Like many of us in the Association, I ride Amtrak pretty frequently. But also, like many of us in the Association, when I’m on a train I’m not just relaxing and enjoying the ride. I’m observing the rider experience: the permanent way, the traffic we pass, the maintenance of the equipment, the on-board service, and how my fellow passengers seem to feel about their journeys.
So I was intrigued in April while en route to a weekend music festival in Lancaster, PA. I’m not a regular on the Keystone Service and have historically thought of it as basically the same kind of service as the Northeast Regional, but the vibes were totally different as I found a seat and the train pulled out of 30th Street. The staff were the friendliest I’ve ever encountered, even more so than the Virginia-based crews I’m familiar with from trips home. Rather than scanning my ticket with a silent acknowledgment or a curt “welcome aboard,” the conductor asked “Hi, how are you today?” in a tone that conveyed not just customer service training, but genuinely high morale.
Our first stop in Ardmore gave me insight into one possible reason. The conductor’s announcement over the intercom concluded with gleeful enthusiasm: “all doors will open, repeat: ALL DOORS WILL OPEN AT ARDMORE.” Then, as he walked through the car to collect passengers’ ticket slips, an elderly couple seated ahead of me asked if they could get some help down the steps. To which the conductor broke out into a big grin and said “oh don’t worry, they’ve just completed the new high-level platforms, you won’t need to step down.” I could tell he anticipated the couple’s reaction (“Oh my goodness that’s wonderful!”) by his crisply-rehearsed reply: “Yep, they’ve almost finished the new ones at Coatesville, too. Next it’ll be Downingtown and Parkesburg’s turn, and after that every station on the line will be fully accessible!”
The memory of that interaction rattled around my mind in the subsequent weeks. Occasionally it bounced off a couple other thoughts: budget fights in Harrisburg over PennDOT and SEPTA funding, the UP-NS merger application, and the reaction I get when I tell a fellow traveller that I work for the Rail Passengers Association. So at my next opportunity to ride the Keystone in June, I decided to take a closer look. What’s the status of these projects? How visible is the progress on the ground, compared to what the PennDOT website proclaims? What has the Pennsylvania taxpayer gained for the investment their representatives have made?
Recently Completed:
First and most obvious, when I got to 30th Street, I noticed that the scaffolding that had been up in the main hall for so many months had finally come down! The cleaned and repaired ceiling looks gorgeous!
Ardmore is the Keystone’s first stop westbound from Philly, but unfortunately on this trip my train passed through Ardmore without stopping. Even at line speed the just-finished platforms looked obviously brand-new.
Still-Like-New:
As the train continued east, it occurred to me that beyond Ardmore I wasn’t entirely sure what I would be looking for. Arriving in Paoli, the platform looked new-ish, albeit with some chipped paint here and there, but the pedestrian bridge is unmistakably fresh brick and clean windows. When we got to Exton, the Eastbound platform on the opposite side looked nearly as new as the one at Ardmore. A similar story when we stopped at Mount Joy further down the line. The project website somewhat surprised me that all of those improvements had been completed back in 2019-2020; for being seven years old, they still look in great shape. It’s clear they were built to last.
Elizabethtown is where one would expect to see how well these improvements will age, because it was the first station along the line where work was completed. The station building was renovated back in 2011, a new parking lot and multi-use path finished in 2015, and the most recent feature is a parking payment system which became operational in February. But even 15 years out, the facilities still feel fresh. The entrances on both sides of the tracks look almost-new, the pedestrian access is holding up well against the elements, the bathrooms are clean, the wooden benches are comfortable, the water fountain works, the elevators up to the platforms are smooth, and the platforms themselves have held up well. The parking lot is, well, a parking lot. Overall, even without looking too hard you get a visual sense that these improvements aren’t just one-and-done projects to paper over more glaring defects, but serious investments in the line’s future.
Visibly In-Progress:
I can become irrationally happy when I see active work happening on a construction site, so Coatesville was a treat. The current station sits on a curve, which is only suitable for low-level platforms. Therefore PennDOT is building an entirely new station, one block East of the old one, where straight track allows high-level platforms. The train’s deceleration provided a nice long look at the improvements: concrete ties replacing wooden ones under the tracks, the new platforms’ concrete surfaces cured and painted, the new canopies just about completely installed, and workers actively installing fixtures like lampposts and signage.
Then the old station comes into view, and you immediately understand why these investments are such a priority. The original station buildings are not just closed, but boarded up and visibly deteriorating. The low-level platform is crisscrossed by a spiderweb of cracks patched with tar. The characteristic trackside stair-step blocks look more like tripping hazards than accessibility aids.
