Passengers React to Restructuring Proposal

With reporting by:

-Sean Jeans-Gail, VP + Gov't Affairs and Policy

-Joe Aiello, Director of Community Engagement + Organizing

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Amtrak may face a sweeping overhaul of its operational structure at the behest of senior officials within the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) — and Rail Passengers Association is committed to ensuring there is public oversight of the process.

Bloomberg News first reported that labor groups, including the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), are raising alarms that an initiative being developed by the Federal Railroad Administration to restructure Amtrak could threaten worker protections—and even open the door to privatization. In a memo quoted by Bloomberg, BLET warned that such a shift raises “legitimate and substantive concerns regarding the maintenance of qualifications, preservation of established work jurisdiction… and the continued protection and enforcement of existing Agreement rights.”

In response to the Bloomberg story, Rail Passengers shared further details on a restructuring that could split the railroad into three entities — operations, rolling‑stock management, and infrastructure management.

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The big picture

The FRA has not released a formal proposal, and the U.S. Department of Transportation insists the move is not about privatization. In the absence of a formal proposal, some labor groups and rail passengers are expressing concern over the future of the national rail network — especially long‑distance and rural service. Still other passengers, however, have expressed interest in how a restructuring could actually improve U.S. rail operations so long as certain conditions, including explicit rejection of privatization, were met.

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How the restructuring COULD work

The restructuring has only been teased by FRA officials, with no formal release of details, initial briefings to stakeholders have sketched a rough outline of what an initial proposal could look like:

• NRPC (Amtrak) becomes a holding company.
• Infrastructure Management Entity takes over all Amtrak‑owned infrastructure, including Northeast Corridor dispatching, maintenance, and capital projects.
• Rolling Stock Management Entity manages all equipment, maintenance shops, and could pool state‑owned fleets.
• Operational Entity runs trains across the Northeast Corridor, state‑supported routes, and long‑distance services.

As we previously noted, the rolling‑stock pool resembles a leasing model we are advocating for in the upcoming surface transportation bill. However, it would be important to implement safeguards to prevent the Operational Entity from becoming a “profit center” for the other two, which would undermine service quality and endanger long-term sustainability. It would also be important to make sure the Rolling Stock Entity can support Operations as a primary mission.

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Rail Passengers’ Analysis

Rail Passengers’ President Jim Mathews said railroad reorganizations can help if done well, but international examples show there are risks.

He also warned that without long-term, predictable public funding, a restructuring could lead to:

• Service cuts and route eliminations, especially on rural routes
• Higher fares
• Deferred maintenance and safety risks
• Privatization of profits and socialization of losses

Mathews went on to stress that Congress and states must be involved, or the plan will be “DOA.”

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Rail Passengers’ conditions for supporting an Amtrak restructuring

We laid out a detailed checklist of what we’d need to see in any restructuring, including:

• Congressional oversight of the holding company
• Full inheritance of Amtrak’s legal authorities, including access rights on freight railroads
• A cooperative, not adversarial, relationship between the new subsidiaries
• Rejecting profitability as a system‑wide goal
• No net reduction in national‑network frequencies for at least a decade
• Faster timelines for launching new routes, targeting no more than six years
• A functioning national rolling‑stock leasing pool
• Delivery of new passenger equipment by 2030

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What passengers are saying

While message board discussions of the BLET memo have been active for weeks, many passengers and transit advocates have engaged with our statement. There is a spirited back-and-forth on r/Amtrak about what kind of opportunity—or threat—this proposal presents for America’s trains:

"I recommend people not jump to full doom and gloom mode until we see the proposal, details are very limited at the moment. The Rail Passengers Association put out a good statement to set the tone. It’s possible this could be beneficial, but Amtrak supporters like myself approach it with a heavy dose of skepticism. Now is not the time to do anything which could kneecap Amtrak right as it is starting to get its mojo back."

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"Well, there’s one bright spot in all this: the fact they’re trying to work around Congress rather than do this via a bill is proof Amtrak did manage to build itself a pretty good bipartisan support base there."

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"It seems to me that the RPA has a beat on this and has some good benchmarks for success, including lessons to be learned from other countries' efforts. I still don't trust Trump's intentions in the slightest, and I would rather nothing change if the RPA's metrics cannot be met."

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“Like anything else, the devil is in the details. This could turn into something genuinely helpful, or it could be a slow‑motion disaster. I’m glad RPA is signaling a willingness to engage, but I think it’s smart to approach this with very healthy skepticism. Amtrak is finally regaining momentum after years of underinvestment — this is absolutely not the moment to kneecap the national network. “

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"If they wanted to restructure it so that there was a company for operating it on their own tracks (i.e. the NEC etc), a company for running state supported services (across state lines) and a company for long distance routes. I'd be all for this.

Then the first company could be profitable and actually grow like a regular enterprise. The second company could cover the legal issues of crossing state lines and work off subsidy to provide regional rail as a service focused contractor like thing, and the final company can exist as long as congress wants to pay for it for very rural communities, etc.

Splitting the company up by function, I don't see as having much value. But by the above I do because they would have different operating styles. "

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"First stage of privatization…

I expect before too long the mechanical and engineering divisions will be forced to bid competitively with private companies for work."

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"This is a step in the wrong direction. I do think that Amtrak should have subdivisions that cooperate with state and regional governments in a form of cost-sharing. But Amtrak as a for-profit company is just not something that works."
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"I don't intrinsically hate this idea on its merits because the Federal Long Distance Routes, State-supported routes, and NEC are effectively three different services.

But I have a lot of concerns:

1. I feel like a particularly austerity minded administration could use this as a path towards selling off Amtrak to a private owner

2. Similarly, I could see it being used to disadvantage certain parts of the rail system while helping others. We need a complete network

3. Why rock the boat now of all times? The system has never had more ridership and more revenue and thanks to Biden's Infrastructure Law, it's only going to continue to get better"

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“This isn’t as bad as it seems, it’s actually quite similar to the European model.

The one thing I would hope is that it kicks the rolling stock bit into shape. Amtrak SUCKS at managing rolling stock, be it national or regional on behalf of something else.

Amtrak needs a shakeup, maybe this is the first step. It’s risky though”

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“Amtrak needs to add a real estate division. I want stations built up like we’re in Japan. High speed connections point to point with lots of residential, retail, and commercial on top. Economic nodes of a new American way where we finally compete with our counterparts around the globe. “

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“I'd argue this creates more opportunity for growth in the long distance and state supported markets. Right now there is essentially balance in the system (political economy wise, the actual system is horrifically biased to the NEC), which means it is very hard to actually get things done.

I am not opposed to moving the NEC infrastructure to a separate entity, so it can be then run as open access. This is probably healthy and does remove the distraction of arguing for $100+ billion capital funding.

I am opposed to removing rolling stock from ownership by the operations entity. In corporate finance, if your company buys something essential only from one supplier you simply buy that supplier and integrate them into your company. Because if that supplier goes bankrupt, you go bankrupt, and it is a risk you can't take.

I would like to see this happen only in exchange for a guaranteed subsidy (my preferred metric is having a tax of 3-5% on airline tickets = $7.3 - $12 billion per year in guaranteed operating and capital funding (which would more or less deliver IIJA funding continuously”

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“Makes me think of Network Rail in Britain.

Which, ironically, is undergoing a reorg to re-combine with the operating companies”