Amtrak might cut service over vaccinations
Amtrak will need to reduce service in January unless more employees get vaccinated against COVID-19, the passenger rail system’s president says.
Stephen Gardner says about 95 percent of Amtrak workers are at least partially vaccinated. The rest face a Jan. 4 deadline that the Biden administration set for employees of federal contractors.
If enough employees resist getting the shots, “we anticipate proactively needing to temporarily reduce some train frequencies across our network in January to avoid staffing-related cancellations,” Gardner told a congressional panel Thursday.
Gardner said any service reductions would last until March “or as soon as we have qualified employees available.”
Amtrak cut service and reduced its workforce after travel plummeted because of the pandemic — at its low point last year, ridership fell to 4 percent of its pre-pandemic level.
Gardner said Amtrak has restored most service and about 70 percent of passenger traffic has returned, “but it’s going to take several years” for ridership to return to 2019 numbers. The
exact timing, he said, will depend on how long the pandemic lasts and how quickly business travelers get back on the train.
Amtrak has said it expects to hire 2,500 to 3,500 employees by September 2022, but its own inspector general said this week that the company doesn’t have enough staff or leadership in human resources to recruit, screen and hire those workers. Nearly half of the 64 jobs in talent-acquisition are vacant, leading to hiring delays, the auditor said.