Amtrak was scrambling to restart passenger service it had canceled after a looming strike of freight rail workers was averted early Thursday morning.
“Amtrak is working to quickly restore canceled trains and reaching out to impacted customers to accommodate on first available departures,” the national railroad said in a statement.
On Wednesday, Amtrak had started canceling all long-distance passenger trains, effective Thursday, because of the possible work stoppage on freight railroads.
Freight rail companies and unions representing tens of thousands of workers reached a tentative agreement to avoid what would have been an economically damaging strike, after all-night talks brokered by Labor Secretary Martin J. Walsh, President Biden said early Thursday morning.
The agreement now heads to union members for a ratification vote, which is a standard procedure in labor talks. While the vote is tallied, workers have agreed not to strike.
A freight rail strike would had the potential to cripple much of Amtrak’s long-distance service.
Outside the Northeast Corridor, which connects Boston, New York and Washington, most of Amtrak’s service runs on “track owned, maintained, and dispatched by freight railroads,” according to Amtrak.
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