The federal COVID-19 vaccine mandate takes effect in January and will cause Amtrak to reduce passenger service.
The remaining employees of the rail system have a January 4 deadline to get the vaccine, which is the same deadline that President Joe Biden set for employees of federal contractors.
A judge on Tuesday blocked the federal vaccine mandate for employees of federal contractors.
The White House says it will fight for its mandate for employees of federal contractors.
The rail system's mandate would remain in effect if the mandate was blocked on January 4.
Scheduling issues are likely to arise until more employees are fully vaccine free.
He told the lawmakers that they would need to temporarily reduce some train frequencies in January to avoid staffing-related cancellation, and that they would restore all frequencies by March.
The White House brushed off any impact on Amtrak caused by the vaccine mandate, emphasizing that staffers have been inoculated against the coronaviruses and that several weeks remain until the deadline.
She said that employers will follow their standard HR process after the deadline. If an employee is not in compliance they will go through education, counseling, accommodations, and enforcement. The process would play out that way.
We don't expect these requirements to cause disruptions to services that people depend on. There is time to implement it.
The passenger railroad service will receive an unprecedented $66 billion in funding as part of the newly-signed $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that was championed by Biden, an Amtrak loyalist who took the train religiously between his Delaware home and Washington DC when he served in the Senate.
At the start of the COVID-19 epidemic last year, the passenger railroad service was cut back due to low Ridership, at one point it was 4% of its pre-pandemic level.
It will take several years for Amtrak's traffic to match the figures from 2019.
Business travel will be a big part of the traffic rebound.
In the fiscal year that ended in March of 2020, Amtrak had 12.2 million riders, compared with 32.5 million in the previous year.
In the 2020 fiscal year, which ended on September 30, Amtrak transported over 16 million passengers.
The company currently lacks the human resources personnel needed to screen and hire future employees, according to its own inspector general.
In August, Amtrak said that employees would have to be tested weekly for COVID-19.
The deadline for federal workers and employees of federal contractors to be fully vaccine free was pushed back to January 4 from December 8.
