Just about three thirty pm here in New York. This is the countdown to the close arm remain bostic.
And I'm Alex Steele. Guess what's that's performing today? What's now Transportation index? And I wonder if that's a China effect or if it's growth here in the US effect, But it is outperforming.
Yeah, it was kind there to I saw earlier this week it is all airlines rallying, a lot of transportation socks rallying as well here, and of course I think a lot of US, at least certainly here in the US, obsess over some of these transportation stocks. Yeah, that's right, because we try to get fromer point A to point B, and if you're in New York, that's impossible even when
it's not un week here. And of course it raises a lot of questions here about the infrastructure that we have to move people around.
So whether it is by land, air, or sea. You know, you have a.
Huge amount of passengers utilizing US transportation systems every year, more than three hundred million, and just last year twenty eight million of those passengers chose But what you're looking at they are Amtrak, formerly known as the National Railroad Road Passenger Corporation amtractors remained one of the go to services for inner city rail travel, particularly here in the Northeast, but it also has challenges, be it outdated infrastructure causing
delays or increase competition from other private rail companies. Here to talk about all that is well, the president of Amtrak, Roger Harris, joining us right now from Union Station down in Washington, DC. And Roger, great to have you back here on the program. I do want to start off you guys have been spending a lot of money last time I checked, at least in the fiscal year. Last year, at twenty twenty three, you had one of your biggest
capital investments. The Biden administration gave you a big shot in the arm about a year ago, fundeling several billion dollars to railroads here. How exactly is that money being spent?
Hi remain Thanks for having me back. It's good to be here. Well, it's going on a lot of different things. It's partly going on new fleet, so we have new trains coming this winter. We're going to be hopefully putting into service our new Aessela trains coming after that in twenty twenty seven, we will be launching our new Aerrow trainsets on the Northeast Regional service in the Northeast, so really a complete makeover of the trains that we have
in the northeast of the US. We're also spending a lot of money on new infrastructure, not only in things like tracks, signaling, and electrical infrastructure that really makes the railroad run every day, but also those really big one hundred year investments in things like major bridges and tunnels. And that's really a lot of the work that we're going to have us getting underway and earnest in twenty
twenty five. So you mentioned that we have a lot of growth in our capital spending in twenty twenty three. Well this year twenty twenty four, we grew fifty percent for twenty twenty three.
And is that going to continue into twenty twenty five and beyond. And if so, Roger, are some of the those costs are they going to be passed on to the commuter? Are they going to pay more in ticket prices?
So the large infrastructure items that we're talking about are primarily funded through the I I J at this point, so they won't inherently be passed on to the commuter in that form. We have a lot of other costs that are going up though at the same time, so there are price increases probably underway, but it's for all kinds of other inputs.
Roger, it's Alex, what's the biggest hurdle to you building these projects on time and on budget? Like, what's the risk that you take on in the medium.
Term, Alex, great question. One of the things we've done since the money was awarded is we have built up an incredible infrastructure of project management, project controls, things to make sure that we get the projects done right and that we don't have a lot of unpleasant prizes later on. There are a lot of steps that we have to go through, including environmental clearances, historical clearances. We work with our partners who are investors in these projects, and those
steps typically take a number of years. And that's why you don't see these projects delivering benefits yet because the setup of the projects really takes a long time. But it's a necessary part of making sure that they're successful in the long run.
So then how do you compete back to Romains's original question, how do you compete then with more of the private players who can get in there in a different way and move money faster and build projects faster.
Very good question. We have a lot of efforts underway to be more efficient. So when you look at, for instance, our newest sellers that, as I said, we hope to launch this winter, they carry about twenty five percent more customers than the previous sellers, and they're about twenty five percent lighter. So they're actually going to be twenty percent more energy efficiently, and that translates directly into lower operating costs, especially on a per passenger basis.
You know, Roger, I am curious when we talk long term about the future and the health of Amtrak, when we talk about the number of miles of tracks you have, the number of passengers you have a lot of that is still and correct if I'm wrong, still weighted towards the Northeast Corridor. And I am curious as to whether there are ambitions to do more outside of the Northeast, whether there is profitability to be had outside of the Northeast.
Is there? I think so?
I mean there's some very unique features of the Northeast Corridor that do help to make it profitable, including density, congestion, et cetera. But those things are happening all over the country as the country grows. We've been investigating the Texas High speed Rail project to see what we can do there to assist in the development of that project, because we think that's very promising. Between Dallas and Houston. It's a metro market of fifteen million people and perfectly situated
for high speed rail. We also have really exciting developments in North Carolina with the S Line project, which also got some funding in the last round of grants from the FRA, and we continue to work with our partners in the Commonwealth of Virginia on extending and expanding rails between Washington, d C. And Richmond, Virginia, which will eventually connect to the S Line projects.
In addition to those issues, there's also the issue of delays and other things. Some of that has to do with, of course, the tracks that you control, or rather that you don't control. I know you guys have made some deals recently that gives you more control of tracks.
Even in Union Station, where.
You're at right now, you've gained a greater degree of control of what comes in and out of there.
Do you have more leverage to do that?
In other cities and other regions as well well.
I think we do. One of the things that we're really focused on is working with our partners to have the kind of relationships that really enable those improvements that you're talking about. Whether it be our host railroads or freight railroads that we run on, We're really trying to work hard to make sure that we understand their concerns.
And also, you know, all over the country we were commuter agencies who are also an important part of the rail environment, and they're necessary parts of the environment in terms of the investments that need to be made.
Yeah.
One just final quick question here, and you mentioned the host tracks that you're on. Obviously a lot of those either owned or operated by the freight companies. There's a big potential strike in East Coast ports. It could have reverberations on rail lines. Is that going to affect Amtrak at all?
We don't expect it to.
I mean, there may, in isolated situations, create congestion on the freight lines, but we don't expect it to impact our operations.
All right, Roger, we'll let you get back to work. Appreciate you taking time to be with us today. Roger Harris. He's the president of Amtrak down there in Union Station in Washington, DC.