A video that went viral on Thursday showed an Amtrak train barreling through huge snowdrifts, blasting the white stuff toward passengers waiting to board at a New York station.

The frigid encounter aside, at least those patrons can bank on coming back to the station next year and finding a train still running.

Under President Donald Trump's budget blueprint called "America First," 23 of 46 states that Amtrak serves - including Alabama - would be cut off from the company's long-distance routes.

Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, which is the company's most profitable, would likely be expanded. But Alabama would get left behind.

The cut to Amtrak's service is part of an overall 12.7 percent reduction in the U.S. Department of Transportation's budget.

While passenger rail advocates are urging calm, some Alabama city officials are concerned about what's next as the budget heads to Congress. In Anniston, Tuscaloosa and Mobile, plans are under way to either build new train stations or make improvements that would service an anticipated growth in passenger rail customers. In Birmingham, a gleaming new transportation hub is rising on downtown's south side, soon to welcome Amtrak trains, Greyhound buses and the metro area's public transit fleet.

Meanwhile, the Trump budget creates new doubt about the prospects of restarting wide-ranging passenger rail service along the Gulf Coast. The only possible option, under Trump's budget, would be for state-supported service between New Orleans and Mobile that would require backing and substantial dollars from legislatures in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

"It's very strange that an administration that is supposed to be the infrastructure administration, with great commitments to infrastructure and transportation in particular, starts out by decreasing transportation funding by 13 percent," said John Robert Smith, a former mayor of Meridian, Miss., and the current chairman of the board for Transportation for American - a non-profit alliance that pushes for grassroots support of innovative transportation policy in the U.S.

"But this is not a surprise and it's not territory we haven't been in before," he added.

Amtrak has long been a favorite target of conservatives who criticize the federal subsidies that are regularly invested to keep the system afloat. President George W. Bush's budget regularly took on Amtrak. His fiscal year 2006 budget, much like Trump's, zeroed out Amtrak's federal subsidy.

"But Congress pushed back," Smith accurately notes, as Congress often restored Amtrak's funding even if it was lower levels than previous years. "I think there is greater support for passenger rail in the U.S. Congress now than when we fought those battles against President Bush."

In fiscal year 2016, Amtrak incurred a $227 million operating loss. But Amtrak points out that it was the smallest such loss since 1973, and, further, that public funding is a way of life for passenger rail all over the world.

In the Deep South, lawmakers such as Mississippi's Sen. Roger Wicker and Gov. Phil Bryant have been advocates for passenger rail and are pushing for restoring service along the Gulf Coast.

In Alabama, where there are fewer Amtrak stops and annual passengers than in Mississippi, lawmakers are more muted on the subject, although criticism and skepticism are regularly heard. U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Huntsville, has said that Amtrak must be "weaned from the taxpayer's nipple," while Gov. Robert Bentley has called for "private-public" partnerships in any passenger rail expansions.

'Wait and see'

In the three cities where Amtrak stops - Anniston, Birmingham and Tuscaloosa - officials hope that the trains stay. Those three are the Alabama stops on Amtrak's Crescent route, which runs from New York City to New Orleans.

And in each of the three, major investments are in the works to enhance Amtrak service.

The new intermodal hub in Birmingham, costing $32 million, is expected to be completed this year.

In Anniston, city officials are anticipating a late fall or early spring construction of an improved platform that would allow bicyclists to board the trains.

The $150,000 project is supported mostly through federal grants.

"If Amtrak service changes drastically, and the Crescent is impacted drastically, there may not be the need for us to extend the platform," said Corbett "Toby" Bennington, Anniston's director of planning and development services. "But that's a wait and see."

He said, regretfully, that the Trump budget is arriving just as Amtrak "is starting to come up with efficient ways to improve service."

In Tuscaloosa, the city is pressing ahead on designing a new train station near University Boulevard East and 26th Avenue, which will replace the city's existing station in the Alberta city suburb. The new station includes an 850-foot-long platform, and will connect to the City Walk - a new shared-use bicycle and pedestrian path.

Robin Edgeworth, chief resilience officer with Tuscaloosa's Office of Resilience and Innovation, said "it is too early to predict" if any of the Amtrak cuts will be made. "The city of Tuscaloosa enjoys the presence of Amtrak within our community and it would be our desire to see Amtrak continue to be a vital service," Edgeworth said.

'Just proposals'

Along the Gulf Coast, the Southern Rail Commission - the leading advocate for rail service in the Deep South - is pressing ahead in efforts to restart passenger rail from New Orleans to Orlando along a CSX freight line that once served Amtrak's Sunset Limited route. The Gulf Coast line has been without passenger rail service since Hurricane Katrina shattered the region in 2005.

A Gulf Coast Working Group, approved by Congress in 2015 to look into the logistics of restarting passenger rail, could have its final report completed and forwarded to the Federal Railroad Administration within "four to six weeks," according to Gregory White, chairman of the group. The report is eventually destined to go to Congress.

Ahead of that report, the commission has forwarded federal assistance to cities to help improve train stations or build new ones. In Mobile, for instance, the City Council will vote on Tuesday on whether to accept a $150,000 grant to support the planning and design of a new passenger rail terminal.

The re-started Gulf Coast route, among coastal rail supporters, includes two options:

Establish a train running between New Orleans and Mobile that is supported by state governments.

Create a much more expansive route that links up with Orlando and with Chicago's Union Station via New Orleans.

Under Trump's budget, only the state-supported line is feasible. But it's iffy - the only Southern state that funds a passenger rail route is North Carolina.

White, who lives in Andalusia, said that, in his opinion, a minimalist route without the long-distance connection, makes little sense.

But White, like others, is urging everyone to stay cool and see how things begin to play out. "These are just proposals, and I'm sure there will be a lot of negotiations and discussions," he said.