Mobilize the Charlestown Choo-choo Panic Team!

Amtrak will ask Providence crowd about improving rail service between New Haven and Providence

Adriana Vossari, RI & Local Government

Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA) has a special
interest in raising the alarm over what was never
a serious threat, an issue that died 10 years ago. CCA
leader Ruth Platner has tried FIVE TIMES to rev up
fear in town as a political maneuver.
- Will Collette, editor 

Providence is one endpoint of a federally funded study that could shape future capacity on the rail corridor Amtrak and MBTA trains share, and Saturday's pop-up is the nearest chance for Rhode Islanders to comment in person.

Staff from the New Haven to Providence Capacity Planning Study will set up a public pop-up in downtown Providence on Saturday, taking questions and collecting comments from noon to 6 p.m. during PVDFest. According to an event notice posted by the Town of Charlestown, the table will be on Washington Street between Mathewson and Clemence streets. The notice, which is undated, directs people who cannot attend to submit comments through the project website. PVDFest's own schedule lists the festival for September 18 and 19.

The pop-up is one piece of an Amtrak-led planning study of rail capacity along the Northeast Corridor between New Haven and Providence. The study's website says the work began in mid-2026 and will run roughly 24 months of engagement, coordination and analysis. If that schedule holds, the analysis period would extend into about mid-2028.

What the study is not, at this stage, matters as much as what it is. Amtrak said in its July 7 launch announcement that there is no preconceived preferred alignment and no preferred set of improvements. The June 2026 Outreach and Engagement Plan states that the study will not include detailed engineering, environmental permitting, land acquisition or construction. A federal environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act is not part of it either. Anything that eventually got built would require its own separate planning, design and environmental approvals.

Charlestown invites residents to meet the team behind Amtrak's New Haven to Providence Capacity Planning Study

Charlestown Asks Residents to Face the Boogeyman

Adriana Vossari, RI & Local Government News

The study covers the rail corridor through southern Rhode Island and could shape future track alignments, speeds and service. Charlestown residents have a direct channel to comment while the work is still at the conceptual stage.

The Town of Charlestown is inviting residents to meet with the Amtrak team running a new study of the rail corridor between New Haven and Providence — the same 65-mile stretch that produced a proposal a decade ago to cut a high-speed bypass straight through town.

The invitation appears on the town's website under the heading "Public Invitation: Amtrak Northeast Corridor Study Team Community Engagement." Charlestown has maintained a dedicated page for Amtrak matters since the last round of federal rail planning, including an email address, amtrak-comments@charlestownri.org, for residents who want their comments on the record with the town.

The study itself began in May and is scheduled to run through May 2028, according to Amtrak's announcement of the New Haven to Providence Capacity Planning Study. It covers the Northeast Corridor main line between the two cities plus the connecting corridor through Hartford toward Springfield, and it accounts for Amtrak intercity trains, CTrail's Shore Line East and Hartford Line, and MBTA commuter rail. The Federal Railroad Administration awarded Amtrak up to $4 million on November 6, 2023, to complete the work.

What the study will and will not do matters for anyone worried about their property. Amtrak says the current phase is limited to conceptual design and analysis of alternatives. It does not include detailed engineering, land acquisition or construction. Any improvements that come out of it would then have to move through the CONNECT NEC and Capital Investment Plan processes, and later stages would depend on funding that has not been appropriated.

Amtrak also states plainly that the study "does not include a preconceived preferred alternative alignment or set of improvements," and that it will not build on NEC Future, the 2012-2017 federal planning effort. The company's own summary acknowledges that the earlier process was "unable to undertake the levels of public engagement necessary to respond to concerns raised by the public regarding that proposal."

That proposal is why Charlestown pays attention. In December 2016, the FRA published a Tier 1 Final Environmental Impact Statement naming the "Old Saybrook to Kenyon Bypass" as a preferred alternative. New track would have entered Charlestown from Westerly, crossed the town from its western edge to its eastern edge, and rejoined the existing line near the Great Swamp State Wildlife Management Area in South Kingstown. The route ran through Burdickville village, the Carter Preserve, the Revolutionary-era Amos Green Farm, tribal land and Historic Columbia Heights housing.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Amtrak is facing handicaps at least as severe as they were in 2017 with train-hating Donald Trump in the White House and conservative Republicans in control of Congress. With no funding or political support, the Kenyon Bypass never stood a chance.  - Will Collette

Town officials learned about it from news coverage. An online petition against the plan gathered more than 1,500 signatures within days. A public meeting in Charlestown on January 10, 2017 drew more than 400 residents along with state and federal staff. Two weeks later, Charlestown and Westerly council members led a delegation of residents to the State House.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Charlestown Citizens Alliance leader and Town Council President Tom Gentz admitted publicly that Charlestown had received earlier notice in a large document that he and his CCA colleagues had failed to read.  - Will Collette

On July 12, 2017, the FRA issued a Record of Decision that removed the track realignment proposal from the New Haven-to-Providence section and instead directed Connecticut and Rhode Island to collaborate on a capacity planning study. That is the study now underway. It was the win Charlestown wanted, and it also created the process that could revisit alignment questions.

