PROVIDENCE — While transit systems around the country struggle to regain their pre-COVID ridership, Amtrak’s Providence station is attracting record numbers of passengers. Its partner at the Providence station, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, however, reports its ridership has yet to regain pre-COVID levels.

Neither railroad is likely to fare well under President Donald Trump’s administration. During the last year of his first term, Trump proposed cutting Amtrak funding by more than 50%, and the conservative blueprint Project 2025 that appears to be guiding his second term calls federal subsidies for mass transit expansion “throwing good money after bad.”

Thirty-six Amtrak trains stop at the Providence station every weekday. In 2024, 838,238 people boarded or exited an Amtrak train in Rhode Island’s capital city, an 18% increase from 2023 and 9% more than 2019, the last full year before COVID. That made Providence the 14^th-busiest Amtrak station in the U.S., just ahead of Newark, N.J. Ridership also grew at Rhode Island’s other Amtrak stops on the Northeast Corridor route from Boston to Washington, D.C. At the Kingston/University of Rhode Island station, 2024 ridership was 210,344 people, 20% higher than 2019, and at Westerly 59,602 people used the train, a 31% jump from 2019.

Starting in August 2023, Amtrak boosted its Rhode Island ridership by offering three daily bus runs in each direction connecting the Worcester and Providence stations. In 2024, its first full year of operation, about 3,200 people used the service and Amtrak senior public relations manager Jason Abrams said ridership continues to grow. Under Federal Railroad Administration regulations, however, passenger trips must include train travel. Providence residents can only take the bus to Worcester if they purchase a ticket to connect to an Amtrak train traveling west toward Albany or east to Boston. A similar bus service connecting Fall River and New Bedford, Mass., to Providence was discontinued in December due to lack of ridership.

Providence’s Amtrak ridership contributed to making 2024 a banner year for the publicly operated railroad. Nationwide ridership was up 15% and ticket revenue was up 9%. Ridership continued to grow in the first quarter of the 2025 fiscal year, increasing another 7% over the same period last year. 

Nevertheless, Amtrak is nowhere near breaking even and had an operating loss of $705 million in 2024. “Without Federal Government funding, Amtrak will not be able to continue to operate in its current form and significant operating changes, restructuring and bankruptcy may occur,” according to its 2024 independent audit report.

Long a target for Republican budget-cutters, Amtrak faces an uncertain future under the Trump administration. “We’re hoping it slips under his radar,” said Steven Musen, the Rhode Island representative to the National Association of Rail Passengers. Budget-cutters face a political problem, he notes, because the least profitable routes run through rural Republican states.

Prospects for MBTA finances appear much better. In January, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey proposed hundreds of millions of dollars in increased funding for the agency, which runs Boston-area buses and subways, in addition to trains. The funding, largely from a voter initiative that raised taxes on the wealthy, will stabilize the MBTA’s troubled finances, Healey promised.

The MBTA operates 42 trains every weekday between Boston and Providence. An MBTA spokesperson said ridership in the agency’s entire system grew almost 23% from 2023 to 2024, but is still more than 10% below pre-COVID levels.  Although the Providence/Stoughton rail line is by far the most heavily used in the MBTA system, the agency doesn’t compile monthly or annual ridership statistics by station or by line. Instead, an MBTA spokesperson provided counts made by conductors on some days in 2020, the most recent year available, and estimated that weekday ridership on the Providence/Stoughton line in December 2024 was 19,284. Whether conductors can accurately count passengers, however, is questionable since frequent MBTA passengers know they often fail to even collect tickets from riders.

To enhance Rhode Island rail transportation, Musen said his organization supports several projects. Most important, he said, is electrifying MBTA trains to Boston that currently run on diesel. Electrification would increase train speeds and reduce pollutants. Although Amtrak trains are electric, he explained, the current system cannot provide enough electricity for both Amtrak and the MBTA. Additional electrified sidings would also be needed at the Attleboro, T.F. Green Airport and Wickford stations. In addition, high level platforms are needed at the Westerly station to ease boarding and exiting trains, Musen said.

Steven Stycos, a former Cranston City Council member, manages Westbay Farm in Warwick with the help of dedicated volunteers.