Lancaster is one of my favorite stations anywhere in the Amtrak system. It’s not my home station, but the wide above-track concourse with wooden benches, cream-painted walls, brass fittings, and history displays make it feel like home - like Baltimore Penn, but a bit more cozy. As such, on my previous trip in April I somehow totally missed the ongoing construction work extending that concourse over the Westbound tracks to the parking lot on the North side, and on this trip I resolved to keep my eyes open for it.
What fascinated me was that the visible construction at Lancaster is significantly further along than what the pictures on the PennDOT website show. Foundation work North of the tracks has been finished for a few months, but by now the steel frames of the elevator shaft and stairwell have reached the level of the concourse. Inside, the construction area is kept discreet by a set of temporary panels at the far end. Even though there isn’t a completion date listed on the website, the visible pace of progress suggests it won’t be long.
Still-to-Come:
Downingtown will be getting a similar treatment to Coatesville, with a brand-new station a half-mile East of the existing site, both to accommodate high-level platforms away from a curve and to improve road and pedestrian connections across the Main Line. Preliminary construction activities were supposed to have begun only a couple weeks before my trip, with utility relocations and modifications to the overhead wires being staged at the new station site. It’s a little hard to tell where those activities are occurring unless you know where to look, but you can’t miss the old station – much like Coatesville, it clearly needs an upgrade.
Parkesburg will be the last station to receive its makeover, which is still in the preliminary design phase, and thus construction activity isn’t yet visible. What did stand out is the comparison between the eastbound and westbound platforms on each leg of the trip. As rough as the old station building looks on the eastbound track, the canopy on the westbound track somehow looks in even worse shape.
Over the Horizon:
I didn’t make it far enough to see any of the projects PennDOT categorizes as "Keystone West" which in any case are all beyond the Keystone Service’s terminus in Harrisburg but should enable additional frequencies on the Pennsylvanian. Regardless of their construction status, those improvements are noticeable. The UP-NS merger application specifically cites many of those same PennDOT investments when claiming that the old Pennsylvania Railroad Main Line will soon have enough capacity for up to 8 new freight trains every day between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh. I’ve raised this question in conversations about our Association’s position and strategy around the merger: should we be ok with NS describing public improvements intended for passenger rail, as a capacity benefit for their freight trains? Is NS merely joining the general public in celebrating the benefits that Pennsylvania’s investments in rail have brought to the whole Commonwealth? Or are they admitting that their negotiations with PennDOT over these projects were really about getting a state government and its taxpayers to subsidize their capital expenses to the tune of billions of dollars?
The Stark Contrast - SEPTA:
At stations where the Keystone doesn’t stop, for the most part conditions look little better than the old facilities at Downingtown, Coatesville, and Parkesburg…maybe even worse. It’s hard to tell as we pass by at line speed. But it’s telling in light of the budget battles in Harrisburg in recent years: Amtrak (and maybe NS) gets upgrades, while SEPTA gets cuts, and that contrast is highly visible to the passenger.
But the contrast is also visible elsewhere. I spent the evening before my trip on the Keystone visiting friends in Germantown, a neighborhood in the Northwest part of Philly. On my walk from the SEPTA station, I was surprised to see yard signs for the Chestnut Hill Community Association, which read simply “Save the Train.” It was too dark to get a picture, but visiting their website, you’ll find op-eds, letters, and sample comments from 2023 and 2024 opposing cuts on the Chestnut Hill East and West Lines, encouraging folks to offer comments at public meetings, and celebrating each victory that has kept the service running each year. But what struck me is that this isn’t a dedicated rail advocacy org. It’s a neighborhood association, a group of ordinary citizens who care about their community enough to engage in the democratic process to fight for it. Their attitude to trains is the same as their attitude toward parks or community centers or other civic infrastructure: even if they don’t use it every day, they are glad it exists, and they want to see it perform the best that it can.
When I’m not riding a train, and I tell someone I work for the Rail Passengers Association, they always pepper me with questions about Amtrak, but maybe not the questions my fellow rail advocates might expect. Far from complaining about the current service or lamenting the demise of trains long past, they always ask about the future: when they can expect new trains, or how long we’ll be stuck with trains constrained by the freight railroads. The general public, even those who don’t regularly ride Amtrak, seems to understand Amtrak’s situation better than we often give them credit for.
I don’t want to make too much of a distinction between rail advocates and the general public. It is certainly true that many of us are more interested in trains than most people, and our opinions can at times seem arcane or in-the-weeds. But every so often we find ourselves singing the same tune as regular folks, when the state of our passenger rail system becomes a visible issue. Whether we’re celebrating the impact of major investments, or fighting the good fight to keep service alive, that visibility matters. It distills all our arguments into a simple, salient point: Americans want better train service, and when they can see the impact of that service for themselves, that builds momentum to keep progress rolling.
Excellent story, John! Seemingly small victories do add up.👍
Great insights. Thanks