The corridor's underlying problems have not changed: limited capacity and curved shoreline track that holds down train speeds.

Amtrak plans roughly 30 outreach events across the study area, beginning with appearances at community events this summer, and says it will form a public advisory committee. Not everyone is satisfied with that approach. Gregory Stroud, editor-in-chief of CT Examiner, who helped lead the opposition to the earlier proposal, has questioned whether pop-up appearances can adequately explain a complicated planning process, and said his concerns extend to how the study itself is structured.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Stroud and his CCA collaborator Ruth Platner have attempted to keep this issue alive for their own purposes even though the Kenyon Bypass issue flatlined almost a decade ago. It has helped Stroud build readership for his website and helped Platner whip up fear among the Charlestown electorate.  - Will Collette

Amtrak has set up a project website and email address where residents can ask questions, submit feedback, ask about upcoming public meetings and sign up for periodic updates. Charlestown residents who want their input logged locally as well can write to the town's Amtrak comment address. The full announcement of the study is posted on Amtrak's media site, and the town's Amtrak page collects the 2016-2017 record at charlestownri.gov.

Election Year means Ruth Platner powers up the Charlestown Choo Choo for the 5th time

Enough with the irresponsible fearmongering!

By Will Collette

Since its founding in 2008, the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA) used fear to gain control over Charlestown town government and to stay in power for a decade until its ouster in the 2022 general election.

The CCA’s leader and founder, Ruth Platner, has an extraordinary record of conjuring up enemies and boogeymen that only she and the CCA can conquer. As chair of Charlestown's Planning Commission, she has a platform to spread false fear. However, over the years, just about all these existential threats have been either imaginary or grossly exaggerated.

Ruth’s most persistent boogeyman has been trumped up fear that Amtrak will cut a swath through northern Charlestown, obliterating precious farmland as well as natural and historic treasures. Amtrak gave this boogeyman a name when they included it in a 2016 draft preliminary long-term plan: “the Old Saybrook-Kenyon Bypass.” I call it the “Charlestown Choo-Choo Hoax” because it was a goofy plan that never had chance of happening.

She's trying to raise this dead issue again, as you can read for yourself HERE. This was posted on Saturday and is her third post on the Charlestown Choo-Choo in the past month.

A stretch of the Northeast Corridor between New Haven and Westerly runs right along the shoreline in Connecticut. In my last job before retirement, I commuted to Manhattan several times a month, always taking the train and loving every minute of its passage through the salt marshes between the Westerly station and New London. I’d ride on the seaward side, count osprey nests and wonder at the beauty of that stretch, easily my favorite of any between Boston and Richmond, VA.

But that section of track faces natural destruction, either in some major storm or from climate-driven sea level rise, severing the Northeast Corridor rail line. It will have to be replaced.

The Old Saybrook-Kenyon Bypass was an option offered in an Amtrak in a 2016 planning document that the CCA-controlled town government failed to read. As CCA leader and Town Council President Tom Gentz said at the time, “Who has time to wade through that?”

People in eastern Connecticut were the first to begin protesting the plan. In January 2017, chagrined CCA leaders tried to catch up by painting the Old Saybrook-Kenyon Bypass as the end of the world as we know it, at least for Charlestown.

I tried to point out the chances of the Bypass were slim to none, given that newly elected Donald Trump hates trains and would never commit to a multi-billion infrastructure project in the ultra-Blue northeast. The project had no Congressional support, and in fact, Congress drastically cut Amtrak funding for Northeast Corridor improvements.

I speculated at the time that the Bypass would only be built if Trump privatized Amtrak and sold it either to Elon Musk or one of his sons.

Look, nobody liked the Bypass. I didn’t like the Bypass. Even Amtrak began distancing themselves from it. They quickly issued a legally binding Record of Decision in July 2017 effectively killing the plan only six months after Charlestown first heard of it.

That should have been the end of it. But Ruth Platner felt the CCA got so much mileage out of supposedly blocking this sketchy threat that she keeps trying to revive it to help the CCA make a political comeback. This is the fifth time she's tried to fire up Charlestown over this dead project.

Look back at Platner’s 2021 claim that “They’re Back!” See how she tried to stir the pot again in 2022 and especially weird move in 2024 attempting to use AI to simulate what a new rail line would look like.

She's at it again, recycling the same claims of a Charlestown Armageddon. On May 26, she wrote (her emphasis included):

“Amtrak made an announcement on May 21, 2026, that the study required by the FRA’s 2017 Record of Decision had finally received federal government and other funding to proceed. Amtrak estimates that the study—the New Haven to Providence Capacity Planning Study—will take up to two years.

