ATLANTA –– Railway Track & Structures has been following and reporting on the planned renovation of New York's Pennsylvania Station. You can find our reports at the links below. This post by David Peter Alan who writes for our sister magazine, Railway Age, reports on the current verbal fracas between MTA and Amtrak, with the New York governor weighing in. The post also sent me to the dictionary to look up the word "obdurate." DCL

NEW YORK –– The circus has returned to Madison Square Garden! Relations between Amtrak and the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) have been strained lately, and a new skirmish about Amtrak’s proposed Penn Station New York (PSNY) redevelopment erupted. It’s a war of words, expressed in letters exchanged between Amtrak Special Advisor Andy Byford, who oversees the project, and MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber. Now, New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul—no friend of the current Administration—has stepped into the fray, taking her spot in the center ring of this three-ring circus. Amtrak on June 25 responded to Railway Age’s request for a statement.

On June 24, Railway Age Executive Editor Marybeth Luczak reported that Amtrak and a private-sector entity known as Penn Transformation Partners had reached a “pre-development agreement” that would govern PSNY redevelopment activities during the rest of this year and next year. In a related development, Byford wrote to Lieber June 22, requesting MTA participation in the so-called Penn Station Transformation Project, even though the U.S. Department of Transportation had removed the MTA as lead agency and transferred that authority to Amtrak. Following is Byford’s letter, edited only for style and clarity:

“The Trump Administration, Amtrak and Penn Transformation Partners recently unveiled our bold design to transform Penn Station New York into a world-class station fit for the cultural, entertainment and financial capital of the world. Our historic redesign will transform this old, outdated and overcrowded transit hub from the tracks to the street level—creating a more efficient, beautiful and functional experience for 600,000 daily commuters and millions of visitors. The world is excited for this once-in-a-generation project that will change the face of the city.

“I am writing to reinforce our longstanding offer for the MTA to become a full partner in this project, so you can represent the varied interests of LIRR (Long Island Rail Road) customers and, eventually, Metro-North customers.

“With the aggressive timeline we have set and met, our stakeholders—elected officials, businesses and, most important, the American public—know we mean business and this project is finally moving forward after decades of talk with no action.

“As you know, in April 2025, the Trump Administration stepped in and named Amtrak the Project Leader. In a little more than a year, we’ve refocused the project, conducted a seamless progressive P3 procurement process, selected a master developer, and remain on course to break ground in 2027. During this time, Amtrak has given the MTA numerous opportunities to join in as a full partner in this generational project of transforming Penn Station New York. It is disingenuous for some to continue to assert that the MTA has been ‘frozen out,’ ‘sidelined’ or ‘excluded’ by Amtrak. Rather, it has been the MTA’s repeated choice over the past year to opt out of participating in the project despite the following series of express overtures from Amtrak:

• “Sept. 26, 2025: Amtrak shared a summary of key terms about the Collaboration Agreement with both the MTA and New Jersey Transit (NJT) for their input.
• “Early October 2025: Amtrak sent the MTA the full Collaboration Agreement.
• “Oct. 19, 2025: After receiving comments from the MTA on the agreement, [MTA Construction & Development President] Jamie Torres-Springer and I initiated regular conversations and negotiations over the next few weeks to reach mutual concurrence on the terms.
• “Oct. 22, 2025: At my first public appearance as lead of the project—during our negotiations—I publicly came out and said the MTA 33rd Street Concourse will not be affected and, in fact, will serve as a template for improvements in the rest of Penn Station New York.
• “Nov. 14, 2025: Amtrak sent the MTA a proposed Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with edits addressing MTA comments, including removing the requirement for financial contribution (MTA claimed it had already contributed financially when it had the lead on preliminary work relating to Penn Station); and strengthening language acknowledging the existence of the LIRR lease and expectation of future agreements
• “December 8, 2025: The MTA officially confirmed that it was rejecting the proposed MOA and would rely on its lease plus day-to-day working interaction and engagement.

“The good news is that MTA can still change its mind. We continue to extend this offer because this project is so critical for New York City, New York State, New Jersey and soon Connecticut.

“We recognize that MTA has supported the Station Working Advisory Group and attended some project meetings. But we now need to work together more closely than that. That’s why my invitation to sign the MOA and become a full partner remains open.

“I invite you again to sign the MOA and to be fully involved, via an MOA that is built around the same agreement Amtrak signed when the MTA was in charge of the project, just a few years ago. The MOA is a completely stand-alone agreement and does not water down your lease as some have incorrectly speculated.

