MIDDLETOWN, Pa. (WHTM) — To the untrained eye, the train tracks running east from Harrisburg look a lot like the ones running west.

But the major differences between them — one of many topics covered Wednesday by Laura Mason, speaking with media alongside track upgrade work here — help explain why Harrisburg has at least 10 fast daily trains each day to Philadelphia, despite this year’s disruptive track work — but just one slow daily train to Pittsburgh, track work or no track work.

Mason, Amtrak’s executive vice-president of capital delivery, was in town to discuss the 43 miles of track upgrades between Harrisburg and Lancaster: why they’re scheduled to take seven months instead of the two years they would have taken prior to 2021’s bipartisan federal infrastructure act , their current status and what will improve after they’re done.

About a month into the project, Mason said Amtrak is two weeks ahead of its goal to finish the project by Nov. 21, a week before the peak Thanksgiving travel period. Workers have upgraded the first nine miles of track and have replaced about 20,000 old wooden railroad “ties” — which anchor the track to the ground — with new concrete ones.

But Mason said despite the good start, she’s not ready to forecast an early finish.

“The summer is long,” she said. “It can be hot. There can be storms and other issues that will affect productivity. So we are focused on making sure we stay as productive as possible while working safely.”

Between Harrisburg and Lancaster, Amtrak has replaced Keystone line trains with buses from about 8 a.m. to about 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday each week. One midday Pennsylvanian line train in each direction still runs the whole way between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, including along the Harrisburg-Lancaster stretch of track.

Mason confirmed an anecdotal observation by abc27 news that many passengers aren’t embracing the bus service — which can nearly double the time of a Harrisburg-Philadelphia trip from less than two hours to more than three hours — and are either using the Pennsylvanian, even if the schedule isn’t ideal, or not using Amtrak for now.

“We’re doing everything we can to preserve ridership,” Mason said. “But you’re right that when train service is changed, and we have limited truncations, like you’re seeing right now, passengers make different choices.”

Mason said the upgrades won’t enable trains between Harrisburg and Lancaster to run more quickly, per se. But on average, passengers could find themselves arriving more quickly more often — on what is already the most punctual route in America — because of less future track work, thanks to innovations such as the concrete ties.

She said passengers value frequent, reliable train service even more than speed. The tens of billions of dollars Amtrak is getting thanks to the 2021 infrastructure deal, meanwhile, funds a far bigger workforce, which is why the Harrisburg-Lancaster project — which Mason said will serve as a model for future projects — should be completed in about seven months rather than two years.

Elsewhere in the northeast, trains will run more frequently. Mason said one of the most dramatic examples will be the new Frederick Douglass Tunnel in Baltimore.

“That will take out the oldest and most risky section of the northeast corridor, replacing what is currently 30-mile-an- hour track with track that can go 110 miles an hour,” she said.

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This Week in Pennsylvania

Mason said that will shave a few minutes off a trip between Harrisburg and somewhere like Washington, D.C., but again, the more important benefit will be the reliability, as well as trains scheduled more frequently thanks to more tracks running through tunnels and thus fewer bottlenecks in places like the new Gateway Tunnel into Manhattan .

As for why service between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh is so inferior to service between Harrisburg and Philadelphia — just one daily trip each way for Pittsburgh, which takes 5 1/2 hours, compared to 14 daily trips each way for Philadelphia when there’s no track work, taking just 1 hour 40 minutes? (As the crow flies, Pittsburgh is about twice as far from Harrisburg as Philadelphia, but the train trip takes four times as long.)

Amtrak owns most of the tracks it uses is the northeastern U.S., whereas freight railroads own the tracks Amtrak uses in the rest of the country. As it happens, “the rest of the country” starts in Harrisburg; Norfolk Southern owns the tracks running west from Harrisburg.

Ostensibly, federal law gives Amtrak passenger trains priority, even on tracks owned by freight railroads. Amtrak has long complained in practice, its trains often get stuck behind slow or stopped freight trains.

“It’s a challenge to weave our trains in between the freight traffic,” including between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh, Mason said.

The distinction also likely explains why the Keystone, which doesn’t run west of Harrisburg, is so much more punctual than the Pennsylvanian.

Freight railroads — which carry many of the goods Americans use — have long said they do their best to comply, but optimizing their operations for Amtrak would have disastrous economic consequences for the country.

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