Andy Byford, the former NYC Transit boss known as ‘Train Daddy,’ will return to the U.S. to work for Amtrak, railroad officials confirmed on Thursday.
Byford will start on April 10 as a senior vice president for Amtrak’s high-speed rail program, according to an email announcing his hiring. The memo says he’ll be based in Washington, D.C. and will “ensure operational strategy alignment between new HSR [high-speed rail] programs and our current network.”
Byford’s new gig, which was first reported by Streetsblog, comes six months after he resigned as London's commissioner of transport, a position responsible for overseeing that city’s transportation network.
Amtrak’s hiring of Byford comes as the national railroad is receiving $22 billion in new investment from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law signed in 2021 by President Joe Biden.
Byford joined the MTA in 2018 after a multiyear decline in the reliability of New York City's subway service. The UK native had previously run transit systems in Toronto and New South Wales, Australia.
He quickly gained popularity across the five boroughs as the subway’s performance improved. But he also publicly feuded with former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who in 2019 passed legislation that forced a restructuring of the MTA that ultimately stripped Byford of his oversight of transit construction projects.
Byford resigned as New York City Transit president in 2020, and stated in his resignation letter there were others at the agency who could “perform this important, but reduced, service delivery role” after he lost his grip on construction projects.
He joined Transport for London months after he left New York, and served in the role for two-and-a-half years before he resigned last September.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the length of time Byford served as London's commissioner of transport. He served for two-and-a-half years.
