National
Railroad Passenger Corporation - (en)
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak (AAR
reporting marks AMTK and AMTZ), is a governmental agency created on May 1,
1971, as the United States' intercity passenger train system. "Amtrak"
is a portmanteau of the words "American" and "track".
Amtrak is a quasi-governmental agency; all of its preferred stock is owned
by the federal government. The members of its board of directors are
appointed by the President of the United States, and are subject to
confirmation by the United States Senate. Some common stock is held by the
private railroads that transferred their passenger service to Amtrak in
1971. Though Amtrak stock does not pay dividends and is not routinely
traded, a small number of private investors have purchased Amtrak stock
from its original owners.
Amtrak employs over 19,000 people. The nationwide network of 22,000 miles
(35,000 km) of routes serves 500 communities in 46 states of the United
States, with some of the routes serving communities in Canada. In fiscal
year 2006, Amtrak served an estimated 25 million passengers, a company
record.
History
Amtrak's old logo from 1971 to 2000, often called the "pointless
arrow" or, less often but officially by Amtrak, the "inverted
arrow." On July 6, 2000 Amtrak unveiled "...a new logo whose
shape and suggestion of movement convey the comfort and uniqueness of the
rail experience."
[edit] Passenger rail service before Amtrak
Between 1870 and 1916, the total track mileage of U.S. railroads grew from
53,000 to 245,000 miles (85,000 to 394,000 km); during the same period,
key technological innovations (including standard gauge track, more
powerful locomotives, air brakes, signaling systems, and steel passenger
cars) brought significant improvements in the safety and speed of rail
travel. By 1910, railroads handled 95% of all intercity travel in the U.S.
Peak volume of passenger rail travel was reached in 1920, when 1.2 billion
passengers were carried.
Even in the 1920s, railroads faced increasing competition for rail
passengers from automobiles and buses, which used an expanding network of
paved roads, many built with governmental funding. By 1929, intercity rail
ridership had declined by 18%.[citation needed] A major casualty was
passenger service on branch lines, which were increasingly subject to
abandonment as total track mileage began a long, steady decline. As
automobiles and buses took the place of passenger trains on short- and
medium-haul trips, railroads lost the feeder services that had formerly
brought throngs of passengers to their long-distance services.[citation
needed]
Although passenger rail travel declined further during the Great
Depression, new, diesel-powered streamliners, beginning with 1934's
gleaming silver Pioneer Zephyr, brought many travelers back to the rails;
in 1939, when 90 streamliners were in operation nationally, passenger
travel had increased 38% from the 1932 level.[citation needed]
During World War II, restrictions on automobile fuel use and troop
movements led to explosive growth in passenger rail travel. The railroad
companies had to scramble to find enough equipment to meet the
demand.
After the war, many railroad executives believed that — despite
competition from automobiles and the then-nascent airline industry — a
profitable market existed for intercity passenger rail travel. Thousands
of gleaming, streamlined passenger cars were ordered, and a fleet of fast,
beautiful, and often luxurious streamliners — epitomized by the Super
Chief and California Zephyr — inspired an impressive resurgence in
passenger rail travel. In 1948, Santa Fe CEO Fred G. Gurley reported a
"complete reversal of our passenger traffic picture", with 1947
revenues exceeding those of 1936 by 220%.[citation needed] Inspired by
America's technological leadership in passenger train design, railroads in
Europe and Japan launched new, streamlined high-speed rail services
modeled on American innovations.
The resurgence of passenger rail service in the U.S. proved to be
short-lived. Although a few of the leading trains continued to generate
modest profits through the 1950s and early 1960s, passengers disappeared
in droves, and so did the trains. Between 1946 and 1964, the number of
passengers carried per year declined from 770 to 298 million.[citation
needed] In 1954, U.S. railroads operated more than 2,500 non-commuter
passenger trains; by 1969, there were fewer than 500.[citation needed] By
1970, with only a few exceptions, U.S. passenger rail service had declined
to what can only be described as a miserable state: decrepit equipment,
cavernous and nearly empty stations in dangerous urban centers, and
management that seemed intent on driving away their few remaining
customers. Even some of the most highly efficient private-sector railroads
such as the Norfolk and Western Railway could not earn a profit or even
recover the direct operating expenses for passenger service.
The rise of commercial aviation and the Interstate Highway System
beginning in the 1950s, the former heavily subsidized by taxpayers and the
latter funded by gas taxes, drew would-be passengers away. Intercity bus
services also saw declines in ridership despite the new Interstate Highway
System. For ground transportation, more and more Americans chose the
flexibility, convenience and privacy of personal transportation by
automobile over public transportation by rail or bus. The 1960s also saw
the end of railway post office revenues, which had helped some of the
remaining trains break even despite the dearth of passengers.
At the same time, the U.S. Federal government maintained regulatory
policies that were unfavorable for passenger service:
In 1947, the U.S. Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) ruled that
passenger trains could not exceed 79 mph (127 km/h) without special in-cab
signaling systems; railroads complained that such systems were not needed
outside a few congested intercity corridors and that they would have to
spend the equivalent of a half billion dollars to comply with the
regulation. As a result, plans to develop intercity high-speed rail
services were shelved.[citation needed]
A World War II-era excise tax of 15% on passenger rail travel was not
repealed when the war ended; it survived until 1962.[citation needed]
Pennsylvania Railroad Metroliner car, built by Budd, circa 1968The
National Association of Railroad Passengers (NARP) was formed in 1967 to
lobby for government funding to assure the continuation of passenger
trains. Its lobbying efforts were hampered by the opposition of the
Democratic Party to any sort of subsidies to the privately-owned
railroads, and Republican Party opposition to the nationalization of the
railroad industry. The proponents were aided by the fact that few in the
federal government wanted to be held responsible for the
seemingly-inevitable extinction of the passenger train, which most
regarded as tantamount to political suicide. The urgency of the need to
solve the passenger train problem was heightened by the bankruptcy filing
of the Penn Central, the dominant railroad in the Northeastern United
States, on June 21, 1970.
