Are passenger trains entering a golden age or reaching the end of the line?

Following decades of penny-pinching, the first half of the 2020s appeared to be the beginning of a golden age for passenger rail investment in the United States. 

Since 2021, Amtrak has received approximately $32 billion from the federal government as a result of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, allowing the national passenger railroad to address a years-long backlog of infrastructure and equipment upgrades. The act also provided funding to study the expansion of Amtrak’s network — including reviving a second route across Montana, the North Coast Hiawatha, that hasn’t had service since 1979. 

While the fruits of that historic investment are still years away in some instances, officials had other reasons to celebrate. During fiscal year 2024, Amtrak carried a record-breaking 32.8 million passengers, a 15% increase over the previous year and a return to its pre-pandemic ridership. The railroad also brought in $2.5 billion in ticket revenue, a record amount in its 53-year history. 

Despite those reasons for optimism, passenger rail advocates are concerned that the progress made in the last few years will come to a halt, given the rapidly changing politics in Washington, D.C., and the continued need for new equipment, particularly in the western United States. 

“We are trying to reverse 50 years of neglect, and you just can’t do that in a year or two,” said Jim Matthews, president and CEO of Rail Passengers Association, a non-profit that advocates for more train service. 

HISTORIC INVESTMENT

Amtrak began running trains on May 1, 1971, when it took over the passenger services of 20 privately owned freight railroads. While passenger trains had been profitable decades earlier, the advent of air travel and the construction of the federal interstate system stole a sizeable chunk of rail’s ridership. However, the government was reluctant to let the railroads give up on passenger service altogether, so it created a quasi-public organization to run a slimmed-down network. 

Using a fleet of old equipment cobbled together from the previous operators, Amtrak survived and slowly increased its ridership from 15 million annually in the early 1970s to about 30 million by the 2010s. Despite that growth, Amtrak still relies on state and federal governments for about $2 billion a year to cover approximately half of its operating expenses. 

Over the years, Amtrak has generally tried to get as much use out of its equipment as it can, particularly on its coast-to-coast long-distance routes, like the Chicago to Portland/Seattle Empire Builder through Montana. Many of the passenger cars used on the Empire Builder were constructed in the 1970s and 1980s, while the locomotives date back to the 1990s. Covering thousands of miles every week, Amtrak’s double-decker long-distance passenger cars (called “Superliners”) are the most heavily used in North America and put on enough miles to circle the Earth seven times a year. 

In 2018, Amtrak announced that it was purchasing new locomotives for its long-distance trains. The first new locomotives entered service in early 2022, and Amtrak expects to eventually have 125 of them operating by the end of the decade. The new units reduce emissions by 95% compared to the older locomotives and can reach speeds of 125 miles per hour (though on the Empire Builder, they’ll only reach 79 mph, the top speed on the route).

The election of President Joe Biden in 2020 brought the promise of funding to spark what he called the “second great railroad revolution.” Biden was a major passenger rail supporter and even earned the nickname “Amtrak Joe” from his years commuting by train to Washington, D.C., when he was in the U.S. Senate. In 2021, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (sometimes called the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law) provided $66 billion for rail-related projects in the country, including $22 billion directly to Amtrak and $44 billion to the Federal Railroad Administration to be dolled out as grants to improve both freight and passenger railroads. 

So far, about $10.3 billion of those discretionary FRA grants have been awarded to Amtrak. Nearly half of the $66 billion (approximately $30 billion) has been used by Amtrak and other operators on the Northeast Corridor, the 457-mile route between Washington, D.C., and Boston that is owned by Amtrak and shared with various commuter rail agencies. It is the busiest rail corridor in the country but also one of the oldest, with sections dating back to the 1830s.

Approximately $16 billion of what was given directly to Amtrak was earmarked for its national network, which includes state-supported routes (such as the Cascades service between Eugene, Ore., and Vancouver, B.C.) and its 14 long-distance services (trains that run on routes longer than 750 miles). Unlike trains between Washington, D.C., and Boston, national network trains are almost always operated on tracks owned by freight companies. As a result, much of the funding Amtrak has received has gone towards maintaining locomotives and cars (called “rolling stock” in railroad parlance) and improving stations. 

A key project has been spending $28 million to refurbish passenger cars so that they can last another decade or so. Amtrak also began searching for a builder to construct brand-new long-distance passenger cars, something that has not happened in North America in decades. In 2024, the railroad issued a “request for proposals” from perspective builders, but it is expected to be a lengthy process that won’t see new cars arriving until at least the early 2030s. 

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act also funded the Federal Railroad Administration to study adding new passenger routes across the country or reopening old ones. Among them was the revival of the North Coast Hiawatha, which ran between Chicago and Seattle via southern Montana. The North Coast Hiawatha was operated by Amtrak until 1979 and served Billings, Bozeman, Butte and Missoula. On Jan. 20, the Federal Railroad Administration released its long-distance service study that recommended 15 routes to be restored or initiated, including the North Coast Hiawatha. The report also recommended that a new route between Billings and El Paso, Texas, be considered. 

