Amtrak route restructure targets new corridors

Amtrak officials have been crisscrossing the United States in recent months, meeting with state transportation officials in places like Tennessee, Texas and Nevada  as they seek to bring train service to some of the nation's fastest growing population centers.

While most of the focus is on new routes in the South and West, New York state and the Capital Region likely would benefit from the effort as well.

Amtrak is focusing on developing new "corridors," routes tying together population centers that are several hundred miles apart and offer frequent train service. Some of the changes would be extensions of existing routes.

For example, Empire Corridor trains heading west from Albany to Buffalo could continue on to Cleveland. Some could also continue to Detroit via Toledo.

Other services would be new. Ohio officials, for example, are looking at restoring service between Cleveland and Cincinnati via Columbus and Dayton.

Steve Strauss, executive director of the Empire State Passengers Association, said another route under discussion is Detroit to New York City. It wasn't clear whether the Wolverine, which now travels between Chicago and Detroit, would be expanded. The Wolverine last served New York City, Albany, Buffalo, Detroit and Chicago in 1967.

The extension would provide another alternative from Albany to Midwestern cities.

Meanwhile, Amtrak is looking at restoring the corridor from New York City to Scranton, Pa., and possibly north to Binghamton, accessing New York's Southern Tier.

Ray Lang, Amtrak’s senior director for national state relations, briefed the Rail Passengers Association, a Washington-based advocacy group, on the corridor expansion plan in a presentation in the fall. Since then, passenger rail supporters have been encouraged by the election of Joseph Biden and by plans to invest heavily in the nation's infrastructure as the economy recovers from the pandemic.

Lang, in his presentation, said the "price of admission for new corridor service has gotten to be really, really expensive." Amtrak is proposing a five-year, $25 billion spending plan that would pay for trains and other equipment, as well as covering startup and other operating costs, with the operating support gradually shifting over a period of years to the state in which the trains are operating.

Also in Lang's presentation was the construction of new customs and immigration facilities shared by U.S. and Canadian officers in Montreal, eliminating the sometimes lengthy border stop for the Adirondack. The plan also has the Vermonter being extended to Montreal, and the Ethan Allen Express to Burlington. The Ethan Allen, which serves Albany, now terminates at Rutland, Vt.

Completely new corridors would connect Chattanooga and Nashville with Atlanta; Atlanta and Charlotte; Jacksonville with Orlando, Tampa and Miami; Los Angeles with Las Vegas; Los Angeles with Phoenix and Tucson; and Denver with communities  along the front range of the Rocky Mountains.

Other corridors would see additional service. On the West Coast, the Coast Daylight would be added to the route of the Coast Starlight.

Lang emphasized that this is a long-term plan, and individual states "would have the ability to do what they want."

Nevertheless, Amtrak would like to work on some areas "really fast." Those include the Nashville to Atlanta route and the front range of the Rockies in Colorado.

Congress still has to approve the plans. And Amtrak may get some resistance from the freight railroads over whose tracks most of its trains operate. In November testimony to Congress, Amtrak officials described the delays that Amtrak trains face from slow-moving freight traffic, sometimes making them fall hours behind schedule.

And building out the system could take decades. The map Lang displayed in his talk was entitled "The Amtrak System 2035."

But Amtrak officials say they're eager to get started.