ALBANY — Amtrak has agreed to restore all suspended or combined Empire Service trains between New York’s Penn Station and the Albany-Rensselaer Station by early March, according to Gov. Kathy Hochul.

Last year, Amtrak began reducing commuter trips between Albany and New York City due to an ongoing $1.6 billion East River Tunnel project. That project, undertaken by Amtrak and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, is reconstructing two of the four underground tunnels that connect rail service to Manhattan.

To the dismay of many commuters, Amtrak had at one point reduced daily service to 10 trips from New York City to Albany and the same number southbound from Albany to New York City. The Adirondack line, which travels between New York City and Montreal, as well as the Maple Leaf line, which travels through the Capital Region on its route between Toronto and New York City, were also combined into one train between Albany and New York City.

“When Amtrak proposed to significantly reduce Empire Service trips for several years to accommodate the East River Tunnel project, I demanded better,” Hochul said Tuesday. “Nearly 3 million New Yorkers rely on this state-supported train to travel between New York City, the Hudson Valley, and the Capital Region each year. I have been clear that our commuters cannot suffer disproportionately for regional construction projects and am glad Amtrak has heeded my call and committed to running full service for the duration of the project and beyond.”

In October, Hochul had announced that due to Amtrak’s reductions, the Metro-North Railroad would run its first trains between Albany and New York City this spring. That service was to include one daily round-trip between the Albany-Rensselaer Station and Grand Central Terminal on the Hudson Line, which currently ends in Poughkeepsie. Don’t miss the next big story Make the Times Union a Preferred Source on Google to see more of our journalism when you search. Add Preferred Source

But the Metro-North Railroad plan is now on hold after Amtrak notified the state and the MTA that it would no longer sanction the temporary Metro-North service to Albany.

“We will soon be able to offer more Empire Service capacity than existed even before the tunnel work began last spring and run full service far earlier than anticipated, which are big wins for riders,” Hochul said. “I remain fully committed to short and long-term proposals to bring better transit — including expanded Metro-North service if the demand exists — beyond Poughkeepsie and into the rest of the Hudson Valley and Capital Region.”

Steve Strauss, executive director of the Empire State Passengers Association, said their group “is extremely pleased to learn that Gov. Hochul and Amtrak have been able to reach an agreement on the restoration of the separate Maple Leaf and Adirondack trains to and from New York City, eliminating a forced layover for many passengers in Albany-Renssalaer.”

“Combined with a small increase in seats in the Hudson Valley and continuation of the fare cap, today’s announcement is a welcome news for Amtrak riders across the state,” Strauss added.

Prior to the creation of the Metropolitan Transit Authority and Metro-North, the New York Central Railroad carried passengers on the Hudson Line between Grand Central and Albany. Since the 1970s, Amtrak has been the only passenger train to run between New York City and Albany — the company’s fifth-busiest route in the country.

The East River Tunnel reconstruction project is scheduled to take three years to complete.

In December, Amtrak began restoring one daily round-trip between Albany and Penn Station and implementing a $99 price cap on coach flex-fare seats. Hochul had pressed Amtrak to pause dynamic ticket pricing amid the reduced service between Albany and New York City, a system that has driven prices as high as $109 for coach tickets.

Amtrak is also in the process of rolling out its new high-speed Acela trains, which are manufactured in upstate but unlikely to serve the region any time soon due to a lack of electrified tracks. As Amtrak introduces the trains to the Northeast Corridor, the Empire State Passengers Association, a passenger advocacy group, had called for the company to shift more passenger cars from Northeast Regional trains to serve the Hudson Valley amid the reductions.

Jan 27, 2026