ALBANY, N.Y. — Plans for Metro-North Railroad to operate trains between Grand Central Terminal and Albany may have run aground because Amtrak feared competition from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, MTA CEO Janno Lieber said in an interview this week.
Appearing on public broadcaster WCNY’s Capitol Pressroom podcast during a visit to Albany to testify on legislation, Lieber said the MTA remains interested in operating north of Poughkeepsie, the current endpoint of its Hudson line service.
“As the governor said, we got a lot of positive response because people are interested in the idea of a train that doesn’t suddenly cost 100 bucks, or even more on a holiday or summer weekend,” Lieber said, according to an interview transcript. “They’re interested in a more affordable option. A single Metro-North train can carry as many people as you know, two or even three Amtrak trains, and everybody was excited about it.”
Lieber said the idea came about because Amtrak had to cut service on the New York-Albany route because of its East River Tunnel project, and Hochul asked if Amtrak could run trains from Grand Central. “And they said, ‘Well, we don’t have enough trains.’ So then we said, ‘OK, we’ll run the Metro-North service,’ and they agreed to it.
“But once they saw how enthusiastic people were about Metro-North, it seemed like they feared the competition and they backed away. And the governor got what she wanted, which is a restoration of full service, but she also heard clearly that people are interested in having us come north of Poughkeepsie, and we’re going to explore it.”
Hochul announced last month that Amtrak had agreed to restore the full Empire Service schedule between Penn Station and Albany in March, but would no longer agree to the proposed MTA service from Grand Central [see “Amtrak to restore full Empire Service …,” Trains.com, Jan. 27, 2026].
Lieber said “a lot of bureaucratic stuff” would need to be overcome to operate north of Poughkeepsie on CSX-owned tracks, where Amtrak holds the right to operate.
“So we need the approval of Amtrak and CSX to operate. … The engineers, technically, they need to have training to run on that particular territory. There’s some other technical bureaucratic issues, but there’s nothing to stop it from happening promptly if all the political forces agree. And we’re ready to do it, if the state of New York and Amtrak can come to an agreement to let it happen, we’d be interested in doing it.
“There’s no reason, no reason to stop in Poughkeepsie if we could serve the Hudson Valley and Albany. Maybe we can go to Saratoga in the summer when the races are on, who knows?”
Amtrak responded to Lieber’s comments by repeating the statement it made when the full restoration of Empire Service was first announced, in particular highlighting the portion reading, “By taking advantage of schedule changes to support major infrastructure projects on the Northeast Corridor, Amtrak has identified the equipment necessary to fully restore the Empire Service schedule that was in place before the East River Tunnel rehabilitation project began, and is moving to fully restore service in early March.”
Amtrak and the MTA have been on something less than the best of terms during the last year, as the MTA blamed Amtrak, rather vocally, for delays in its Penn Station Access project — claims Amtrak disputed [see “MTA CEO blasts Amtrak …,” Trains.com, Oct. 6, 2025]. Those issues have quieted down lately, with Amtrak featuring its plans to accommodate Penn Access work during its recent online board meeting [see “Amtrak board told of strong first-quarter results …,” Jan. 28, 2026].
— Updated Feb. 6 at 11:30 a.m. CT with Amtrak comment. To report news or errors, contact trainsnewswire@firecrown.com.
Let the transit agencies operate the NEC trains, Amtrak can manage the infrastructure & charge the state transit agencies for use & improvements. The NEC states would finally have to pay for the level of svc they want just like other states do under PRIIA. Amtrak could just focus running limited stop, less frequent svc from DC to Boston.
What a bunch of cry babies. Don’t they already “compete” successfully with Septa, NJTransit, MARC, and VRE in their repective regions? For shame!
Who is being a “cry baby?” No one from Amtrak is quoted in the article. The article only quotes the MTA CEO who can only speculates on why Amtrak decided to restore the service. From the article “But once they saw how enthusiastic people were about Metro-North, it seemed like they feared the competition and they backed away.” Note the word “seemed.”
The real question is: Where will Amtrak get the equipment? Will it provide enough capacity so there will be almost no sell out and bumped up fares? So far Amtrak appears not want to provide a service to all comers.
I suppose that Amtrak might be trying to speedy fix up a few Amfleets that are presently parked.
Some thoughts from my own travels.
(1) 1980 New Brunswick NJ wanting to get to NYPenn so as to get on to Boston. Served by both New Jersey Transit and Amtrak. Did literally the reverse in 1999, NYPenn to New Brunswick, after arriving from Boston.
(2) England 2012. Some routes were served by one carrier (including west from London Paddington to places like Bristol; also the East Anglia trains out of London Liverpool Street). Others were served by two or more carriers (such as Birmingham to Reading), I took whichever train showed up first.
Amtrak should want to increase the number of people who turn first to trains as a transportation option. Adding additional service, even if it comes from Metro-North, would do that. Metro-North will not compete on travel times. There will be days when a rider decides to bear the the greater time commitment and lesser comfort of the MTA commuter cars for the sake of saving on the fare. When trip time is more important than price, that train-preferring passenger will take Amtrak. I think it is short-sighted of Amtrak to discourage additional train service by whatever provider.
Amtrak is a very “small pie” type of organization. They see other operators only as competing for the same resources, taking away a slice of their pie. They do not see other operators as a community of interest ultimately leading to a larger pie and more for everyone.
Back in my salad days, we frequently travelled from Philly to New York for fun. We could take the fast and pricey Metroliner, the cheaper, slower Clocker, or, as our party posse usually did, the dirt-cheap all-stops local Septa and NJT services, changing trains at Trenton. Had we not had the low-cost option, we would have stayed home most times.
The real issues are the Hudson tunnel project and Penn Sta. as the competing players: Amtrk, MTA, NJT and their backers seek control. An interesting editorial in yesterday’s “Daily News” called the tunnel project a “15billion$ boondoggle.” This was remarkable since the DN is usually moderate in tone. What also was remarkable in the edit was no mention of the halt in funding for the 2nd Ave. subway extension, which tho expensive is no boonie.
BTW GCT-Albany frequent service should be a no-brainer.
We really need to break up Amtrak into long distance, the NEC, and give the states back to the states to run. Maybe a forth option of a west coast Pacifica I would be open to. But Amtrak has constantly shown they are to big to be managed properly