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Amtrak’s Website Crashes as Long-Distance Trains Canceled

  • Reports of problems on the site surged 4,500% on Wednesday
  • White House-led talks rush ahead as strike nears deadline
An Amtrak passenger train departs from Union Station in Chicago, Illinois.

An Amtrak passenger train departs from Union Station in Chicago, Illinois.

Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg
Updated on

Amtrak’s website was periodically down on Wednesday as the company announced that long-haul trains would not operate starting Thursday in the face of a threatened freight-rail strike.

Reports of problems with Amtrak’s website began Wednesday afternoon and surged as much as 4,500% from the site’s typical number of reported outages, according to Downdetector. Searches for “Amtrak cancels trains” surged 1,650% in the last week in the US, according to Google Trends data.