“… The selection of the new preferred alternative will be the outcome of the study. We’ll keep you updated as we learn more, and we may also need your help in contacting our federal and state officials as we move through the planning process. We are committed to protecting Charlestown and the natural resources and public and private property that would be destroyed if anything like the “Old Saybrook to Kenyon Bypass” returns.”

I suggest you read the actual report HERE: New Haven to Providence Capacity Planning Study.

I read it. Carefully. Line by line. Guess what I found? 

Nothing, absolutely nothing about the Old Saybrook-Kenyon bypass that died 10 years ago. It’s as if it never existed. This supposedly alarming document is nothing more than a watered-down version of Amtrak's ongoing effort to try to figure out how to improve service from New Haven to Providence. On June 20, Platner's shocking reveal is that Amtrak has created a website! OMG, the horror!

But in the actual report, the only concrete item I found in the report pertaining to our area was support for making the popular improvements at the Westerly Amtrak station that our state Senator Victoria Gu has been campaigning for.

So, Ruth: STOP IT! Sure, CCA’s formula for winning elections is to claim there are monsters under every bed that only you can kill. But your cynical attempts to manipulate people’s fears come at a terrible cost.

Here's what I mean: 

From 1982 to 1999, I was organizing director for two national environmental groups, first at Lois Gibbs' Center for Health and Environmental Justice, then the Citizens Coal Council. I worked with local citizens' groups to fight hazardous waste dumps, incinerators, coal mines, sludge lagoons and more. These fights were very intense, so intense that I learned early on that they could cause marriages to break up and, in some cases, suicide. 

My staff and I were careful to NEVER exaggerate or fear-monger because that only increases the stress. I'm already hearing that Platner's irresponsible efforts to jack up tension over the Charlestown Choo-Choo is indeed doing just that.

And if that's not convincing, just look at what Donald Trump's lies and exaggerated threats are doing to his followers and the rest of the country.

During the 2024 election, I catalogued all the various threats Platner has used over the years: How the Charlestown Citizens Alliance used fake enemies and bogus emergencies to gain and keep power.

Looks like I’m going to need to do an updated version.

Support commuter rail service in Westerly

 

Westerly train station and commuter rail update from Sen. Victoria Gu

Bring better rail service to our area!

Action Alert: Support Westerly Station Upgrades in the State Rail Plan Update

Respond to the Survey

The RI Department of Transportation has posted a ~5 minute online survey for its update of the State Rail Plan at this link: https://surveys.piopinions.com/SE/1/RIDOT/ This is a key opportunity to show RIDOT that a lot of people care about the extension of commuter rail to Westerly and the Westerly Station high-level platform upgrade! Please take a few minutes to fill out the survey and let RIDOT know you’d like to travel between Westerly and other points such as the Connecticut Shoreline (including Mystic), TF Green Airport, and Providence. Be sure to let them know you’d like trains to stop at Westerly more frequently throughout the day, too Updates on Westerly Station: We’ve been on a roll lately- Charlestown Town Council passed a resolution supporting the Westerly Station high-level platform upgrade, so almost all of the adjacent communities in RI and CT are on record supporting it! The Westerly Station upgrades have also been incorporated into the State Transportation Improvement Plan (STIP) and are being finalized in the Long Range Transportation Plan (LRTP). Amtrak has also completed some engineering work in the design of the platforms. All of this gives legitimacy to the project in terms of its readiness for funding (which we are pushing Amtrak and the federal government for) Next commuter rail working group meeting scheduled for: Monday Nov 10, 9:30am at Westerly Library 2nd Floor

The new NextGen Acela trains promise faster travel and more seats – but arrive as US rail faces an uncertain future

Will they be enough to help Amtrak survive Donald Trump and hostile Republican Congress?

David Alff, University at Buffalo

The new Acela trains are scheduled to start running on
the Northeast Corridor soon.  Courtesy of Amtrak

When President Joe Biden unveiled his US$1.9 trillion infrastructure plan in 2021, he found the perfect place to go public: Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station rail yard.

Over the din of crackling wires and grumbling engines, the president made his case for revitalizing the country’s roads, ports, airports and rail lines.

Behind Biden sat rows of gleaming Amtrak trains. Among them was a prototype of NextGen Acela, a sleek machine engineered to deliver the fastest passenger service in American history.

On Aug. 28, 2025, NextGen will finally hit the rails, after years of delays.

As the author of a book on the Northeast Corridor, the rail line that connects Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, I know this new train cannot come soon enough for many seaboard riders, even though it launches at a time of diminished political will for passenger rail.

