Nothing good will come from Wednesday’s dismissal of Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner, who was pushed out as part of the White House’s purge of officials who are not deemed loyal to President Donald Trump.
The timing of the move was curious. The Trump administration has been seeking to pull funding for programs it deems wasteful or contrary to its priorities. Gardner announced his resignation on March 19, just five days after issuing a statement saying that Amtrak looked forward to receiving the $2.42 billion Congress has appropriated for fiscal year 2025. Could that be a coincidence?
No names have yet been floated about a potential replacement for Gardner.
Amtrak needs a CEO who is an experienced railroader and knows the business inside out — someone who can fix its operational and mechanical woes, improve efficiency, boost revenue, and effectively manage its ballooning capital budget. In other words, someone who has been a Class I railroad chief operating officer.
Yet thus far the Trump administration has been allergic to expertise. So what Amtrak instead will get as its next CEO is a political hack. He or she will know nothing about passenger trains or railroads. But that won’t matter: His or her marching orders will be to dismantle the national network and privatize what’s left.
During his first term, Trump sought to cut Amtrak funding in half, phase out support for long-distance trains, and block funding for the much-needed Gateway Project on the Northeast Corridor in New York and New Jersey.
Earlier this month, billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, who heads the advisory Department of Government Efficiency as part of the administration’s efforts to upend business as usual in Washington, said Amtrak should be privatized.
Trump, meanwhile, has a vindictive streak a mile wide. And he clearly wants to erase anything that has predecessor Joe Biden’s fingerprints on it. Amtrak Joe’s signature achievement was the infrastructure law that sent billions Amtrak’s way for new equipment, route expansion, and Northeast Corridor improvement projects.
Under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Congress has earmarked $22 billion for Amtrak and $36 billion in federal-state passenger partnerships through fiscal 2026. Much of the grant money remains tied up in the cumbersome Federal Railroad Administration review process, which likely will get further bogged down by job cutbacks at the agency. This means the funding is vulnerable at best.
Put all this together and the inevitable conclusion is that Amtrak as we know it will cease to exist.
Long-distance trains will disappear. State-sponsored routes will continue in some form, so long as the states pick up the tab. And the Northeast Corridor will be raffled off to the highest private bidder.
Calls to privatize Amtrak, zero out its funding, or eliminate long-distance trains are nothing new. In the past, Republicans who represent rural states in Congress always rode to Amtrak’s rescue. Neither they nor their constituents wanted to lose their long-distance trains. At the end of the day, Amtrak always emerged from political scuffles with enough funding to scrape by.
Don’t expect that to happen in the current environment. If Republicans in Congress are afraid to stand up to Trump’s plans to cut 83,000 Veterans Affairs jobs — a move that will only hurt medical care for veterans — they’re certainly not going to be willing to take a bullet for Amtrak.
All of this underscores the fact that Amtrak is as much political creature as it is a transportation company.
Wick Moorman, the former Norfolk Southern CEO who led Amtrak in 2016 and 2017, says “I really didn’t get a significant amount of political conversation or pressure while I was there. Politics are inevitable given the role that the FRA plays, and it was sometimes a little frustrating, but nothing more than that. Part of my experience was probably driven by the fact that the politicians seemed to be happy that I was there.”
That’s no longer the case. Until now, Amtrak has been able to navigate its way through political controversies. Trump has nominated Robert Gleason, the former state GOP chairman in Pennsylvania, to the Amtrak board. Gleason has championed expanded Amtrak service in the Keystone State. But by pushing Gardner out, the White House has kneecapped the Amtrak board and made it irrelevant.
Musk has called Amtrak a national embarrassment, saying it falls well short of providing world-class service. He’s not wrong.
But you get what you pay for: Comparing U.S. passenger rail to well-funded systems in Europe, Japan, or China is an unfair apples to oranges comparison given our relatively meager spending on Amtrak and the fact that most of its routes must operate over host freight railroads.
Instead of decimating Amtrak, why not provide the funding and proper oversight required to Make Passenger Rail Great Again? Flying is a hassle. Driving gridlocked interstates is a nightmare. On trips under 500 miles, there’s no better way to travel than on a passenger train.
You can reach Bill Stephens at bybillstephens@gmail.com and follow him on LinkedIn and X @bybillstephens
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