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Rail Passengers Day on the Hill a Success!

April 6, 2023

Thank you again to everyone who took part in our Rail Passenger Day on the Hill! We’re currently at 207 reported meetings, with many office visits still yet to be submitted to our legislative staff.

Thank you again to everyone who took part in our Rail Passenger Day on the Hill! We’re currently at 207 reported meetings, with many office visits still yet to be submitted to our legislative staff.

During our meetings, Rail Passengers volunteers advocated for the following proposals:

For the U.S. Congress to fully fund rail programs at the authorized levels established by the BIL: Providing sufficient FY24 funding is necessary to allow Amtrak to operate trains and restore full service, perform annual maintenance and carry out core functions to avoid long-term deterioration of assets and services, and make targeted, high-priority investments for future expansion.

FY23 Enacted

FY24 IIJA Authorized

Amtrak

Northeast Corridor

National Network

$2,453 ML

$1,260 ML

$1,193 ML

$3,650 ML

$1,200 ML

$2,450 ML

Federal Railroad Administration

$251 ML

$263 ML

Federal-State Partnership for ICPR

$100 ML

$1,500 ML

CRISI Grants

$535 ML

$1,000 ML

Railroad Crossing Elimination Grants

$0

$500 ML

Restoration & Enhancement Grants

$0

$50 ML

Moulton/Bacon Amtrak ‘Dear Colleague’ Letter: Congressmen Seth Moulton (D-MA) Don Bacon (R-NE) were able to secure a total of 109 signatures for their bipartisan letter supporting Amtrak and passenger rail programs—up from 101 last year! Congressman Moulton’s office passed along their thanks for all the work Rail Passengers Association did to support this letter.

Support legislative initiatives to improve Amtrak responsiveness to passengers and increase transparency for taxpayers:

  • Require Amtrak’s Board of Directors to comply with standard open meeting requirements;
  • Expand Amtrak’s Board of Directors annual meeting requirements to include meetings with representatives of state-supported services;
  • Require Amtrak’s Board of Directors to publicly disclose any bonus payment made to an Amtrak officer in a year which Amtrak receives federal grants;
  • Require Amtrak to disclose certain vendor agreements utilized to provide intercity rail service to state-sponsors or the State-Amtrak Intercity Passenger Rail Committee (SAIPRC) upon request.

Address Amtrak Board of Directors Vacancies: There are currently two vacancies and six expired seats on Amtrak’s Board of Directors. We ask that Congress work with the White House to advance a slate of Directors that—as required by Congress in the BIL—provides balanced regional representation, speaking for both rural and urban passengers.

Rail Passenger Bill of Rights: In response to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill’s historic investment in passenger trains, Rail Passengers Association believes the time is now to establish what we expect the U.S. network to deliver to the people who use it. With this surge in public investment, many of the old excuses for service failures will no longer be sufficient to excuse rail carriers. The time is now to start thinking about the benchmarks for acceptable levels of service, and the mechanisms for ensuring that rail carriers are accountable to passengers.

Read more about our Passenger Bill of Rights proposal.

Rail Safety Bill: a House version of the Railway Safety Act of 2023 (HR 1674) was introduced by Reps. DeLuzio (D-PA-17) and LaLota (R-NY-01). The Senate version is led by Sens. Brown and Vance.

Rail Passengers is supporting HR 1674 over the RAIL Act (Reps. Sykes and Johnson; HR 1633) because it includes a two-person crew mandate, and allocates funding for R&D into better wayside detectors and safer tank car valves.

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Appropriations hearings are on hold over the Easter Recess, but we’re using the break to develop some specific language for the Passenger Bill of Rights, so stay tuned!

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