WASHINGTON — An on-line-only public Amtrak board of directors meeting today (July 31, 2025) lasted only 45 minutes and concluded with a flashy video embedded in a PowerPoint presentation extolling the virtues of the company’s long-awaited Next Generation Acela trainsets. But no date for its Northeast Corridor revenue service introduction was announced.
Amtrak president Roger Harris did say, “The great news is that we’ve gone through the entire approval process with the Federal Railroad Administration … And we have permission for initial operation and we’re going through the process of accepting — taking delivery — of the first five units from [Alstom], which is the final step in our process, and we will be announcing that first date of revenue service very, very soon.”
Sources tell Trains that Amtrak has been inviting employee volunteers to ride on four “dress rehearsal” runs between New York and Washington, D.C., the weeks of Aug. 4 and Aug. 11.
Trains asked Amtrak on July 2, 2025, with a follow-up request on July 11, a list of specific questions regarding exactly what was being evaluated or modifications implemented in Boston-Washington NextGen Acela trainsets operating weekdays as test train nos. 887 and 888. So far, there has been no response.
All of the Board of Directors members were present, but none had any questions that they wanted to share in public regarding the NextGen Acela or presentations on company financials, commercial operations, and infrastructure projects.
Improved revenue, lower customer satisfaction
Those presentations revealed mostly positive performance metrics when compared with the first nine months of the previous fiscal year, although printed text commentary covered the bottom of each slide.
— Adjusted operating results for passenger operations improved by $156.4 million, or 34.1%
— All service lines are showing year-to-date ridership gains: 319,000 for Northeast Corridor, 141,000 for state-supported routes, and 113,000 for long-distance trains. The company continues to not report passenger-mile data in these presentations, which would more accurately reflect long-distance contributions .
— Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) scores edged lower to 78.1, fueled primarily by drops in Northeast Corridor on time performance. If this metric falls below 80, it adversely affects calculations that determine some executive bonuses.
— Jim Short, Amtrak’s Senior VP of Capital Delivery, noted that the company is currently involved in 236 infrastructure improvement initiatives. He outlined changes in the procurement process and described New York’s $1.6 billion East River rehabilitation and Baltimore’s $6 billion B&P Tunnel replacement projects
Operating headwinds
Gery Williams, Amtrak’s executive vice president for service delivery and operations, says it has become “a daily struggle” to keep aging Acela trainsets in operation. He expects the cancellation of several Northeast Regional and Acela departures beginning next Monday “to minimize delays cascading to afternoon departures.”
Williams also says “reliability issues” have affected Midwest corridor services, noting that St. Louis-Kansas City, Mo., Missouri River Runners were adversely affected by six weeks of unplanned trackwork, “resulting from the derailment of a non-fitting [Union Pacific] freight train.” A 20-point drop in Auto Train’s on-time performance was the result of [CSX] heat restrictions and freight train interference, resulting in the inability of the next day’s train to depart on time. Williams did say Auto Train results have improved in July. Meanwhile, he said, Norfolk Southern delays have decreased 29% year-over-year, and the gains “are particularly noticeable on long-distance routes such as the Crescent and Lake Shore Limited.”
“Unfortunately,” he admits, “host railroad improvements have been offset by Amtrak and third party-caused delays, with a 22% increase in equipment-related delays versus last year.” Williams says he is working with equipment manufacturers and in-house maintenance quality processes to reduce over-the-road failures.
None of the presenters offered updates on the status of inoperative train washing facilities or what progress is being made on the procurement of long-distance passenger cars.
My reaction to the purportedly “Open” Amtrak Board session on July 31 was not so positive. The fact that the slides improperly displayed and the Closed Captions could not be suppressed and were constantly inaccurate was bad enough–but–as Bob correctly pointed out–not a single Board member had anything to say–not a question, comment or suggestion. We know this wasn’t the “real” meeting, as they chose a new CFO/Chief Financial Officer yesterday during a presumably “closed” part of the meeting.
We heard that the East River Tunnel work is apparently moving ahead of schedule and if I caught it right through the mumbled presentation, under budget. Great news, but perhaps someone might have asked if that meant we might expect to see the service go back to normal on the Empire Corridor and especially for the ADIRONDACK and MAPLE LEAF trains. That’s an example of an ideal question some Bord member might have asked. We also heard how well the FLORIDIAN was apparently performing, since Amtrak added a third sleeper and (off and on) more coach capacity. But the train is routinely 3-5 hours late. Could someone have posed the question of how Amtrak intends to address that?
I posted the notes below on assorted Amtrak forums yesterday.
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The July 31st “open” Amtrak Board meeting, set to run from 1230PM to 200PM Eastern Time, just concluded at 115PM. As you might imagine from the shortness of the time actually used, Amtrak could easily have permitted pubic input, and questions, but did not do so. Not a single Board member question or comment took place at any point in the session. Sigh.
No decisions, obviously, were reached, as the only participation was by Amtrak senior staff reporting back on what they were working on and Year to Date (YTD) results. There at least the overall impression was that Amtrak is ahead of FY24 levels of ridership and ticket revenue. One persistent problem, at least on my MAC computer, was that the bottom of every slide was cut off. Adjusting the display did not help. Sigh.
The one bit of real news was at the very end of the session, when Amtrak President Roger Harris reported that Amtrak was in the process of taking delivery for actual scheduled operation of its first five Next Gen ACELA train-sets. Great news, but the obvious question of when that service might actually begin remains “soon”–eg. they still don’t know. Sigh.
Throughout the presentation was confusing to follow. The closed captioning would not clear from the screen and was often inaccurate, based on the projected slides–ranging from mis-stating ridership to the mildly funny–“panoramic windows” on the new ACELAS translating to “rammic” on the transcript. Hopefully these errors will be fixed before the minutes are released. Sigh.
Overall this was better characterized as a Press Conference without questions than a true decision-making Board Meeting. No Board discussions and no questions rendered the “open” aspect very limited indeed. Deepest sigh!