July 10, 2025
— Jeff Ward, Lehigh Valley News Briefs
The Lehigh Valley train fantasy lives on, in the face of logic and common sense. The dogged pursuit of 19th Century technology attracts dreamers and hobbyists and bureaucrats.
The latest train study was presented more than a year ago and nothing has happened since. No surprise there, eh?
I credit Northampton County Council President Lori Vargo Heffner with putting the issue in simplest terms at Council’s meeting last Thursday
“Are we ever getting a train?” Vargo Heffner asked Becky Bradley, executive director of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission (LVPC).
“That’s a complicated question,” Bradley said.
No, it isn’t. There is no money for this project, which would require working with dozens of governments and regulators, $1 billion or so to start, and most implausibly, getting real railroad Norfolk Southern to say, “Hey, sure! Use our lines to the New York City region!”
Then there would be millions of dollars in annual subsidies. With SEPTA seeking millions more to serve the Philadelphia area, I don’t think Pennsylvania is ready to subsidize another line, and the current federal administration is even less likely to.
Most importantly, commuters will not take a train if it means adding an hour or more to their daily grind. I made the NYC commute. Every minute counts.
The train concept makes little sense, add in that commuters won’t use it and then it makes no sense.
Linked to the LVPC is what I call The Committee to Talk About Trains. I credit them with dotting all the bureaucratic i’s and crossing all the t’s, but that isn’t going to get a train built.
Continuing to dot the i’s and cross the t’s would require $450,000; Lehigh County was willing to put up half, $225,000, but Northampton County Executive Lamont G. McClure wasn’t. He supports the idea of train service but not throwing almost a quarter-million dollars of taxpayers’ money at a Committee to Talk About Trains.
The “train study” considered routes to Reading (nonsense) and Philadelphia, but the focus should be on taking people to the Capital of the World: New York City.
The study also indicated that taking the fantasy train would add an hour to commutes to New York City. In a rational world, that would have been the end of this. It wasn’t because the people receiving the study — local politicians and people who want to take a tea train — weren’t focused on reality.
As Thomas the Tank Engine says, “Simple is better.”
So let’s keep it simple, not complicated. There is no billion-dollar pot of gold to build a train, there is no governing body, there is no agreement to use other lines’ tracks, and the last study estimated train service could start in 10 years. Later, I heard maybe 15. That was, as noted, more than a year ago, and nothing has happened since.
The LVPC’s Bradley noted at the Thursday, July 3 County Council meeting there will be more waiting and at some point somebody has to decide “whether it makes sense to go through with Phase 2,” the $450,000 round of talking about trains.
The reality is obvious: there is no plan and there is no money.
“Simple is better.” So let’s keep it simple.
What would the Lehigh Valley need to get train service? A coordinated effort by state and federal governments that are willing to put up lots of money. Starting out with the little things at the local level — committees — isn’t going to get it done.
Thomas the Tank Engine also used to say, “Little engines can do big things!”
Maybe on the Island of Sodor, but in reality, if the big engines don’t step up, no amount of talking and filling out forms is going to matter.
Lehigh Valley News Briefs 