Rail renaissance under fire

Red headrests distinguish first-class cars from business class on the
NextGen Acela trains. Courtesy of Amtrak

The French-designed, American-manufactured NextGen arrives years late due to mechanical defects and failed simulation tests mandated by the Federal Railroad Administration. The new Acela will begin whisking passengers along the corridor after a chaotic year that saw downed wires, busted circuit breakers and brushfires disrupt Amtrak operations.

Gone is Amtrak’s White House champion, railfan-in-chief Biden, replaced by Donald Trump, whose one-time adviser, Elon Musk, called Amtrak a “sad situation,” and who proposed replacing the government-owned carrier with private competitors.

Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner resigned in March 2025, and, in May, Amtrak cut 450 employee positions.

NextGen Acela promises an American rail renaissance in a moment when federally sponsored trains are fighting for their lives, as Biden’s infrastructure ambitions fall to an administration bent on cutting government costs.

These contradictions, however, are nothing new.

Deadline for comments is Wednesday, July 30

Action Alert: Make Your Voice Heard for Upgrading Westerly Station

From state Senator Victoria Gu

Westerly Station has been really busy this summer, with dozens of people getting on, some struggling with suitcases and narrow stairs. I tried bringing my bike on board, and it was a little difficult with stairs! That’s why upgrading the station with high-level platforms is a no-brainer for Westerly. It helps people get on and off the train safely and is a big win for accessibility.

The RI Division of Statewide Planning has opened the public comment period for its 2026-2035 State Transportation Improvement Program. The deadline to comment is July 30th at 4pm

Please send in a comment using the link below expressing your support for the Westerly Platform project. It could be as simple as saying “I support the Westerly Platform project and would like to see these upgrades as soon as possible”. 

The draft plan already calls for the construction of high-level platforms at Westerly Station, which is a prerequisite to extending Shore Line East to Westerly (Connecticut’s commuter rail currently runs from NYC to New London).

The more enthusiasm that Rhode Island sees for the project, both from RI and CT residents, the more likely it is to make it a priority. The sooner the platforms are upgraded, the sooner we can extend Shore Line East to Rhode Island!

Send in your comment in support!

Prepare yourself for another episode of the Charlestown Choo-choo

Article in the ProJo may give temporary life to a dead issue

By Will Collette

There’s an article in the July 15 edition of the Providence Journal by Patrick Anderson entitled “Will Amtrak ever improve its Northeast Corridor through Providence? Where it stands.” Judging from the past, there is a pretty good chance we may again see some extreme anxiety in Charlestown over the content of this article. 

Since 2017, the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA) has used the specter of what was called “the Old Saybrook-Kingston Bypass” to stir panic in Charlestown that Amtrak would destroy the northern half of town by building a new rail line to accommodate high-speed Acela trains.

The current Amtrak line from New Haven to Westerly currently runs dangerously close to the shore. While that makes it a truly spectacular trip through coastal salt marsh, the line is vulnerable to washouts either quickly in a hurricane or slowly through sea level rise.

The Bypass was never a real threat to Charlestown because it was publicly revealed after the 2016 election that led to Donald Trump's first term. Then as now, Trump also had a Republican-controlled Congress. Trump notoriously hates trains (unless they burn coal) and the Republican Congress was as reluctant then to fund Amtrak as it is now, never mind a new rail line through Charlestown.

Indeed, the only apparent interest in rail policy by either the Trump regime or the current Congress is to sell Amtrak to some oligarch. Ironically, such a sale may be the only scenario that could actually revive any rail modernization or expansion as I suggested in THIS ARTICLE.

But Anderson’s ProJo piece contains this section that may lead Ruth Platner and the CCA to press the red Charlestown Choo-choo panic button:

And the Transit Costs Project plan revives the proposed "Kenyon Bypass" through southwest Rhode Island and southeast Connecticut that engendered fierce local opposition a decade ago.

In fact, the new plan would extend the bypass – which starts near Kingston Station and mostly follows the path of Interstate 95 – all the way to New Haven instead of returning to the current alignment at Old Saybrook, Connecticut like the version studied a decade ago in the Federal Railroad Administration's NEC Future planning.

To alleviate some of the opposition that helped scuttle the bypass in 2017, the Transit Costs Project plan would move new tracks north of I-95 through Old Lyme to reduce disruptions to that Connecticut town. 

The bypass is estimated to cost $5 billion and save 32 minutes of travel time, while alleviating concerns about flooding of the current low-lying coastal alignment. Upgrading the Providence and Stoughton lines is estimated to cost $250 million to $300 million.

But before Charlestown residents once again succumb to CCA-induced panic, take a closer look. First, remember these facts:

·       🚂The actual Amtrak Northeast Corridor plan is “at least two years from being completed,” according to Anderson and, in my opinion, will probably be abandoned by the Trump regime.

·       🚂The $17 billion Northeast Corridor plan has no funding. In fact, Congress cut total Amtrak funding for Northeast Corridor operations from a total of $1.14 billion to only $850 million in the Big Beautiful Boondoggle Bill.

