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2026 Rail Passenger Day on the Hill Resources

This page provides some resources to help you coordinate with other participants from your state, including:

[Click here for a full list of Rail Passengers' 2026 legislative resources.]

STEP 1. TEAM UP

Find out if there are other council members from your state who are planning to attend, and combine your efforts. If you can “ride along” with someone who has done it before, you'll quickly start to get a good idea of how it's done. And these meetings are easier when you've got someone else with you.

Staff has provided a list of current Day on the Hill registrants(which we’ll keep up to date) to assist in planning.

If you do need help determining who's in your area, reach out to Joe Aiello at [email protected] (Subject: Hill Meetings)

STEP 2. SCHEDULE YOUR MEETINGS

The purpose of our meetings with Congress and congressional staffers is to build an ongoing relationship, not simply to meet and discuss issues briefly on one day per year. View the scheduling as the first step in building that relationship.

a. If you’re from a larger state with multiple council members, be sure to coordinate with those other members to ensure that nobody’s double‐booking meetings. Divide up the work and decide who will schedule the meetings, who will meet with whom – whether you’re going to go to the meetings as a group or split up, for example – and keep one another in the loop. For states with large (Congressional and RPA) delegations, this can be a bit of a challenge, so communication is key. For larger delegations where you don’t have time to see everyone, prioritize the Senators, the House members of which each of your state’s council members is a constituent, and any member who’s on a committee.

b. Start by calling each Representative or Senator's D.C. office (find the number for your Representative and Senator). Identify yourself as being with the Rail Passengers Association and ask for contact info for the Senator or Representative's scheduler. This will probably be an e‐mail address, but may be a phone number. Thank them for the information.

c. Contact the scheduler to request a meeting with the Senator/Representative or her/his staffer in charge of transportation and infrastructure issues. You'll probably get a staffer that focuses on transportation, rather than the Member -- and that's okay!

Here's an example script we suggest:

[Title/Name of Scheduler]:

My name is _____, and I'm a member of the Rail Passengers Association. [If contacting the office of a Senator or the Representative from your congressional district, add that you are a constituent. This matters to them.] On DATE, the Rail Passengers Association will be holding our annual Day on the Hill advocacy event.

I would like to meet briefly over with [Senator/Representative _____] or [her/his] staffer in charge of transportation and infrastructure to discuss passenger rail issues important to the [state/commonwealth]. We will be talking about funding for Amtrak and passenger rail programs in Fiscal Year 2027, policy proposals for the upcoming surface transportation reauthorization, and [try to include at least one regional corridor or project to provide a locl hook].

Please contact me at your earliest convenience at [phone#] or [e‐mail] to schedule a meeting.

I appreciate your assistance and look forward to meeting with [Senator/Representative _____].

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

STEP 3. SEND RAIL PASSENGERS STAFF YOUR MEETING SCHEDULE

Once you have your meetings scheduled, let Rail Passengers staff know about your meetings using the online form. RPA's goal is to touch as many congressional offices as possible, and keeping the main office abreast of your schedule helps them keep a running tab.

[NB: if you have a spreadsheet of meetings that you would like to submit as a batch, you can simply email them to [email protected], Subject Line: “Spring 2026 Meetings”.]