The Math Ain’t Mathin’

A closer look at the “golden age of rail”

Under the headline “GOLDEN AGE OF RAIL,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy recently announced $5.3 billion for railroad projects, via the recently renamed National Railroad Partnership Program. The funding includes roughly $2 billion for new U.S.-built trainsets; $659 million to relocate and modernize Amtrak’s maintenance facilities in Chicago, along with bridge and viaduct upgrades at the new facility; and more than 30 track, station, and grade-separation projects across the U.S.

The money is welcome. These are important projects. We’ve long argued that new trainsets are an urgent priority—especially new trains for long-distance lines and trains in the Midwest, where popular routes from Michigan to Chicago often sell out. And improved grade crossings are critical to getting more trains running to more places—faster, safer, and more reliably—across the U.S.

Even so, this big announcement doesn’t add up.

Before digging into what the money will do, it’s worth asking where it comes from. Roughly $2.4 billion of the $5.3 billion that Sec. Duffy announced was clawed back from California’s high-speed rail project, which the administration derides as a “boondoggle” and a “train to nowhere.” So it cancelled about $4 billion in federal funding for that project—then announced a slice of that same money as a visionary investment in American railroads.

Which brings us to three key ways this announcement isn’t quite right.

First

The money is long overdue. It was appropriated in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which passed by Congress in 2021. It’s just now being released or being recycled after it was clawed back from California. None of it is new.

Second

The announcement is self-contradictory. Even as Sec. Duffy claims credit for this “golden age,” the White House’s most recent budget proposes to cut the Federal Railroad Administration’s funding by 81% and Amtrak funding by up to 69%.

Fortunately, it isn’t up to the executive branch to set funding levels for transportation spending. It’s up to Congress. And (as we’ve been saying all summer) the current debate over the surface transportation bill is the perfect near-term vehicle for putting us on a better path. It will establish policy and funding frameworks for the next five years. Congress should direct the FRA to create a national railroad plan, and it should engage seriously with the proposals in the American High-Speed Rail Act. More on that below.

Third

The vision is way too small. We’re a long way from a “golden age of rail.” Although it’s welcome, $5.3 billion barely scratches the surface of what’s needed to upgrade existing assets—much less expand train routes—to meet the surging demand for train travel in the U.S.

For comparison, a single highway project in Texas—the North Houston Highway Improvement Project, which is rerouting and reconstructing 24 miles of I-45—will cost a projected $13 billion. That’s 2.5 times the amount Sec. Duffy wants to portray as a transformational investment in railways.

Moving toward the block-grant model

A real “golden age” of rail would start with vastly more investment.

For example, the American High-Speed Rail Act proposes investing $41 billion annually—for five years—on high-speed rail alone. Which sounds like a lot. But consider that spending on highway projects (across all levels of government) in 2023 was about $105 billion. That’s for a highway system we’ve been building out for a century.

We also need significant reforms to incentivize and clear the path for more train development. Again, the American High-Speed Rail Act offers a good starting point. As we noted here, it proposes policy changes to speed up the process of purchasing right of way; gives freight carriers tax incentives to sell or lease their right-of-way to passenger-rail projects; and promotes development around train stations by prioritizing affordable-housing projects with climate benefits.

All of these reforms should be written into the new surface transportation bill. Contact your representatives now and let them know.

The bill should also task the FRA with creating a national railroad plan and replacing the current, piecemeal approach to train projects with the same model used to build out the highway network.

Under that model, the Federal Highway Administration’s block grant program distributes money to the states, which then decide which highway projects to spend it on. The process differs from railway funding in two key ways. First, block-grant money is guaranteed. Second, the FHWA worked with state DOTs to identify what highways are eligible. So there was a balance of state-level control and a federal, big-picture perspective.

Why planning is crucial

A great example of why planning is so important is a project to construct six miles of a second mainline track east of the Amtrak terminal in Havre, Montana. It’s a stop for Amtrak’s Empire Builder trains, which run between Seattle and Chicago. And the line is heavily used by freight trains. The new segment of track will eliminate “the current conflicts” between passenger and freight trains, which “create cascading delays across the corridor.”

Sec. Duffy’s announcement of cited the project as evidence for the “golden age.” But it should have been funded years ago—as part of a big-picture, multi-state plan for improving and expanding train service throughout the entire Empire Builder corridor.

Instead, it’s a one-off. The fact that the Havre station upgrade is cited as a major achievement is evidence of the system’s dysfunction and disarray—not its success.

A true “golden age” would mean vastly more guaranteed money for trains and a budget that builds and supports the agency responsible for railroads. And it would mean creating a plan that connects the many railroad projects and corridors into a unified national network—instead of randomly funding a series of disconnected projects when states decide to apply for the money.

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