President Joe Biden — perhaps the nation’s biggest Amtrak fan — is set to promote new federal investments for trains on the heavily trafficked Northeast Corridor.

The Democratic president is headed to Bear, Delaware, on Monday to announce more than $16 billion in new funding that will go toward 25 passenger rail projects between Boston and Washington, the White House says. Bear is located about 12 miles (20 kilometers) from Biden’s home of Wilmington.

His remarks will be held at the Amtrak Bear Maintenance Shops, where trains are maintained and repaired. The investments, the White House says, will help trains run faster, cut delays and create union jobs.

  • Igloojoe@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Railroads have always been business owned. So acquiring land is expensive for them. Highways and interstates are government owned. So they just forced owners to accept the appraised value.

    • Redscare867
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      1 year ago

      And for whatever reason you think we couldn’t do literally the exact same thing we did with highways to build nationalized rail?

      • Igloojoe@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I wish we did. It seems logical that railroads should be government run transit option.

      • AA5B@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        We could call it, let’s see, hmmm …. America’s Track? I wish there was a way to shorten that …. AmeriTrack? … AmRail?

        • Redscare867
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          1 year ago

          You might be on to something, but I gotta say this all sounds vaguely familiar for some reason 🤔

    • grue@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Do you have even the slightest idea how much land we already have for railroads that already existed but have been abandoned?

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      No they aren’t. Amtrak is literally a publicly owned company. Basically all passenger rail in the United States is Amtrak in the modern era