ALBANY, N.Y. — Plans for Metro-North Railroad to operate trains between Grand Central Terminal and Albany may have run aground because Amtrak feared competition from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, MTA CEO Janno Lieber said in an interview this week.
Appearing on public broadcaster WCNY’s Capitol Pressroom podcast during a visit to Albany to testify on legislation, Lieber said the MTA remains interested in operating north of Poughkeepsie, the current endpoint of its Hudson line service.
“As the governor said, we got a lot of positive response because people are interested in the idea of a train that doesn’t suddenly cost 100 bucks, or even more on a holiday or summer weekend,” Lieber said, according to an interview transcript. “They’re interested in a more affordable option. A single Metro-North train can carry as many people as you know, two or even three Amtrak trains, and everybody was excited about it.”
Lieber said the idea came about because Amtrak had to cut service on the New York-Albany route because of its East River Tunnel project, and Hochul asked if Amtrak could run trains from Grand Central. “And they said, ‘Well, we don’t have enough trains.’ So then we said, ‘OK, we’ll run the Metro-North service,’ and they agreed to it.
“But once they saw how enthusiastic people were about Metro-North, it seemed like they feared the competition and they backed away. And the governor got what she wanted, which is a restoration of full service, but she also heard clearly that people are interested in having us come north of Poughkeepsie, and we’re going to explore it.”
Hochul announced last month that Amtrak had agreed to restore the full Empire Service schedule between Penn Station and Albany in March, but would no longer agree to the proposed MTA service from Grand Central [see “Amtrak to restore full Empire Service …,” Trains.com, Jan. 27, 2026].
Lieber said “a lot of bureaucratic stuff” would need to be overcome to operate north of Poughkeepsie on CSX-owned tracks, where Amtrak holds the right to operate.
“So we need the approval of Amtrak and CSX to operate. … The engineers, technically, they need to have training to run on that particular territory. There’s some other technical bureaucratic issues, but there’s nothing to stop it from happening promptly if all the political forces agree. And we’re ready to do it, if the state of New York and Amtrak can come to an agreement to let it happen, we’d be interested in doing it.
“There’s no reason, no reason to stop in Poughkeepsie if we could serve the Hudson Valley and Albany. Maybe we can go to Saratoga in the summer when the races are on, who knows?”
Amtrak and the MTA have been on something less than the best of terms during the last year, as the MTA blamed Amtrak, rather vocally, for delays in its Penn Station Access project — claims Amtrak disputed [see “MTA CEO blasts Amtrak …,” Trains.com, Oct. 6, 2025]. Those issues have quieted down lately, with Amtrak featuring its plans to accommodate Penn Access work during its recent online board meeting [see “Amtrak board told of strong first-quarter results …,” Jan. 28, 2026].
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The real issues are the Hudson tunnel project and Penn Sta. as the competing players: Amtrk, MTA, NJT and their backers seek control. An interesting editorial in yesterday’s “Daily News” called the tunnel project a “15billion$ boondoggle.” This was remarkable since the DN is usually moderate in tone. What also was remarkable in the edit was no mention of the halt in funding for the 2nd Ave. subway extension, which tho expensive is no boonie.
BTW GCT-Albany frequent service should be a no-brainer.
We really need to break up Amtrak into long distance, the NEC, and give the states back to the states to run. Maybe a forth option of a west coast Pacifica I would be open to. But Amtrak has constantly shown they are to big to be managed properly