“The transformation of Penn Station New York will:

• “Construct a grand entrance on Eighth Avenue to a new train hall.
• “Replace cramped, decrepit walkways with open, beautiful concourses.
• “Expand track capacity, including introduction of at least limited through-running on the regional rail network.
• “Enable new retail, better wayfinding and other passenger experience improvements, all while maintaining the iconic Madison Square Garden with a new cladding for a classic look.
• “Improve the station’s existing subterranean structure.

“To its credit, NJT recognized the criticality of being fully involved in Penn Station revitalization and rose to the occasion, opting in to a partnership to ensure the Garden State is properly represented. LIRR—and in a few years, Metro-North—customers will access the entire station. They won’t just stay in the MTA concourse. They currently use, and will continue to use, the entire station—even more when this project is complete.

“New Yorkers, New Jerseyans and tourists worldwide will soon enjoy the historic transformation of this American gateway. Let’s be partners in more than just name only. Come onboard to the project so the MTA can play a part and do right by its customers.

“Whether the MTA chooses to be involved, Amtrak regardless will move forward with the Penn Station Transformation Project with our partners at NJT and deliver this world-class train station to New York City.”

In a strongly worded, rather snarky letter laced with hard-edged sarcasm (something Byford, a genteel Brit known for being soft-spoken and polite, would never do), Lieber the same day (June 22) replied:

“I have your letter dated today—the handling of which unfortunately belies the protestations of good faith it contains. The letter was sent to me this morning at 7:31 AM—after press articles detailing its leaked contents had already been published [by local media outlets such Gothamist, affiliated with WNYC, New York Public Radio]. News flash: That’s not a partnership. That’s just gamesmanship.

“There’s no point rebutting all the blah-blah about the Memorandum of Agreement you are insisting the MTA sign as a precondition of participation in the project. The MTA’s Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) and [New York City Transit] subways carry two-thirds of the daily users of Penn Station. Even more important, the LIRR has a pre-paid lease running for another 160 years (through 2186) that gives us approval rights for any construction within or affecting the northern half of the station. As the lease states, ‘Amtrak shall have no right to make, or to cause or permit to be made, physical alterations in or to the LIRR premises without LIRR’s consent,’ and even alterations outside our space may not ‘unduly burden train operations’ or ‘affect the structural integrity’ of our leasehold.

(Editor’s Comment: Byford is a past NYCT President, a role in which he became affectionally known as “Train Daddy.” He resigned from NYCT after repeatedly clashing with now-disgraced, micromanaging former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Byford returned to England and became Transport for London Commissioner, overseeing completion of the massive Elizabeth Line rapid transit project, which transports approximately 200 million passengers annually – William C. Vantuono.)

“Given that reality, it makes sense for Amtrak to simply share information with MTA/LIRR and solicit our feedback. Instead, you have insisted on a ‘collaboration agreement’ that would constrain our ability to communicate with our riders and other stakeholders, and which explicitly put ‘potential modifications’ to our lease on the table, among other unnecessary and unacceptable terms. Not interested.

“We all know that Penn Station needs work. That’s why the MTA on its own rebuilt the 33^rd Street Concourse—on time and under budget—completion of which has prompted a dramatic surge in LIRR customer satisfaction, from roughly 50% up to better than 80%. And that’s why we spent years working with Amtrak and NJT on a consensus design to reconstruct the rest of the station. When the Trump Administration announced it was taking over the reconstruction project, we were cautiously optimistic, despite the typically gratuitous (and fact-free) snipes USDOT and Amtrak took at the MTA while doing so.

“But the process since then has been simply bizarre. It raises questions that are far more interesting than competing blow-by-blows about an interagency document. For example:

• “How much is it going to cost? Your chosen development team has been touting a version of this project for years, but no one has ever seen a real professional cost estimate.
• “Where is the money coming from? I have never seen a project go this far without any accounting of how it is being paid for. The State of New York paid for 63% of the cost of building Amtrak a new home across 8^th Avenue at Moynihan Train Hall and backstopped the loan to cover most of the remaining cost (Amtrak’s share: 7%). [The State] made those commitments expecting that the federal government would in turn support and defer to the commuter railroads on a plan to improve existing Penn. And Governor Hochul has been clear that the State of New York is not paying for this Amtrak-controlled redesign.
• “Whatever the cost, how much money will Jim Dolan and Madison Square Garden (MSG) get for the purchase of MSG’s Infosys Theater to enable the construction of a second major train hall on Eighth Avenue? Previous news reports suggested Dolan’s price was $500 million, not to mention untold hundreds of millions—or even billions–for demolition of the Infosys Theater and reconstruction of all MSG’s mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems. Has an agreement already been reached? What other benefits, if any, will MSG and Dolan receive in the newly reconfigured space? (Editor’s Note: Jim Dolan is a U.S. billionaire businessman who serves as the Executive Chairman and CEO of Madison Square Garden Sports and MSG Entertainment. He is best known as owner of the NBA’s New York Knicks and the NHL’s New York Rangers – WCV.)
• “How did this private developer, ultimately controlled by a foreign private equity firm, get chosen? The entire selection process has been kept under wraps up to now. Did their executives’ close ties to the Trump Administration influence the course of the procurement?
• “What was the President’s involvement? You have repeatedly said that your ‘trump card is the Trump card’ in shaping the project, although precisely what that is meant to imply seems to shift from audience to audience. The President reportedly met with bidders and with Jim Dolan during the procurement process and appeared with Dolan (and USDOT Secretary Duffy) during the NBA finals [at MSG]. Did those discussions further taint Amtrak’s secret developer selection process? What exactly was discussed in those encounters?
• “What is the phasing plan? Our collaborative Penn Reconstruction design process, when it was cut off in 2025, was starting to tackle the challenging questions of how to rebuild Penn Station without unduly inconveniencing riders. What, if any, progress has Amtrak made since then?
• “What is going to happen if, like so many other “Infrastructure Week” announcements of the Trump era, interest fades and nothing comes of it?

“Perhaps there are good answers to all these questions. Perhaps we are faced with only the appearance of impropriety. But in the current environment, it can hardly be surprising that we have chosen to proceed carefully.

“Bottom line: We are of course open to engaging with Amtrak, but without conditions. Our duty is to protect the interests of hundreds of thousands of MTA riders at Penn Station—and those of New York State taxpayers, who Amtrak and your chosen developer keep mentioning as potential funders. We will not compromise our rights to do so.”

Lieber had more to say at the June 24 MTA Board meeting. He did not mention the word “bizarre,” a subject of reporting elsewhere, and his statement was not worded as strongly as his written response to Byford. He concentrated on the MTA’s rights as a PSNY tenant.

The Board meeting exchange began with this comment by Member David R. Jones, Esq., President and CEO of Community Service Society of New York (CSSNY), a prominent non-profit organization focused on promoting economic advancement and civic participation for low-income New Yorkers: “I think we’ve seen news coverage of the nature of the dispute on Penn Station, and we’d like the Chair’s position on this to be presented not only to us as a Board but to the public.”

Lieber’s statement, which the MTA supplied to Railway Age:

“Okay, so just to be very simple about it, we are happy and thrilled to engage with the federal government on the redesign and re-imagining of Penn Station. Full stop: The disagreement is pretty simple, which is we have a lease, we are 60% to 70% of all the riders in Penn Station. We have a lease that has 160-odd years left on it that says you can’t come into our house and make changes without our approval. That’s what you want when you’re a tenant. You don’t want somebody, your landlord, to come into your house, your apartment, and tear it up at his own initiative.

“What has been offered to us by the team operating this new initiative to fix Penn—and again we’re agnostic on the design—but we got to know [sic] it’s not going to hurt the Long Island Rail Road and subway customers. They’ve offered us instead of that right that we have, we want to change your rights. We want you to be on a collaboration committee and a non-voting member, and that you can comment on our design, but in the end we, Amtrak, get to decide unilaterally. That’s not a real—we’re not going to agree to that, but we are very much open. There’s no reason they need a new agreement. We have our rights. We’re the tenant. Just give us the drawings and the engineering and all of that, and we will be happy to comment on it, but we’re going to protect the rights to make sure that it doesn’t disrupt service either in the ultimate finished product, but even during construction, because we don’t want our very hard-won success—Long Island Rail Road riders who come to Penn now are saying it’s good service. Customer satisfaction is up to 80% roughly. We’re not going to take a chance that we’re going to lose ground and have people go back to half of them unhappy with the service because somebody wants to tear up the Long Island Rail Road area.

“But that said, we’re happy to work with them, and the other provision is that as the Governor has said, New York [State] is not paying for this; this is a federally owned facility they haven’t invested in. We actually have invested in it. The agreement they sent us also said we will support their efforts to get state and city financing. That’s a nonstarter, based on our leadership in Albany, so those are the two issues. It’s pretty straightforward.

