Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility House adopts Matzie’s ‘National Train Day’ resolution

House adopts Matzie’s ‘National Train Day’ resolution

Recognizes importance of rail industry in Pennsylvania

Rep. Robert F. Matzie    May 7, 2025 | 2:17 PM

HARRISBURG, May 7– The Pennsylvania House today adopted state Rep. Rob Matzie’s resolution recognizing the importance of railroads and their impact on the commonwealth’s history.

Matzie, who is chairman of the House Majority Caucus, said he introduced H.R. 187 – recognizing May 10, 2025, as “National Train Day” in Pennsylvania – as a reminder of how railroads transformed the commonwealth’s landscape physically, economically and socially.

“From the mid-1800s on, the rail industry played a huge role in powering our economic growth and shaping our landscape,” Matzie said. “Once businesses were freed from having to rely on water-based shipping, they began locating all over the state, and towns and urban centers began growing up around them. 

“At the same time, the rail industry’s demand for materials and fuel boosted our steel and coal industries, and with new trains carrying our steel, iron and coal throughout the state and beyond, we grew into an industrial powerhouse.”

Matzie said that today, trains also play a key role in easing congestion on our roads, linking cities and rural communities and providing a means of mass transportation that is more environmentally friendly than air travel or gas-powered cars.    

National Train Day was first established in 2008 and is celebrated annually on the Saturday closest to May 10 – the day the nation’s first transcontinental railway was completed in 1869 in Promontory, Utah.