Trump can derail Amtrak scheme: Elise Stefanik is right that the railroad is about wreck N.Y.

The successful campaign slogan was “Trump will fix it.” Well, we know something that’s broken that Donald Trump can fix right now, without him waiting to become president again on Jan. 20 at noon.

The former and future president, who knows New York inside and out, should speak up on his Truth Social or Twitter/X that Amtrak is about to wreck the commute of New Yorkers by shutting down a tunnel under the East River for repairs starting on Monday for at least the next three years. The way Amtrak “works” that three years will likely last the whole of Trump’s second term.

Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year’s are already stressful enough with travel in and out of New York, besides also being a peak time for tourists and business. Yet, Amtrak is happy to just scramble all of it.

Wiped out will be 23% of the daily rail service between Penn Station and Albany, as well as 10% of trains during the peak of LIRR morning rush into Penn. Telling Long Islanders that they can instead head to Grand Central means nothing for those people who want to go to Penn.

Advocates from the Empire State Passengers Association, now joined by upstate Rep. Elise Stefanik and a half dozen of her New York delegation colleagues, are asking Amtrak to wait 60 days to let the holidays pass and use the time to have other options be evaluated, notably one presented by AmeriStarRail, which promises to maintain 100% of Albany service by having trains terminate in Philly or D.C., avoiding the East River tubes.

Stefanik is entirely correct, however Amtrak isn’t listening. Still, they should listen to the incoming president, who can get their attention and have them hold off.

Speed matters here, as today is the final weekday of normal service for Albany and for the LIRR morning rush to Penn, as Amtrak is ready to start demolition on Monday.

The smartest way to repair the East River tunnel is to do exactly what the MTA did with the L-train and also the F-train. Like Amtrak’s East River, those subway tubes were inundated by Superstorm Sandy in 2012. However, instead of a total shutdown, the MTA repaired their tunnels better than new using only nights and weekends, allowing normal rush hour service to continue.

The concept was vetted by the engineering faculties of Columbia and Cornell. It worked on paper and it worked practice. If Trump has a question about this, just call MTA Chair Janno Lieber. He will tell the truth.

The problem is that Amtrak, backed up by a president nicknamed Amtrak Joe, refuses to innovate, saving time and money, just as it refuses to scale back its $50 billion Gateway boondoggle. Trump, not Amtrak Joe, will soon be the conductor.

We’ll have a lot more to say about how Trump can rein in Gateway, which has already been allocated $12 billion from Uncle Sam, but the urgent task now is to stopping Amtrak from ruining the holiday season for New Yorkers and letting independent outside experts (i.e. those not on the Amtrak payroll) review the alternative plans.

Mr. Trump, side with Stefanik and her colleagues, and let this be the first thing that you fix.