·       🚂The latest version of the bypass, laid out in a recent report by The Transit Costs Project, proposes new track be laid well north of the original Old Saybrook-Kingston bypass. It would skip over Lyme, CT, Westerly and possibly even Kingston.

·       🚂Further, Charlestown Town Council President Deb Carney has stayed in regular contact with the RI Department of Transportation to closely monitor any new developments and none have been forthcoming. She has reached out to RIDOT specifically about Anderson’s article but, as we go to press, she has not heard back.

Let’s take a look at the actual map in the Transit Costs report that spurred Anderson to say the Kenyon Bypass has been "revived":

The dotted line shows the present rail line. The solid line labelled “New Haven Bypass” and “Connecticut Bypass” is the route offered for consideration by the Transit Costs report. Note that it is well to the north of Westerly and Charlestown, though that may not be seen as good news in Hopkinton and Richmond. That is, unless the entire plan is scrapped by Trump as I believe is likely.

Facts have never prevented Charlestown Planning Commissar Ruth Platner and the CCA from trying to use an Amtrak panic to their political advantage. In 2017, the CCA tried to compensate for their earlier failure to take note of the potential new track that was in a report no one at Town Hall apparently read. Said CCA leader and Town Council President Tom Gentz, “Who’s got time to read this stuff?”

Exuberant protests led to a legally-binding Record of Decision ruling out the bypass. But that didn’t stop Platner from trying to gin up more anxiety with a 2021 claim that “They’re Back!” She tried to stir the pot again in 2022. She made an especially weird move in 2024 attempting to use AI to simulate what a new rail line would look like.

If Ruth follows her past practice, we should expect to see a new attempt to get Charlestown residents once again worked up. And, of course, you can count on Ruth (or her spokes-troll Bonnita Van Slyke) to make the claim that only the CCA can save us from this deadly albeit imaginary peril.

Privatizing Amtrak Would Be a Disaster

For Charlestown, it's the only way for the zombie Old Saybrook-Kenyon Bypass to rise again

Adam Barrington for Common Dreams

At a Senate Commerce subcommittee hearing earlier this month, former car salesman, wage thief, and current Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno said the U.S. government should stop funding Amtrak, and argued in favor of handing it over to the private sector. Moreno and his ilk—including former White House dog, Elon Musk—perpetuate an old and tired right-wing tradition that is at best confused and at worst conniving: bashing all that serves the public good and venerating all that transfers wealth to private moneyed interests.

One might be tempted to give Moreno, Musk, and other practitioners of the ancient religion of market worship the benefit of the doubt; perhaps they really believe what they say. Maybe they truly think concentrating wealth and institutional control in the hands of a few corporate masters is what’s best for everyone. If that is the case, they are both far too bewildered, their minds far too infantile, to be in any positions of power and influence.

On the other hand, if Moreno and Musk are not in fact confused, then they must be aware that what they say is completely false. Privatization of public institutions has an observable record of raising prices for customers, diminishing service quality, and degrading working conditions. They know privatization is not good for the public, but it is good for private moneyed interests, like Moreno’s wealthy campaign contributors and billionaires like Musk, and that is what matters most to them.

For all the talk about Amtrak’s inefficiency, the record tells a different tale. Even with inadequate federal funding, Amtrak has made significant accomplishments. For example, though rail travel decreased during the Covid-19 pandemic, Amtrak set all-time records for ridership and revenue in FY24. In fact, Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor (NEC) ridership was 12% higher in FY24 than it was in FY19, before the pandemic struck, and the NEC’s FY24 operating cost recovery, at 123%, far exceeded the 100% statutory goal.

Speaking of efficiency—just how “efficient” is the private sector, anyway? Hack economists tell us that efficiency means getting the same or better results at a lower cost. A corporation gutting their workforce and skimping on maintenance to obtain higher profits is, by this logic, acting efficiently. The efficiency of a private business, therefore, depends on how much profit it can squeeze out of fewer workers, with cheaper materials, in worse conditions, and at greater risk to surrounding communities.

Do we still need to worry about Amtrak building a new high-speed rail line through Charlestown farmland?

Is the Charlestown Choo-choo crisis over?

By Will Collette

Since 2017, Charlestown has gone through periods of mass hysteria driven by Charlestown Planning Commissar Ruth Platner and fearmongering by the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA). This hysteria has been over the then implausible and now dead proposal by the Federal Rail Administration (FRA) to build a new set of tracks in southern New England to allow Amtrak’s Acela trains to operate at full speed between New York and Boston.

The part of the FRA plan that so concerned Charlestown was called the “Old Saybrook-Kenyon Bypass and was part of a much larger and sadly overdue modernization of rail lines in the heavily travelled Northeast Corridor.

