NEW YORK (AP) — Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner swiftly resigned from his most sensible publish on the U.S. passenger railroad this week.Wednesday’s announcement signaled that the management exchange got here all the way down to Amtrak keeping up improve from U.S. President Donald Trump. In a remark, Gardner stated he was once stepping down “to make certain that Amtrak continues to benefit from the complete religion and self assurance of this management.”A successor for Gardner was once now not instantly named. Gardner’s departure additionally arrives simply weeks after billionaire Elon Musk floated the theory of privatizing Amtrak, in addition to the U.S. Postal Carrier, at a Morgan Stanley tech convention previous this month. Musk, who has been at the vanguard of the Trump management’s competitive push to downsize the government throughout the Division of Govt Potency, reportedly referred to as Amtrak “more or less embarrassing” — whilst evaluating the U.S. service to passenger rails observed in different nations, comparable to bullet trains in China.
When reached for touch upon Thursday, the Transportation Division didn’t supply additional main points explicit to Gardner’s resignation. A remark from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy took goal at Amtrak’s Washington D.C. operations — calling on Amtrak’s management to “blank up Union Station” and “rid of our country’s treasures of homelessness and crime.”
Mentioning unnamed assets accustomed to the subject, Reuters reported Wednesday that Gardner was once requested to step down on the request of Trump, who up to now sought to chop Amtrak’s funds in his first time period.
When reached Thursday, Amtrak declined to touch upon whether or not Gardner was once requested to surrender. However in Wednesday’s announcement, the Amtrak board mentioned that it seemed ahead to “operating with President Trump and Secretary Duffy as we construct the world-class passenger rail device this nation merits.”Gardner first were given his get started with Amtrak as an intern again within the 90s. He later returned and labored on the rail provider for the previous 16 years, protecting the identify of CEO since January 2022.
Amtrak struggled right through the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic — with the railroad seeing plummeting ridership as folks around the nation stopped touring and stayed house. However passenger numbers have lately rebounded to pre-pandemic ranges.For the 2024 fiscal 12 months, Amtrak reported an all-time ridership file of 32.8 million buyer journeys. That’s up 15% from 2023 — and surpasses Amtrak’s earlier file of 32.4 million passengers in 2019.Price ticket earnings for the 2024 fiscal 12 months totaled $2.5 billion, a 9% bounce from 2023. And Amtrak posted an adjusted operated lack of $705.2 million, additionally a 9% growth year-over-year.
