About Amtrak  >  The Future of Amtrak

Amtrak is delivering historic results today because of the commitment of our employees and loyalty of our customers, all while the scale of our responsibilities and the expectations of our customers, partners and stakeholders continue to grow. Our structure must evolve to deliver to the needs of the traveling public.

As part of Amtrak's ongoing initiative to modernize passenger rail and Amtrak’s commitment to transparency and stakeholder engagement, company leaders provided an update on the proposed Transformation Initiative during the Sept. 9 Public Board Meeting.

To help provide broader access to this information and additional context on the work underway, Amtrak is sharing links to both the meeting recording and transcript.

Amtrak is providing additional detail regarding the proposed organizational framework. Please review the information here: Preliminary Function by Proposed Entity (PDF)

Read the Transcript (PDF)

The preliminary framework would transform key parts of the organization into smaller, more focused businesses centered on passenger rail's most critical activities: infrastructure, passenger rail services and fleet. A parent company would provide overall governance, strategic direction and coordination among the three subsidiaries.

Each proposed function* below would have its own specific responsibilities and performance measures:

*These are working titles and subject to change

The proposed structure is designed to:

• Bring greater visibility into business performance and costs
• Enable faster and better-informed decisions
• Align decision-making authority with responsibility and results

Importantly, this transformation is about building on Amtrak’s strengths: creating a more accountable, focused and agile company built to carry more passengers, support more service and deliver stronger financial performance.

The three groups would be closely connected and interdependent, with the parent company keeping the organization aligned around Amtrak’s mission and the end-to-end customer experience. Our service lines — Northeast Corridor, State Supported, Long Distance and Ancillary — will remain central to how we serve customers and partners.

The proposed structure is not designed to:

• This is not privatization. Amtrak will continue to be a federally chartered corporation, operated and managed as a for-profit company, with the U.S. government as its controlling shareholder.
• This would not be designed to increase bureaucracy. The new structure would help focus activities to be faster, simpler and more effective.

Rest assured there will be no immediate change to our service, customer experience or day-to-day operations  as a result of these structural changes. Amtrak will remain focused on operating safely, serving customers, meeting ridership and financial commitments and delivering critical fleet, station and infrastructure projects.

This restructure does not require any changes to federal law and is entirely consistent with current U.S. Code. For example, Amtrak’s new structure will continue to reflect our mission and goals provided to us by the U.S. Congress, and all our general authorities, governance and the various directives included in federal law will still apply. There is sound precedent for Amtrak having legal subsidiaries, as is already the case today, and for updating its organizational structure, which has occurred several times since its creation.