Amtrak restores daily service on long distance routes thanks to the American Rescue Plan

With the Amer­i­can Res­cue Plan on its way to Pres­i­dent Joe Biden, agen­cies and com­pa­nies that are due to get sore­ly need­ed relief funds have begun announc­ing their plans for revers­ing ser­vice cuts and bring­ing back fur­loughed work­ers. Among them is Amtrak, Amer­i­ca’s pas­sen­ger rail­road sys­tem, which sig­nif­i­cant­ly scaled back its long dis­tance ser­vice last dur­ing when the pan­dem­ic hit.

In a few weeks, Amtrak intends to resume dai­ly depar­tures on most of its long dis­tance routes, thanks to fund­ing from the Amer­i­can Res­cue Plan. Ser­vice had been scaled back to three days a week due to sharply low­er demand.

“Offer­ing dai­ly long dis­tance ser­vice rep­re­sents a vital step in our road to recov­ery,” said Amtrak CEO Bill Fly­nn in a state­ment. “Rec­og­niz­ing the immense val­ue of our employ­ees, we’d like to thank Con­gress for enabling ser­vice restora­tion and help­ing us recall fur­loughed employees.”

The num­ber of fur­loughed work­ers who will be brought back begin­ning in April to help get Amtrak back to reg­u­lar order num­bers over 1,200.

The timetable calls for dai­ly ser­vice to be resumed on the fol­low­ing routes:

The two long dis­tance routes that serve Seat­tle are the Coast Starlight and the Empire Builder. They’re both set to go back to a nor­mal timetable on May 24th, just in time for sum­mer. The Coast Starlight con­nects Seat­tle to Los Ange­les, while the Empire Builder con­nects the Emer­ald City to Chicago.

“All des­ti­na­tions and sched­uled departure/arrival times served by the long dis­tance net­work will be main­tained,” Amtrak says.

Unlike air­lines, Amtrak offers pri­vate rooms on its long dis­tance trains. It is thus pos­si­ble to prac­tice phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing while tak­ing a train across the country.

While it does cost more than sim­ply rid­ing in a coach seat, meals are includ­ed, and Amtrak’s din­ing cars have a rep­u­ta­tion for mod­est excellence.

“This is a real win for Amer­i­ca’s pas­sen­gers and for the hun­dreds of com­mu­ni­ties served by Amtrak’s long-dis­tance trains, com­mu­ni­ties which suf­fered eco­nom­ic pain when they lost their ser­vice last sum­mer,” said Jim Math­ews, Pres­i­dent & CEO of Rail Pas­sen­gers Asso­ci­a­tion, in a state­ment.

“We extend our thanks to the many cham­pi­ons of pas­sen­ger rail in Con­gress who helped make this hap­pen. We worked tire­less­ly with exec­u­tive agen­cies, con­gres­sion­al lead­ers and, yes, Amtrak itself, to cre­ate urgency around the need to restore dai­ly ser­vice just as soon as pos­si­ble. Whether in tes­ti­mo­ny before House law­mak­ers or in pri­vate meet­ings with con­gres­sion­al lead­ers on both sides of the aisle, this Asso­ci­a­tion worked over­time to cre­ate the pre­con­di­tions Amtrak need­ed to restore ser­vices and recall its workforce.”

Amtrak is an Amer­i­can trea­sure, and it would have been a shame for its long dis­tance routes to have become vic­tims of the pandemic.

Amtrak will need addi­tion­al fund­ing in the future to con­tin­ue mod­ern­iz­ing trains and work­ing with local part­ners to save and upgrade his­toric stations.

For now, this jolt in the arm will get the rail­road back on track to recovery.