As Train Travel Surges, Amtrak Needs to Buy More Trains!

Turning too many people away

Amtrak has a problem: There’s more demand than it can handle. Trains regularly sell out, year round.

In fact, Amtrak just reported its best year ever, with two million more passengers than the previous record-setting year.

This is great news, but it should have been even better. We can only imagine what Amtrak’s ridership would be if it weren’t turning so many people away because of limited capacity.

There’s a relatively simple fix for this problem: Buy more trainsets.

Bizarrely, though, Amtrak and the Federal Railroad Administration are slow-walking an order to replace the oldest trains. And Amtrak appears to have no plans to expand its fleet.

And yet, a record year

Amtrak reported record ridership of about 34.5 million passengers in Fiscal Year 2025 (ending Oct. 31), a 5% increase over Fiscal Year 2024. The previous record was 32.5 million, set in 2019. Amtrak also reported ticket revenue of $2.7 billion, and 6.9 billion passenger-miles travelled in 2025, both all-time highs.

An Amtrak press release noted that these records resulted from “improvements in the customer experience” and an increased network capacity of more than 4%. Unfortunately, there was nothing to report about new trainsets—an upgrade that would be relatively easy to implement and could be game-changing for Amtrak’s future.

Amtrak doesn’t keep track of the people its turns away.  So, there is no way of knowing what the market potential is.

Currently, Amtrak’s trains are too short and there are too few to meet the demand. For example, the Alliance recently quoted from a report about constraints imposed by limited rolling stock in the Chicago Hub: “Growth is expected to slow considerably between 2028 and 2030 due to the need for additional coaches and the probable lack of significant new service additions by state governments. These factors will likely limit the Chicago Hub’s ability to meet rising demand.”

So we’re urging US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to direct Amtrak to purchase enough new coaches, sleepers, and diners to double its fleet.

We’re also asking readers and members to contact their federal and state representatives and tell them to make this an urgent priority. If you live in an Amtrak community, please contact your mayor as well. They’re critical links in the chain of political representation. Congress listens to their concerns.

Too few trains = dumb economics

Without new coaches—soon—older units will age beyond repair. Damaged coaches will continue to be removed from service. The already strained capacity will diminish further.

Amtrak needs to order at least 1,086 new units immediately—including coaches, dining cars, sleeper cars and lounge cars—for its long-distance routes. At roughly $3 million each, that adds up $3.26 billion, which is a pittance in the federal budget. And, ultimately, it will generate revenue.

The economics are this: Adding more coaches to existing trains increases operating costs only incrementally—while potentially doubling revenue opportunities. A coach car costs roughly $3 million to buy, but with the revenue it produces in fares and food and beverage sales, it will pay for itself in a few years. Its lifespan is 30-50 years.

In sum, having too few seats to satisfy demand is dumb economics and terrible policy.

The second-best time is now

The need for more capacity is evident year-round, as the most popular parts of routes sell out or are available only at shockingly high prices. The crunch is most acute around Thanksgiving, the busiest travel holiday.

Want to take an Amtrak train on the day before Thanksgiving this year? Forget about it.

• New York City to Syracuse – sold out (four trains!).
• St. Paul to Seattle – sold out.
• Chicago to Omaha – sold out.
• Washington to Atlanta – sold out.

This lack of seat availability puts more cars on the road, some in dubious condition, with tired drivers who’d much rather be on the train if they had the option.

But here’s the challenge: It can take 5-10 years from order to delivery to procure a new coach car. This calls to mind the Chinese proverb: “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now.”

Once Amtrak overcomes its dire need for new trainsets, Congress should fund an ongoing program to purchase new trains every year—to stay ahead of demand growth and deterioration, and to create a consistent workflow so that factories can build the cars faster.

As Secretary Sean Duffy noted in Amtrak’s press release about its record ridership in 2025, we’re entering “a new era of American rail. The best is yet to come as we continue to build big, beautiful infrastructure to support this bright future of transportation.”

From his lips to Congress’s ears. Let’s get those new coaches on order and scheduled for delivery—so that, 10 years from now, Amtrak’s “bright future” doesn’t turn out to be a false dawn.

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