Finally though, New Jersey Congressman Gotthemier is proposing a passenger bill-of-rights that would force Amtrak to reimburse commuters for their train tickets if there are unreasonable delays or cancellations. He claimed that Amtrak would be on the hook since they own the Northeast Corridor which is the NJ Transit Line with the most delays this summer.
Amtrak released a statement on this:
"Amtrak is working hard to improve the reliability of the Northeast Corridor after nearly five decades of chronic underfunding by both the federal government and our commuter partners. We and NJ TRANSIT, like, Congressman Gottheimer, want on-time service that meet customer expectations and we are working diligently, together, to identify root causes and make improvements to the many old assets we rely on every day to support roughly 450 daily trains in New Jersey.
Assertions that Amtrak infrastructure alone is the cause of the delays experienced this summer by Amtrak and NJ TRANSIT riders aren't supported by the facts, and we certainly don't take a "run to failure" approach, although funding constraints have long forced us to extend the use of aging assets rather than replace them. Now finally, the funding recently provided by the transformational Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, made possible in part by work of Congressman Gottheimer, has enabled Amtrak to begin to rectify this and launch the company's largest-ever capital investment program, which has more investment planned in New Jersey than any other state, reflecting the criticality of these tracks to whole the Northeast Corridor.
While we deeply appreciate the $6 billion in supplemental federal funds to replace Amtrak's old assets and enhance accessibility on the NEC, most of these funds are committed already to other vital projects and are a downpayment on the tens of billions needed from Congress, and our commuter partners, in the future to modernize the Northeast Corridor from Washington DC to Boston over the coming decade. We, and our partners, are already actively working to maximize all the potential funding sources available under the BIL to improve service now and in the future. We look forward to discussing all the actions Amtrak, and our partner NJ TRANSIT, are taking today to improve the railroad with Rep. Gottheimer and getting his continued help to secure the funding required to improve the customer experience going forward."
While I'd agree that it's certainly not fully Amtrak's fault in any way, I do think they should take at least partial-responsibility for it since they own the corridor and some of there trains caused these delays for NJ Transit Commuters. Luckily, a lot of people are taking the next couple of weeks (selectivity) off for summer vacations, but hopefully coming back into the fall & winter monthes, The Northeast Corridor will hopefully have less issues due to it cooling down. I'm also hoping that next summer will be a lot better with this problem at least partly solved.