.

17:45 Then record federal investment in passenger rail

17:47 immediately undercut by an assumed anti-Amtrak presidential nomination.

17:51 And through it all, Amtrak came out

17:53 the other side with a new record wrership figure,

17:56 an important set of infrastructure upgrades,

17:58 and an exciting new set of trains set to take

18:00 slightly more riders to slightly more locations with slightly fewer delays.

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