A passenger line extension in central Florida, removal of at-grade crossings in Texas and a new engineering program at a historically Black university in Baltimore are all beneficiaries of more than $368 million in railroad infrastructure grants being announced Thursday by the Biden administration.
The administration is billing the funding as a way to help fight inflation in the shipping business.
“We’ve got the largest and most extensive rail network in the world here in the U.S., and Americans deserve world class rail service to go with it. So it’s urgent for us to modernize our railroad infrastructure to get people and goods where they need to get faster, safer and more affordably,” Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg told reporters on a White House call Wednesday previewing the grants.
Buttigieg joined with White House infrastructure coordinator Mitch Landrieu and Federal Railroad Administrator Amit Bose in previewing the funding recipients from the final batch of Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements funding […]
I just completed a round-trip by rail between Chicago and Albany, NY which reinforced the necessity of rail improvement in the US. The tracks on this stretch were God-awful! It was a true rock and roll adventure. I was also impressed by the need for long-distance rail on this route as the train had large numbers of Amish passengers who can’t travel by plane for religious reasons. It was also off-putting that the Amtrak administration under he-who-is-not-to-be-named closed the dining car to the “great unwashed” i.e. coach passengers. Fortunately, the “Railroad Passengers Association” is working to have that policy reversed.