New electric locomotives will save Amtrak $300M over 20 years

New electric Amtrak trains will reduce traffic jams and save energy, railroad enthusiast Vice President Joe Biden announced last week at 30th Street Station. The trains will start running in the next few months.

Biden, along with U.S. Secretary of Transport Anthony Foxx and Amtrak CEO Joe Boardman, spoke before a crowd at 30th Street Station to introduce Amtrak’s Cities Sprinter locomotives. The 70 new electric locomotives will run through the Northeast Corridor.

The locomotives will save more than 3 billion kilowatt hours of energy—or $300 million over 20 years, the Washington Post reported. Why the fuss? One in six Americans live in the Northeast Corridor, where 20 percent of all U.S. jobs are, said Biden, and interest in a more transited future could see growth in both of those ways.

Currently, more than 450 Amtrak engineers are preparing for the change with “comprehensive training sessions,” including “classroom and operational training,” according to Amtrak’s blog.

Watch videos of the sessions on Amtrak’s Instagram.

The Amtrak blog reports that all training will be completed by the end of February, meaning the locomotives will begin operating in the next few months.

The new Cities Sprinter locomotives will replace trains that have been making stops for more than 25 years. The locomotive engines were built by Siemens in a solar-powered factory in California, according to the Washington Post.