‘Amtrak Joe’ Biden touts $16B for passenger rail projects

BEAR, Del. >> President Joe Biden — perhaps the nation’s biggest Amtrak fan — headed to Delaware today to tout new federal investments for trains on the heavily trafficked Northeast Corridor.

The president visited Bear, Delaware, to announce more than $16 billion in new funding that will go toward 25 passenger rail projects between Boston and Washington, the White House says. Bear is located about 12 miles from Biden’s home of Wilmington.

His remarks will be held at the Amtrak Bear Maintenance Shops, where trains are maintained and repaired. The investments, the White House says, will help trains run faster, cut delays and create union jobs.

The money comes from the roughly $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law that Biden signed nearly two years ago, one of several legislative achievements that the president is touting as he gears up for his reelection bid. From the law, Amtrak will get about $66 billion in new investments, according to the White House.

During his 36 years as a U.S. senator, Biden traveled back and forth from Wilmington to Washington daily. The president has said that he has logged more than 1 million miles on Amtrak during his public service career.

“Amtrak wasn’t just a way to get home to family,” Biden said at an infrastructure event in Baltimore earlier this year. “The conductors, the engineers — they literally became my family.”

There are about 800,000 trips daily on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, the White House says, which makes it the busiest rail corridor in the United States.