DV Journal

Pennsylvania is pressing ahead with plans to bring passenger train service from Reading to Philadelphia, but one national transportation expert calls it “absolutely a boondoggle.”

Tom Frawley, executive director of the Schuylkill River Passenger Rail Authority (SRPRA), remains optimistic about the plan, which is part of a partnership with Amtrak.

“We’re very fortunate. We have an excellent starting point,” Frawley recently told Montgomery County commissioners. “We’re starting with a double-track, high-quality railroad, essentially conditions where we could operate a passenger train at 80 mph today.”

Some additional track and signal work will be needed, he said. The system has federally required positive train control (PTC), and [freight carrier] Norfolk Southern “is a willing partner.”

“That’s not always the case, so we’re very fortunate in that regard,” said Frawley.

Also, he said there are existing train stations in Reading, Pottstown, and Phoenixville that the new train service could use. He said that local communities would have the “primary responsibility” for the station buildings and parking lots.

The federal Corridor Identification and Development Program  (CIDP) is a three-step program, with the first step scoping, he said. The federal government granted SRPRA up to $500,000 for that phase. The second step is preparing a service development plan that needs a 10 percent match. Step three is preliminary engineering, design, and environmental documentation requiring a 20 percent match.

The existing Norristown Transportation Center could be employed if the route chosen goes through Norristown rather than running on the other side of the Schuylkill River.

Pottstown is using Delaware Valley Regional Planning funds for its station planning, and the historic station in Pottstown “is a candidate for the future station,” he said.

“We’re going to have a lot of focus on environmental justice, under-represented communities,” he said. “People may not realize but Reading, at one point, was the poorest city in the country. Not just the state, but the entire country.” The new rail service has “a lot of opportunity to create a lot of benefit for a lot of people,” he said.

The next two steps are expected to cost $10 or 12 million, he said. Some $250,000 from the state’s casino fund has been transferred. And Congress mandated a $750,000 grant to Berks County that is to be used for final design and/or construction. Berks, Chester, and Montgomery counties have invested $100,000 in the project, too.

They also expect to get additional state and federal funding, he said.

DVJournal asked Frawley what the total estimated cost for the entire project is. He said it has yet to be determined.

“The capital cost will be developed in Step 2 of the Corridor Identification and Development Program, which will begin early in the New Year,” said Frawley.

“There’s a great deal that’s been accomplished,” he said. “We’re wrapping up Step One and about to get into Step Two.”

The three counties will need to reaffirm their support for the project by June, he said. Depending on the corridor alignment selected, The authority will also formalize its relationships with the “host railroads,” Norfolk Southern, and either CSX or SEPTA. The authority will also formalize its relationship with Amtrak.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Amtrak has never made a profit since Congress nationalized the railroads in 1970. The troubled rail system’s ridership plunged during the Covid pandemic. The good news is that 2024 ridership returned to pre-Covid levels, reaching a record high of 32.8 million customer trips.

The bad news is that even with the increased ridership, Amtrak reported a fiscal 2024 operating loss of $705 million.

One concern about the Reading line’s viability is the fact that SEPTA–which provides commuter rail, bus and subway service to a more populous area and with an established base of riders–continues to struggle. Recently, Gov. Josh Shapiro announced an infusion of $153 million in state highway money to SEPTA. Philadelphia, Bucks, Montgomery, Chester, and Delaware counties pledged $22.95 million in additional funding.

Asked about the SRPRA Amtrak project, economist and Independence Institute transportation expert Randal O’Toole called it “absolutely a boondoggle.”

“Buses make far more sense than conventional trains for moving people,” said O’Toole. Philadelphia-Reading is part of Amtrak’s ‘Connects Us’ plan, which was “issued just before Congress gave it billions of dollars for expansions.”

O’Toole “reviewed all of the proposed new services and found that almost all of them were already served by bus lines that were usually faster and charged lower fares than Amtrak would charge. The exception was Philadelphia-Reading, and that was because Pennsylvania regulators have prevented private bus companies from serving this route.

“While Northeast Corridor ridership has recovered from the pandemic, state-subsidized ridership has not. But Amtrak needs to convince states to subsidize operating losses to justify spending the money Congress has given it for the necessary capital improvements to run more trains,” said O’Toole. “Both federal and state taxpayers lose when it succeeds.