When the plan surfaced, the CCA swung into action, largely because they had ignored documents sent to the town from the FRA and were embarrassed that they were, as the cliché goes, asleep at the switch. As former CCA and Charlestown Town Council President Tom Gentz put it, “Who’s got time to read this stuff?”

Connecticut and Rhode Island communities mobilized and in short order, the FRA caved in, issuing a 2017 legally binding Record of Decision ruling out the Old Saybrook-Kenyon Bypass while calling for more planning. I believe even they realized the Bypass was a bad idea, plus they knew the project wasn’t going to happen anyway.

Within a month of his 2017 inauguration, Donald Trump proposed cutting Amtrak’s budget by 13%, centered mostly on halting new construction and long-distance subsidies. In 2017, conservative Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and they weren’t keen on Amtrak either.

Without funding or political support, no rail project benefiting the blue states of the Northeast Corridor was going forward. The Old Saybrook-Kenyon Bypass was dead on arrival.

It only goes down hill and, of course, it burns coal
(Chris Morris) 

Don’t get me wrong: I thought the Kenyon Bypass was a bad idea and, in an abundance of caution, some organizing was feasible. But I predicted the only way Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress would move the Northeast Corridor work forward was if Trump (or his kids) ended up owning Amtrak.

Even though the Kenyon Bypass died a quick and predictable death, that didn’t stop Ruth Platner from trying to raise the alarm as if the Bypass plan was going to rise from its grave. On three separate occasions – in 2021, 2022 and 2024 – Platner tried to get Charlestown’s residents to freak out like they did in 2017.

With absolutely no evidence, Ruth proclaimed  "They're Back?" And so it has gone for the past eight years. CLICK HERE for a detailing of Platner’s efforts to fire up the town over the bogus Charlestown Choo-choo crisis.

Fast forward to today

So here we are in 2025. King Donald Trump is back, newly crowned along with a die-hard MAGA Congress willing to do his bidding. The new feature is the emergence of South African Nazi Elon Musk as our de facto President.

So how does this affect Charlestown and the zombie Charlestown Choo-Choo?

Amtrak will be lucky to survive this Trump term without being sold off in whole or in part or being shut down.

AI art by Antonio Mavinga

Trump hates trains. Even though he claims he rode the New York subway in his youth – he called it “The Tunnel to Hell” - he just doesn’t like them. Here’s how he described his train experience in an interview with NY Times reporter Maggie Haberman:

“TRUMP: It’s been a long time. It’s been a long time. It has been. I know the subway system very well. I used to take it to Kew-Forest School, in Forest Hills, when I lived in Queens. And I’d take the subway to school. Seems a long time ago —"

In his first term, he proposed zeroing out federal funding for the New York subway system. His animosity toward trains is heightened by his predecessor Joe Biden’s unbridled love of trains. If Joe likes it, Donald hates it, pure and simple.

As Trains.com put it:

“Trump, meanwhile, has a vindictive streak a mile wide. And he clearly wants to erase anything that has predecessor Joe Biden’s fingerprints on it. Amtrak Joe’s signature achievement was the infrastructure law that sent billions Amtrak’s way for new equipment, route expansion, and Northeast Corridor improvement projects.”

Trump also doesn’t like high speed rail and has been actively trying to pull all $4 billion in federal funding from California’s high-speed rail project. Trump said that California doesn’t need a high-speed rail connection because, Trump claims, you can fly from San Francisco to Los Angeles for only $2. Yes, that’s two dollars.

He said:

“We’re gonna start a big investigation on that because it’s– I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said. “Nobody’s ever seen anything like it. Nobody has ever seen anything like it. The worst overruns that there have ever been in the history of our country. And it wasn’t even necessary. I would have said, you don’t buy it. You take an airplane – it costs you $2. It costs you nothing. You take an airplane. But this got started. And if you have to, you drive, you can drive.”

As we know, King Donald has a hard time following the plot, in this case, Amtrak’s goal to give travelers an alternative to driving.

Trump and Musk are determined to either destroy or privatize federally-funded entities they don’t like (and that’s just about all of them), whether it’s the Post Service, NOAA or Amtrak.

A Pittsburgh-Post Gazette editorial summed up what we can expect in the near term:

“In Trump’s second term, with reality television personality Sean Duffy serving as U.S. Secretary of Transportation, Amtrak’s future feels less than secure. Feasibility studies to map new routes connecting Pittsburgh and Chicago via Columbus and Fort Wayne may never happen.”

Obviously, the same fate applies to the on-going feasibility study currently being undertaken to come up with options to improve Amtrak connections between New York and Boston, including a future alternative to the Kenyon Bypass.

