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Testifying before a House appropriations subcommittee yesterday, Amtrak President and Chief Executive Officer Joseph Boardman asked Congress to provide an additional $446 million for the replacement, expansion and modernization of the railroad’s aging fleet of locomotives and passenger-rail cars.

Amtrak would use the proceeds to buy new equipment and support the development of a domestic rail manufacturing base to create American jobs, Boardman said, according to a prepared statement. The supplemental funding would be in addition to Amtrak’s previously submitted FY2011 budget of $2.1 billion.

Between 2002 and 2008, Amtrak has registered a 32 percent increase in ridership and has not purchased a “single new piece of equipment,” Boardman noted.

The top replacement priority is passenger-rail cars built between 1948 and 1956, and electric locomotives that operate on the Northeast Corridor.