Due to Amtrak’s intransigence (which is standard) and its lack of foresight and imagination (which is typical), today begins the third week of unnecessary reduced passenger rail options between Penn Station and Albany (daily trips slashed 25%) and for the Long Island Rail Road’s peak hour of the a.m. inbound rush into Penn (chopped 10%). Inconvenienced and frustrated? Amtrak doesn’t care, but we do and so do a lot of people like Gov. Hochul, upstate Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (and soon to be UN ambassador), the Empire State Passenger Association, Albany area Assemblymembers John McDonald and Pat Fahy, the editorial pages of the Times-Union in Albany and the private operator AmeriStarRail. Mercifully, this will be the last week of the cuts, at least for Albany and at least for now. Seven days from today, the Albany service will be restored and passengers up and down the Hudson will have a reprieve until the end of February, but not on the LIRR. Thanks to Hochul for getting Amtrak to consider a small, reasonable request, which is a major concession for the very old school railroad, whose technological innovation ended in 1910. Let’s use the time Hochul bought between now and the new date for the cuts, March 3, to avoid the cuts entirely. In the meantime, MTA Chairman Janno Lieber should restore for the next few months the LIRR’s missing 10% of the Penn morning rush. Those trains are being diverted to Grand Central, so just undivert them back to Penn. The reason for the switching is that two of the four tubes under the East River connecting Penn with Queens were waterlogged by Superstorm Sandy in 2012 and need repairs. Amtrak wants to close one tube completely and rebuild it from scratch. And then repeat for the second wet tube. That is why, in their mind, service has to be whacked for three years, and probably longer. But if the tubes are repaired nights and weekends (which they can be and should be) there would be no service cuts ever. Lieber fought hard for this far superior repair-in-place, which saves time and money and avoids service cuts, as he did brilliantly with the L-train and the F-train, but Amtrak wouldn’t budge. But that was under Amtrak Joe Biden. Donald Trump has tasked Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to run his “Department of Government Efficiency.” They and Trump’s choice to be U.S. transportation secretary, former Wisconsin Congressman Sean Duffy, need to bring hard eyes to Amtrak’s wasteful ways. Duffy needs to change the thinking at USDOT and its subsidiary, the Federal Railroad Administration. The FRA just goes along with whatever the Amtrak stumblebums want, even though along the key Northeast Corridor from Boston to D.C., Amtrak only carries about 5% of the passengers and the commuter lines carry 95%. Yet Amtrak always gets its way. Besides repair-in-place (the best option), AmeriStarRail is offering a smart way to run trains from Albany to NYC to D.C., avoiding the East River tunnel. Or use Grand Central for Albany service. Hochul only got Amtrak to delay their demolition work until March. But it’s far better to cancel the wrecking crew for good. Once an East River tube is shuttered, brace for major meltdowns with all Penn routes as the flexibility that comes with four tubes will be gone.