The recommendation was a major victory for the Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority, a coalition formed in 2020 to advocate for the restoration of service through southern Montana. Missoula County Commissioner Dave Strohmaier is the group’s chairman. Strohmaier said the project had already received a boost in 2023 when it received a $500,000 grant from the Federal Railroad Administration to study the benefits of restoring the route and what exactly it would take to reopen it. 

Presently, Big Sky Passenger Rail Authority is in the initial phases of the project, but eventually, it will produce a plan that will outline what exactly needs to be done and how much it will cost. 

Strohmaier said it is too early to know exactly how much it would cost to restore the North Coast Hiawatha (now being called the Big Sky North Coast Corridor). Last month’s long-distance study did, however, offer a range: $850 million to $1.1 billion for equipment, $1.3 billion to $1.7 billion for stations and support facilities, and $720 million to $930 million for track and signaling upgrades. The report estimated that the service would cost between $96 million and $136 million annually to operate. 

A 2021 report from the Rail Passenger Association estimated that restoring the North Coast Hiawatha would generate $271 million annually in economic benefit to the seven states served, including $44.6 million in Montana. The study estimated that as many as 426,000 people would ride the train every year. Matthews, the president and CEO of the Rail Passenger Association, said the economic benefits of the project, mixed with grassroots support for its return, make it one of the most logical long-distance runs to restore. 

“The North Coast project has more legs under it than other long-distance proposals I have seen,” he said. “There are no doubt challenges facing it, but I think it’s a no-brainer when you consider the economic benefits.” 

UNCERTAINTY AHEAD?

Donald Trump’s return to the White House and a Republican-controlled Congress has introduced new uncertainties for passenger rail projects across the country. While Matthews said it’s premature to know what a Trump administration will do to Amtrak — “Anyone who tells you they know what is going to happen is lying,” he said — past actions could offer a preview. In 2020, Trump proposed eliminating federal funding for long-distance trains, a move that would almost certainly see the end of trains like the Empire Builder. More recently, Republicans in Congress have called for eliminating all government support for Amtrak. 

“It’s a feeling of ‘Oh well, here we go again,’” said Barry Green, a retired railroader and Montana representative for the Rail Passenger Association. 

Matthews said that while the Trump administration previously tried to eliminate funding for long-distance trains, Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Senate were able to reinstate it. 

“We have people in the Senate who understand the value of long-distance passenger service,” he said. “These are services that people use and use a lot.”

During the fiscal year 2024, 387,953 passengers rode the Empire Builder.

Support for Amtrak from Montana’s congressional delegation has been mixed in the past. Sens. Steve Daines and Tim Sheehy have both voiced support for the long-distance service, citing the economic benefits and ability to connect rural communities. But Rep. Ryan Zinke has been less supportive, recently stating that he opposes any additional government funding for Amtrak.

“The federal government already spends billions of taxpayer dollars a year on Amtrak, and they can’t get it right,” Zinke’s office told KPAX last month. In 2015, Zinke supported an effort to pull all federal funding for Amtrak, calling the vote a “shot across the bow” to show he was serious about reforming passenger rail. Montana’s newest House member, Rep. Troy Downing, did not respond to a request for comment from Montana Free Press. 

Green said his biggest concern for the Empire Builder’s future is its aging equipment. While Amtrak has begun looking for new passenger cars and is trying to refurbish the ones it does have, it has few spares if one breaks down or is damaged in a derailment. Already, trains like the Empire Builder operate with fewer passenger cars than they did a decade ago, meaning there are fewer seats for passengers. 

“Those of us who watch this stuff closely are holding our breath because it seems like we’re only one or two incidents, say a derailment or a grade crossing accident, away from not having enough equipment to operate the long-distance network as it is today,” Green said. 

Matthews said the aging trains are a real concern and that Amtrak will have to “get creative” in the decade ahead to ensure it has enough equipment. Last year, Amtrak combined two long-distance services on the East Coast into one to free up equipment for its trains west of Chicago, including the Empire Builder. Matthews said while the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act did include money to start the process of replacing Amtrak’s fleet, more will be needed in the years ahead to see the project through.

It’s also unclear what appetite the Trump White House and a Republican-held Congress will have for funding an expansion of Amtrak services, including a new southern route through Montana. Strohmaier said that restoring service along the Big Sky North Coast Corridor has received bipartisan support in the past, including from those who are now in the Trump administration, such as former North Dakota governor and now Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum. Strohmaier also hypothesized that the effort could appeal to someone like President Trump, who has expressed a desire to build new infrastructure in the past. 

“This has never been done before,” Strohmaier said of restoring a long-distance route that Amtrak previously closed. “It’s audacious. But I’m convinced that this country is up to the task if we put our minds to it. This is an opportunity to make rail great again in the United States.”

Green said that when people have asked him when passenger service could return to southern Montana, he tries to be realistic and tells them that it’s likely a decade away at the earliest — regardless of who is in power in Washington, D.C. Matthews echoed the sentiment. 

“For better or worse, new train projects in the United States are measured in decades, not years,” he said.