Amtrak’s Genius Plan to SAVE American Rail

after the covid-19 pandemic it looked like Amtrak was dying ridership had crashed service was degraded and funding looked Bleak as the government prioritized other things however that may all be about to change armed with billions in new funding from congressional infrastructure and jobs packages and a dramatic increase in their annual funding things are finally looking up ridership Rose by 89 in 2022 nearly to pre-coveted levels and those numbers are expected to continue trending upwards this video is going to break down Amtrak's ambitious plans for the future and show what steps they are taking to guarantee a stronger future for American rail Amtrak received a total of 66 billion dollars from the infrastructure investment and jobs Act that makes it the single largest investment into Amtrak since its incorporation in 1971. however that is only on the surface 44 billion of those dollars will be routed away immediately going into the Federal Railroad Administration to be used for state grants and other rail projects although lots of these improvements will likely benefit Amtrak service as tracks are upgraded and maintained and critical infrastructure like Bridges and tunnels are improved or constructed the other 22 billion dollars will be used to upgrade the Northeast Corridor as well as expand the national network in hopes of achieving Amtrak's connect us plan so let's take a look at a breakdown of the spending the Northeast Corridor alone has some of the biggest line items including 277 million dollars for Next Generation Acela 37 million dollars for an overhaul of dining carriages 86 million dollars for train set replacements 27 million dollars for facility improvements and 153 million dollars for engineering and maintenance equipment the NEC also plans to spend heavily on repairing and replacing Bridges and tunnels and acquiring property as well as upgrading stations some of which are in pretty terrible States those Investments amount to over 730 million dollars which is all part of the 2.2 billion Amtrak will spend this year on infrastructure Investments Amtrak's budget also includes increases in budget for thousands of other things it would take hours to go through every single line item but if you are interested feel free to check the source document in the description as I only hit the highlights and there are a lot of interesting things in there if you're interested I've mentioned a lot of plans so far but have not really explained any of them as of yet there are two major plans underway that I want to draw your attention to the connect NEC 2035 plan and the Amtrak connects us plan the Northeast Corridor plan or NEC plan is relatively straightforward focusing on the preservation and development of the Northeast Corridor these trains are already running but the plan details how they can speed them up increase the frequency make sure the infrastructure it uses is not falling apart increase efficiency and much more essentially they need to keep it operating to a high standard however due to prices of land Construction and Equipment the NEC plan could cost upwards of a hundred and Seventeen billion dollars once all is said and done however this is likely one of the most worthwhile Investments That Amtrak could make as the Northeast Corridor is their most popular route by far and brings in a majority of their revenue so they are Keen to protect it and with this plan hope to guarantee its future success it is the Amtrak connects us plan that would truly expand the scale of the network to a significant degree the connect us plan is a 15-year Vision that seeks to add 20 million new Amtrak passengers by 2035. the plan would bring new daily trips to 15 more states with 30 new routes to 160 unserved communities the Connexus project would be very expensive to fully implement but need currently allotted funding is a good start and continued investment goes a long way they are able to be efficient about their spending because they are able to specifically choose which parts of the plan to implement at once and they will hopefully be able to use the evidence of progress to guarantee future funding from Congress as things improve they are also able to be very efficient about their spending because they're not planning to own any of the lines they're going to use pre-existing tracks and run their trains along them which is generally how Amtrak operates however passenger stations and other infrastructure will still need to be constructed you can see some of the potential expansions on screen now highlighted in light blue they include new routes in the South between Atlanta Nashville Chattanooga Savannah Montgomery and more it would also connect major cities in Wisconsin and Indiana expand service in the west most importantly to Las Vegas completely revamp the Texas network with a Dallas to Houston line and bring Amtrak service out of New York along Long Island some of these routes already have other railroads operating them or planning to operate on them so it is interesting to see that Amtrak may attempt to compete that is particularly evident in the Long Island expansion where the Long Island Railroad already operates and this Amtrak line would directly compete with them in a route that is already pretty common and well used on the Long Island Railroad they're Las Vegas to Los Angeles line will also be in competition with bright lines current construction which I have a whole video on that you should definitely check out it'll be linked in the description or in the end part of this video overall it is a very ambitious plan which Amtrak hopes to roll out slowly pending investment and confirmation on each individual line over the next 15 years since this project is being run by the government we can multiply those estimates by at least five and assume that I will be able to enjoy these projects in my 90s at the earliest so thanks for watching I hope you enjoyed and please subscribe click the video on screen to learn more about real projects in the US and I'll see you guys in the next video goodbye

Channel: Infra

Views: 94,829

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Id: ZVbnMqFAN5U

Length: 7min 21sec (441 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 30 2023