A dispute between Amtrak and New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority threatens the full rollout of new Acela trains, Amtrak said in a lawsuit that represents the latest transit dispute between President Donald Trump’s and Gov. Kathy Hochul’s (D) administrations.
The passenger railroad company sued MTA’s Metro-North Railroad on Wednesday alleging that New York transit officials are preventing Amtrak from testing new Acela trains on stretches of track north of New York City.
Amtrak also said it cannot run special track inspection equipment along or move empty trains using the MTA-owned New Haven and Hudson lines.
Amtrak said Metro-North is putting up roadblocks because of an otherwise unrelated dispute between the two railways over liability for damage to an overhead power line that Metro-North blames on one of Amtrak’s NextGen Acela trains.
