- Biden's biggest Senate ally on infrastructure rode the train with him for decades.
- Sen. Tom Carper talks with the president at least every couple of weeks.
- His committee oversees surface transportation, and he loves trains, just like "Amtrak Joe."
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Sen. Tom Carper says he'll soon have an Amtrak train station in Delaware named after him, just like President Joe Biden. Except that it's smaller.
You might even miss it if you blink, he explained, so he counted down the seconds as we approached the "cute little" new station in Newark, Delaware, via Amtrak. "There's my train station!" he exclaimed, pointing out the window, laughing, and clapping as it whizzed by in all of two seconds.
About 12 miles north is the Wilmington station, and Carper recalled working to secure grants to renovate it a decade ago, on its 100th anniversary. "Then they named it after Joe Biden, and my staff was so ticked off. The nerve!"
The envy schtick is nothing new. Carper has long made these jokes about living in the shadow of Biden, who represented Delaware in the Senate for 36 years. He cracked so many of them, this reporter felt compelled to write for The News Journal in Wilmington about him milking his new "senior senator" title for laughs when Biden finally left the Senate to become vice president. He keeps the story framed in his office.
Carper, 74, brushes off questions about any rivalry with Biden, 78. They've known each other about 47 years, working together as Delaware Democrats. Carper said Biden is "like a brother" who has "always been there for me." And Biden gave Carper the first shoutout during his November 2020 electoral victory speech, calling him "my buddy" and causing Carper's phone to blow up with calls from people who wanted to work for the administration. They still talk every couple of weeks, though sometimes it's more frequent than that.
"They know each other's families. They know each other's kids. They've commuted with each other. They respect each other," said Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat and a close ally of Biden's.
"Tom summed it up perfectly: Joe Biden has always been there for him, and he has always been there for Joe Biden," added Ted Kaufman, Biden's longtime chief of staff who briefly replaced him in the Senate after Biden in 2008 won the vice presidency.
Biden and Carper are different politicians in style, interests, and some priorities. Still, they share not only big goals on infrastructure but also a devotion to Amtrak after commuting from Delaware to Washington almost daily for decades. And, it turns out, Carper is well positioned to help his friend, the president, as he tries to push a massive $1.7 trillion infrastructure package through the evenly divided Senate.
Carper chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which has jurisdiction over roads, highways, bridges, water, and climate change. A former Amtrak board member, Carper also expects to serve as a point person on goals he shares with Biden for improving the nation's premier rail service, even though it doesn't fall under his committee.
Could it be Carper's turn to shine with Amtrak? An employee at the DC station recently told Carper, "you're our man, now," he said, now that Biden is president. "I said, I've been waiting for this moment," he said, laughing. "I love Amtrak, and it turns out they love me."
Roy Orbison fanboys
I traveled recently with Carper from DC to Wilmington on the well-worn tracks he and Biden traversed for decades to see what memories it would trigger and what light it would shed on his long relationship with the 46th president.
Biden, known as "Amtrak Joe," developed his love of Amtrak and its employees as a senator during thousands of round trips that helped him see his two sons every night after the death of his first wife and baby daughter. "Amtrak became my family," he told a Philadelphia audience recently on Amtrak's 50th anniversary.
For Carper, the fascination with train travel began at a young age during an impromptu ride with his grandfather, who worked for a railroad. Before landing in politics, he hoped to work for Amtrak, but he said they weren't hiring.
When Biden would run late for his train, conductors helped him out, The Associated Press has reported. "There was always some mechanical difficulty that lasted for a minute or two," Biden said in 2009, before his inauguration as vice president.
On this particular day, Carper boarded the 5:05 p.m. train from DC to Wilmington with just a few minutes to spare, skating in after the last call. He doesn't think they've ever held the train for him, even when he was an Amtrak board member in the 1990s. "No respect," he joked, quickly adding that it's important for trains to run on time.
Carper missed his train to DC on St. Patrick's Day and had to Zoom into a congressional hearing while riding the next one he could catch. The reason he was late: Biden's presidential motorcade snarled Wilmington traffic.
Unlike Biden, Carper has never run for president and he's never been a frequent guest on Sunday talk shows. He's not the kind of guy who grabs much national attention, though media outlets had some fun last year with a triple F-bomb he dropped on a hot mic during a virtual Senate hearing. (We think Biden would say this is not a big f---ing deal.)
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Carper walked beneath the sign: "Joseph R. Biden, Jr., Railroad Station." Will his station in Newark have a sign?
"Of course," he said, but he added that it will be bigger.
He stopped at the ticket counter and asked the attendants if they sold train tickets to Iowa.
Silence.
"I'm just kidding," he said, chuckling.
They chatted about how Amtrak is getting busier, and Carper said, "We're on our way back. It's a great thing."
As he left, "Tell Joe Biden we love him," the ticket counter attendant said.
"He loves you too," Carper said.
This story first published on May 29, 2021.