U.S. passenger rail has surely never had a stronger supporter in the White House than President Joe Biden. In just four years, he’s convinced Congress to spend $66 billion on Amtrak expanding and upgrading service with nearly one-fourth of that going to the D.C-to-Boston Northeast Corridor. Projects include a replacement of a bridge over the Susquehanna River in Maryland and, of course, the planned 1.4-mile-long Frederick Douglass Tunnel replacing the ancient Baltimore & Potomac Tunnel near Penn Station, widely considered the worst passenger rail bottleneck in the corridor.

All of this has been good news for Baltimore and its prospects for economic resurgence but might it come to a halt when Donald Trump is sworn in as president? Some of the upgrades may be too far along to derail (the Douglass Tunnel among them) and Trump has spoken admiringly of China’s high-speed rail. But given the president-elect’s desire to cut federal spending to help finance tax cuts, it’s hard to be confident. One negative indicator is Trump’s nominee for transportation secretary. Sean Duffy, 53, the former Wisconsin congressman and Fox Business host, has a record of opposing passenger rail.

Amtrak advocates say even by Republican standards, Duffy’s record in the House was anti-passenger rail including a 2017 vote to eliminate all Amtrak spending, capital and operating, shutting down service nationwide. It will be up to Democratic senators to quiz him closely in confirmation hearings. They may not have enough GOP votes to sink his nomination but they might extract from him some promises to maintain Amtrak’s high-speed, national network ambitions.

It’s one thing to oppose Amtrak when you represent a rural district like northern Wisconsin, it’s another to do so as transportation secretary when you have pro-Amtrak Republican senators like Mississippi’s Roger Wicker as part of your narrow majority.

Of course, the Trump administration may simply choose a stalling tactic and sit on funds already set aside for Amtrak. That would raise costs, force some plans to eventually be scrapped and, of course, put greater pressure on the nation’s traffic-congested roads and highway infrastructure — not to mention worsen pollution and greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. That doesn’t sound like any kind of a victory for Trump, a native New Yorker who surely understands better than most the value of a functioning rail network to serve the nation’s urban centers.