On March 19, Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner resigned under pressure from Musk-Trump to accommodate the administration’s plans for Amtrak’s future. According to President Musk, this is the future as reported by The Hill:

“I think logically we should privatize anything that can reasonably be privatized,” Musk said while speaking at the Morgan Stanley conference on March 5, according to Newsweek. “I think we should privatize the Post Office and Amtrak for example. … We should privatize everything we possibly can.”

Amtrak CEO Gardner may have ended his career by releasing a five-page rebuttal titled “Proposals to Privatize Amtrak.” In that white paper, Amtrak listed its achievements and profitability. It also cited Great Britain's discovery that privatizing rail was not such a great idea:

“Proponents of privatization assert that it would produce better service at a lower cost and reduce or even eliminate the need for public funding…Great Britain’s recent renationalization of its rail service after three disastrous decades of privatization, and past unsuccessful efforts to privatize various Amtrak operations, show otherwise.”

It's also worth remembering that Amtrak came into being in 1971 because America's private rail companies collapsed, starting with the New Haven Railroad's bankruptcy in 1961. However, when logic and facts don’t matter, how can Amtrak resist Elon Musk’s chainsaw?

Since Platner’s first revival of the Charlestown Choo-Choo Crisis, Town Council Deb Carney has diligently stayed in regular contact with the RI Transportation Department to watch out for Charlestown’s interests in Amtrak’s planning process. Nothing has arisen to raise any alarm.

Recently, Council President Carney, Town Administrator Jeff Allen and stakeholder Kim Coulter met with RIDOT to discuss a planned stakeholder meeting on the latest in the New Haven-Providence Amtrak study. Charlestown has been offered a place at the table. 

Deb Carney says no date for this meeting has been set. Given the turmoil, lack of funding and Musk's crusade to dump Amtrak, there's a good chance that meeting will never take place.

So, is it time to call an end to the Crisis? Based on all the above, I’d say yes. Except…

A far-fetched but plausible scenario

Both Donald Trump and Elon Musk are major fanboys of Russian despot Vladimir Putin. Putin’s route to absolute power began when he allowed Russian oligarchs to buy up Russian state assets for kopeks on the ruble after the break-up of the Soviet Union. To use Musk’s words, Russia privatized anything that can reasonably be privatized

These oligarchs made Putin a very rich and powerful man, at the expense of Russian citizens. As Trump and Musk start selling off US assets such as Amtrak, the Postal Service, et al., watch how they use the Russian model to offer fire sale prices to American oligarchs in return for kickbacks.

Privatizing Amtrak will mean some oligarch will get to buy it for cheap. They may have their own ideas about its future, but I’d expect them to maximize profits by modernizing the system. Plus, they will expect that the federal government to foot the bill.

Here’s how Trains.com summed it up:

Put all this together and the inevitable conclusion is that Amtrak as we know it will cease to exist. Long-distance trains will disappear. State-sponsored routes will continue in some form, so long as the states pick up the tab. And the Northeast Corridor will be raffled off to the highest private bidder.

I can easily see Elon Musk as Amtrak’s highest bidder followed by some flamboyant scheme to recreate the system as TrainX. As in all Musk’s venture, he will use other people’s money, no doubt expecting massive amounts of federal funding to turn his TrainX into a space-age system, perhaps using mag-lev technology. 

Note: there already is a TrainX, a private fitness center in California, but I'm sure Musk could convince them to sell their trademark. There is also a start-up maglev train company hoping to operate along the Northeast Corridor called Northeast Maglev.

Mag-Lev (magnetic levitation) is a technology that has been on the cusp of commercial viability for quite some time – high-speed monorails riding on waves of electromagnetic energy. China and Japan are already well on their way to building inter-city mag-lev lines where trains can run at up to 300 miles per hour.

The US is already funding Musk to build exploding SpaceX rockets and Tesla cars and trucks that crash and burn, making Elon Musk one of the biggest recipients of federal corporate welfare. If Musk “buys” Amtrak, he would expect the taxpayers to pay for him to pursue his dreams.

If Musk or some other oligarch buys Amtrak and try out some scheme to boost profits, they’re most likely to do it along the profitable Northeast Corridor. Any improvements they make will involve major construction. For instance, a mag-lev line would involve extensive new construction that would cause major environmental effects.

But Musk and Trump are wiping out environmental regulations that protect land, drinking water, farms, wildlife or human health and decimating the staffs at EPA and Interior that enforce such rules.

They won’t care if they destroy historic Charlestown farms, vital watersheds, forest land or wildlife habitats. 

For now, these are my theories about what might happen when Musk’s proposal to privatize Amtrak happens. I can only speculate about what a future Amtrak owner will actually do.

So now what?

In this article, I lay out what we know – Trump, Musk and Congress will not approve or fund Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor plans – what is reasonable to expect – Amtrak is likely going to go on the chopping block – and what we can reasonably guess. Unless something changes in Washington politics, Amtrak will be sold or closed. Some oligarch will be able to buy it for cheap.

