A second daily train between Pittsburgh and New York City is expected to begin service in November, following infrastructure investments funded by federal grants.
On Aug. 24, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro confirmed the additional daily Pennsylvanian line after years of collaboration between the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, Amtrak and Norfolk Southern to expand passenger rail infrastructure throughout the route.
Angela Watson, the bureau director of rail, freight, ports and waterways at PennDOT, said the investment is a result of more than a decade of advocacy for increased passenger rail service and strong ridership among western Pennsylvanian riders.
In 2021, Norfolk Southern completed an evaluation of the Keystone West — the corridor between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg owned and operated by the company — to determine infrastructure improvements needed to accommodate a second passenger train.
“Norfolk Southern is one of, if not the busiest line, and it’s a transcontinental line, so that corridor is heavily traveled by freight traffic,” Watson said. “For us to find a way to bring two passenger trains, we had to find ways that we could make some investments in the line that would allow for the additional train traffic.”
The railway has plans for eleven projects along the Keystone West corridor to improve reliability for passenger and freight trains. While the second Pennsylvanian train is expected to begin service in November, the projects are not expected to be completed until 2030.
According to Watson, the projects are primarily funded through two federal grant programs administered by the Federal Railroad Administration — the Corridor Identification and Development Program and the Federal-State Partnership Grant Program — alongside several other upcoming PA rail projects.
“There’s been an infusion of federal funds in the last administration for additional or new passenger rail service,” Watson said. “We received federal funding from the FRA to support the projects, and so that’s a real big help for us to make the financial investment.”
Rory Wilson, a junior psychology major from Rockland County, New York, said the duration of the trip is her main deterrent from taking the train between school and home.
“It takes a little over nine hours with no delay, and I’ve seen it could go up to like 13,” Wilson said. “Being that I have the opportunity to either drive for about six hours or fly home, I would much rather do that.”
Wilson said she doesn’t believe there is typically much of a price difference between a train ticket and a much shorter plane ride, except during periods of high holiday demand.
“Sometimes there are crazy [flight] prices during holidays when everyone’s going home, so if it was significantly cheaper, I could definitely see that being an option,” Wilson said. “It’s just not the first thing I look for — simply because it’s nine hours.”
Dr. Aleksandar Stevanovic, associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, said the second daily train will primarily benefit people who already rely on passenger rail and residents of communities along the route.
“The benefits that this service provides are probably higher to all of those folks in these small towns than to [people in] Pittsburgh or New York because if you live in Pittsburgh, you probably have an option to take a plane — and the same is for New York,” Stevanovic said. “But if you live in Altoona or Greensburg or Johnstown, that train is way more important for you.”
Stevanovic said though the addition of a second daily train is an improvement for current passengers, he does not see many other benefits. As far as public transport alternatives go, he said U.S. train services are still “not where we want to be.”
“It’s not going to have a huge impact on congestion or an environmental impact,” Stevanovic said. “If we had [high speed trains], then it would become a very competitive transportation mode, and many people who are traveling in that direction would honestly consider traveling by train.”
However, Stevanovic said implementing such a high speed train would require significant new infrastructure.
In 2014, PennDOT released a study on alternative and additional passenger rail options for the Keystone West. It estimated that creating entirely new alignments for a high speed Pittsburgh-to-Harrisburg train would cost nearly $40 billion, though that cost would likely be higher today due to inflation.
“Sometimes you have that the underlying structure of your tracks is not strong enough to support a train which is going at a certain speed, so your train needs to slow down just to safely pass through certain sections,” Stevanovic said. “Even if you eliminated all of the stops [and] had a direct train between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, it would still be slow.”