All aboard Amtrak’s sleeker, cleaner new trains

Amtrak is rolling out 83 new trainsets, called Airo, starting this fall. The first eight will run on the Cascades route connecting Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver, B.C. The trains will eventually reach more than a dozen routes across New England, Pennsylvania, and the mid-Atlantic. Built by Siemens, the $8 billion investment includes trains that can hit speeds up to 125 mph and can switch between diesel and electric power without swapping locomotives. That should cut wait times on routes like the Northeast Regional, where trains currently sit at Washington's Union Station for up to an hour while crews change engines.

The new locomotives meet the EPA's strictest emissions rules for trains (Tier 4), cutting particulate matter and nitrogen oxide even where the diesel engines are still used on unelectrified track. Rail already uses relatively little energy compared to how many people it moves, and cleaner locomotives push that efficiency further. The Cascades trains will also carry more passengers than the current cars, which advocates say could support more frequent service in the Pacific Northwest.

This is a federal infrastructure story more than a household one, so there's nothing here that requires action on your part. But if you live near one of the routes getting new trains — the Pacific Northwest first, with the Northeast Regional getting them in 2027 — you may notice faster trips, more capacity, and fewer delays tied to engine swaps in the coming years. Funding for the rollout includes $3 billion recently awarded to Amtrak by the federal government, even as separate funding cuts to passenger rail have been proposed.