The Trump Administration will almost certainly offer a new buyer generous financial incentives and clear away any environmental obstacles to whatever plans a new buyer might have for the system. The new buyer will, of course, be expected to give Trump a large back-hander.

But for now, the Northeast Corridor plan is dead.

For the past eight years, parts of northern Charlestown have been at DefCon 1, thanks to alarmist and unsubstantiated rhetoric from Ruth Platner and the CCA. Knowing what we know, we can reduce the alert level to Defcon 4 on the Charlestown Choo-Choo. We should pay attention to what happens to Amtrak but with a lot less anxiety.

In other words, no more Ruth Platner Charlestown Choo-Choo false alarms.

Could Commuter Rail Service Come to Westerly?

Some big "What Ifs" include what if President Musk wipes out Amtrak and even if not, where will the funding come from?

Joe Biden loves Amtrak so of course King Donald hates it

By Colleen Cronin / ecoRI News staff

EDITOR'S NOTE: My last job before retirement had
me travelling from Westerly to downtown Manhattan several times
a month. I loved it! The stretch between Westerly and New London
is one of the most beautiful in the Northeast Corridor  - W. Collette

When a train rumbles into Westerly’s historic train station, it’s always Amtrak en route to or coming from Providence or New York.

But a group of residents would like to see more service roll into town, and they are working on ways to make it happen.

“People have been trying to get commuter rail back into this part of the world for a long time,” Doug Brockway, a member of the Westerly’s Commuter Rail Advocacy Group, told ecoRI News.

Rail service was abandoned in the area after World War II, and although Amtrak runs about five trains a day through Westerly, the relatively high cost of tickets and lack of frequency prevents train travel in the area from reaching its full potential, Brockway said.

Commuter rail service, either from Connecticut or Massachusetts, cannot stop in Westerly because the station doesn’t have raised platforms. The current configuration also makes getting Amtrak passengers on and off trains at the station more difficult and slower.

So the changes could also benefit Amtrak, which owns the tracks and would have to foot the bill for improvements, Brockway said.

The Eastern Connecticut Rail & Transit Feasibility Study completed by the Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT) in 2023 estimated that raising the platforms would cost about $32 million.

If Amtrak raised the platforms, Shore Line East trains run by CTDOT could come to Westerly from New London, and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Agency (MBTA) commuter rail cars could come further south (as of now, the Providence-Stoughton Commuter Rail Line only reaches Wickford Junction in North Kingstown).

Can you trust the CCA in Charlestown?

After you look at their record, no, you can't

Frank Glista, Charlestown 

When voting in Charlestown, most residents look at which candidates have participated in our local government, whether by volunteering for a board or commission or by elected office.

The candidates that are supported by Charlestown Residents United (CRU) have done just that. All nine of their candidates have had extensive experience in our local government. 

In comparison, the candidates from Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA) fall short of this basic achievement. 

Three of their five candidates running for Town Council and one of their four running for the Planning Commission have never been involved with any volunteer or elected position that Charlestown offers. 

So who do you trust to run our town government? Dedicated residents who have given decades of service, or citizens that have been asked to serve to fill up the CCA ballot card?

Speaking of trust, here are a couple of interesting tidbits for you to review:

■ Did you know that the CCA Town Council attempted to giveaway YOUR town-owned property by giving a conservation easement to an outside agency? (You, the voters rejected this idea by a margin of 618 to 548 during the all-day financial referendum on June 1, 2015.)

■ Did you know that the CCA knew about the Federal RailroadAdministration attempt to create the Old Saybrook /Kenyon bypass a year before the CCA revealed it to the residents of Charlestown? (Town Council Minutes of January 10, 2017, or watch the video at the 49:30 min. mark.)

■ Did you know that in 2019 the town of Charlestown had an excess surplus of $3.1 million? The CCA members of the Town Council tried to include that amount in the municipal budget that went before the voters, instead of making it a warrant question. They wanted the money to construct a building in Ninigret Park without a plan or cost estimates even though a majority of residents spoke against this plan. Only Town Council Vice President Deb Carney listened and agreed with the voters. (The CCA didn’t adhere to the will of the voters and the budget was soundly defeated by a vote of 739 to 265 at the all-day financial referendum on June 3, 2019.)

The CCA won’t tell you these things, but instead spin the truth to benefit their own agenda ... so much for transparency. Don’t fall for their propaganda. Do the research and find out for yourselves. After all, the only thing transparent about the CCA is their lack of transparency.

Please support the CRU candidates:

Deb Carney, Craig Marr, Rippy Serra, Peter Slom and Stephen Stokes for Town Council; Glenn Babcock and Laura Rom for the Planning Commission; and Ray Dreczko for town moderator and Laura Chapman for School Committee. 

A version of this article appeared as a Letter To the Editor in The Westerly Sun on October 30, 2024.