Mapping Amtrak Service, Before and After the Trump Budget

Among the many groups of Americans who are eyeing President Donald Trump’s proposed budget with acute anxiety: rail travelers. The 2018 budget outline includes a 13 percent cut to the Department of Transportation, which would eliminate federal subsidies for long-distance Amtrak routes and likely erase train travel among hundreds of cities and towns.

What might the future landscape of U.S. passenger rail look like? For an answer we turn to Will Geary, who’s drawn out a fine side-by-side comparison of today’s Amtrak routes and those that would remain after such cuts took effect. At left, the visualization shows a typical week of Amtrak trips based on the latest available GTFS data. At right is the same week but excluding the 15 national routes threatened by the White House, including the Silver Star running from New York to Miami, the Empire Builder from Chicago to the Pacific Northwest, and the Sunset Limited from Louisiana to California.