“I understand that Amtrak’s on a public relations binge, but with what they offered us, they’re really pulling a bit of a fast one. They keep saying that they’re offering us, quote unquote, full partnership. That [is] not … a partnership. That [is] … being a tenant, and they could at will do anything at any time they wanted, and basically just kick us out and take over our space. We’re not going to agree to that. So, although Andy Byford is a much loved former member of the MTA family, I’m afraid that I’m declining to be the first person in New York [City] real estate history to say I want to enter into a real estate deal with Donald Trump, with no lease and no protections, and just take a bet, roll the dice. We can’t do that for our New York riders.”

After Lieber’s statement, Mark Herbst, Executive Director of the Long Island Contractors’ Association, representing Suffolk County, said: “Chair, I just want to thank you for defending the Long Island ridership to continue the service that they are receiving and keep your position and protecting them. Thank you.”

Lieber took questions on several subjects at a press conference after the Board meeting, and he reiterated the points he had made, especially about a tenant’s rights under a lease. He said the MTA did not need a new agreement and did not want a lease like one that would allow the landlord to come into an apartment and tear things up. He likened the situation to being an at-will employee of POTUS 47. In response to a question about whether the Governor’s office had signed off on the MTA’s response, Lieber concluded the Penn Station discussion by saying, “Asked and answered.”

Later in the day, it appeared that Gov. Hochul was trying to de-escalate the rhetoric. WNYC transportation reporter Ramsey Khalifeh reported in Gothamist: “Gov. Kathy Hochul, who controls the MTA and appointed its chair, urged both sides to work collaboratively to rebuild the Midtown train hub.” He also quoted Hochul spokesperson Sean Butler: “Governor Hochul believes that delivering the world-class Penn Station New Yorkers deserve is too important to not work collaboratively and constructively with all partners. Her leadership secured the full federal commitment to fund and deliver improvements to an asset Amtrak has owned for decades … She has also been clear that this project must benefit all riders, including hundreds of thousands of subway and LIRR customers, while also being conducted transparently.”

On June 25, shortly after this story first ran, I heard from Amtrak spokesperson Jason Abrams. He told Railway Age:

“Our letter speaks for itself. We are committed to improving the entirety of Penn Station for New Yorkers, and it’s unfortunate the MTA does not seem to share that approach. We will continue to act in good faith and keep the invitation open to be collaborative partners so they can provide an even better experience for their customers.

“Also, per our letter and contrary to Janno’s assertion, the Memorandum of Agreement does not water down or lessen the validity or content of the existing lease one bit. I’d add that Andy has said multiple times he feels the LIRR concourse is great and there are no plans to touch it.”

Abrams also sent me a statement from Byford: “We don’t need them to sign; we will proceed regardless. Governor Hochul gets that; the MTA does not, it would appear.”

Abrams also sent me a previous statement that Byford made Oct. 22, 2025 praising the MTA’s efforts toward improving the part of Penn Station that serves the LIRR, as reported by Spectrum News’s NY1: “What the MTA did in widening the corridor and elevating the ceiling and providing much better retail offers much easier-to-clean surfaces, just a better customer product … a template … That’s what I’m looking for, a template for how it should be done in the future.”

So the war of words between Amtrak and the MTA seems to be heating up rather than calming down, at least for now.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Given the obdurate (unyielding) nature of the Amtrak-MTA dispute, at least as expressed so far at this writing, there is little need to comment further. The parties have been at odds for some time, including over issues concerning Empire Service trains to Albany-Rensselaer and litigating a case over non-revenue moves of Amtrak’s Next Gen Acela equipment over the portion of the Northeast Corridor (NEC) between New Rochelle and New Haven, which Metro-North owns.

Lieber has set out the MTA’s position in strongly worded statements. Amtrak has already responded, although in less-strong terms than Lieber used on behalf of the MTA. Is the Penn Station project a political proxy fight between POTUS 47 and Gov. Hochul? Might it end up in court as a case with landlord-tenant issues regarding a commercial lease?

It’s too early to tell, and it’s even possible that the sides could agree on a plan that would satisfy both Amtrak and the MTA, along with their political backers. There’s a lot happening in sports in the New York and New Jersey area these days, with the Knicks winning the NBA championship and the FIFA tournament being played out in the Meadowlands in New Jersey. Madison Square Garden is not an official party to the dispute (at least not yet) but appears to be a third-party beneficiary if not more, so that’s another sports connection. The present dispute, already a circus, could end up being another popular spectator sport for New Yorkers and others in the vicinity. I will keep you informed as I learn more.

Further Reading

• Penn Station Transformation Project Moves Forward

• U.S. DOT Releases Design Plans for New York’s Pennsylvania Station