“Nor do passenger trains contribute anything to economic development. Consider this: the average American travels 15,000 miles a year by automobile, 2,300 miles a year by plane, several hundred miles a year by non-transit buses, around 100 miles a year by mass transit, 100 miles on foot, and 30 miles by bicycle, but only 19 miles a year by Amtrak. How is increasing that 19 to, say, 20 or 21 miles going to attract economic development? Development goes where the people are, and people are near highways and airports, not railroad tracks.

“The real question is why do we use passenger trains, which are expensive and inflexible, to do things that buses can do for less money and with greater flexibility?” O’Toole asked. “The answer is a combination of nostalgia and pork barrel. If Pennsylvania wants to promote mobility between Reading and Philadelphia, it should get out of the way of private bus companies that are eager to enter that market without any subsidies.” Currently, Amtrak provides bus service for that route.

Nevertheless, the Montgomery County commissioners remain on board.

“It sounds like a complicated but exciting project,” said Montco Chair Jamila Winder. “I look forward to seeing the plans come to fruition.”

Commissioner Tom DiBello, Montgomery County’s representative on the SRPRA board, asked how many other Amtrak corridor program applications “are out there?”

Frawley said there were more than 100 initially. Of those, 69 were accepted. Only two are in Step Two.

“We are anticipating that we will be among the very first nationally to enter Step Two…I think we’ll be among the first to proceed to implementation.”

DiBello added, “We are actually moving at a very rapid pace. We could be one of the leaders nationally in this corridor program.” DiBello, is Montgomery County’s representative on the SRPRA board.

Pennsylvania state senators hammered Norfolk Southern Railway’s chef executive Monday over his company’s recent train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. It also affected Pennsylvania residents just across the state line.

The Senate Veteran’s Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee, chaired by Sen. Doug Mastriano (R-Franklin) and Sen. Katie Muth (D-Berks/Chester/Montgomery), asked Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw a battery of questions about the decision for a controlled burn of rail cars that carried toxic chemicals at the East Palestine derailment site.

“Who specifically in unified command said to do this?” Mastriano asked. “You’re blaming it on the fire chief in East Palestine. Your cars are on fire, it’s your railroad, and you’re going to leave it to the local fire chief who never had to deal with such a catastrophe before? Who said, ‘We’re going to this’?”

Shaw said the decision was made by “unified command” and that “ultimately, the decision falls on the incident commander under consultation with unified command.”

Sen. Tracy Pennycuick (R-Bucks/Montgomery) claimed the committee was “kind of glossing over” the seriousness of the situation in East Palestine just after the derailment.

“I personally think that the fire chief did the right thing,” she argued. “I’ve seen a helicopter explode, and I’ve seen the injuries when we didn’t do a controlled burn and let the fuel out.”

“I’m just trying to see if you can paint a picture for us of what that might have looked like if you had not done a controlled burn,” she said, calling it “important that we all understand what it would have looked like because I think (that) would have been catastrophic in life and property.”

Shaw responded that “the very real concern” at the time “was there would have been an uncontrolled, catastrophic explosion which would have shot vinyl chloride gas which, as you know, is denser than air, throughout the community along with shrapnel.

“So, all the relevant parties got together and modeled the dispersion, the government authorities modeled the dispersion with inputs from a number of sources,” he said.

Shaw added post-burn testing in the area indicated that “it was a success. It worked.” He said Norfolk Southern would compensate residents and businesses for their losses and reimburse them for medical care.

Andrew Whelton, a professor of civil, environmental, and ecological engineering at Purdue University, argued before the committee that the EPA and state agencies are not testing for all the toxic chemicals that might have been released in the incident.

Whelton, who has been studying soil, water, and air samples of the area with a team of volunteer researchers, said if a test is not done for certain cancer-causing chemicals, investigators won’t find them.

“The numbers don’t matter,” he said. “It matters what you test for.”

Mastriano, at one point, claimed that when he visited the site with his staff, their upper respiratory tracts burned and they developed rashes. Residents have told him about various health problems stemming from the wreck, he said.

The committee also heard briefly from railroad accident investigator Robert Comer, who said the railcars that carried the toxic chemicals did not belong to Norfolk Southern but to private companies. He speculated as to whether the railroad had checked those cars for problems before it added them to the train.

A bearing that caught fire is being blamed preliminarily for the derailment. Previously, the National Transportation Safety Board said the train continued running with an overheated bearing for 20 miles before it derailed, despite warning indicators.

Comer said poor track conditions with old, wooden railroad ties could also have played a role in the accident.

Shaw promised to help the residents and clean up the area affected by the derailment.

“I am determined to make this right,” said Shaw. “Norfolk Southern is determined to clean the site safely. We’ll get the job done and help these communities thrive.”

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