Amtrak has seen nothing like it in its 50-year history: President Biden's proposal to spend $80 billion to get the creaky railroad back on track.

If approved by Congress, the money would improve Amtrak service in New York and around the country, for example, funding a new line between Penn Station and the Poconos, part of a plan to bring passenger rail service to dozens of additional communities around the U.S.

What You Need To Know

  • President Biden is proposing a $2 trillion infrastructure spending plan

  • The plan calls for $80 billion on rail, specifically, Amtrak repairs and upgrades

  • Amtrak released a map of new routes, including in New York from Penn Station to Scranton and Allentown, Pennsylvania
  • The money could also help pay for new tunnels underneath the Hudson River

"The fact that it strikes people as a fantastical plan should tell us very grim things about our ambition as Americans for infrastructure," said Sean Jeans-Gail, vice president at the Rail Passengers Association.

Biden, who famously commuted from Delaware to Washington on Amtrak as a U.S. Senator, included the funding in the $2 trillion infrastructure plan he proposed last week.

Amtrak then released a map it calls its vision for the railroad in 2035.

"We have kind of that built in name recognition, that built in responsibility, that built in reputation that allows people, nationally, locally, to have the capacities in place and we have the expertise in order to operate those new routes," Jason Abrams, Amtrak spokesman, said.

It included reviving old routes from Penn Station to Scranton and Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Experts say $80 billion could benefit passengers, if it produces a faster, reliable ride.

"Those routes, historically, were not fast, they were slow. They go through hilly territory," Joseph Clift, a railroad advocate and former LIRR planning director, said. "If you're going to build a route, you want it, when you're done, to have a route that's competitive, speed wise, time wise."

Alone, Amtrak could spend more than $45 billion on upgrading the Northeast Corridor, which stretches from Boston to New York to Washington, and is Amtrak's most popular route.

High on Amtrak's list is replacing tunnels under the Hudson River that are more than a century old, a project that the Trump administration refused to act on. They're not the only tnnels needing an upgrade.

"We have a tunnel outside of Baltimore that if you're using the Northeast Corridor to get anywhere between D.C. and New York City, you got to go through those tunnels, they were built in the Civil War," said Jeans-Gail, of the Rail Passengers Association.

The aging tunnels are responsible for bottlenecks and delays. Addressing them could make Amtrak even more competitive with the cars, bus and air travel in the Northeast.

"This $80 billion would go an awful long way towards addressing those key choke points that make the experience a frustrating delay-plagued experience at times," Jeans-Gail said.