railroad: Amtrak
Amtrak
In the 1960s growing concerns over air pollution caused by automobile use, overcrowding of highways and airports, and the inconvenient out-of-town location of many large airports caused many people to call for government support of large-scale railroad passenger service. Finally, by the terms of the Rail Passenger Service Act (1970), a National Railroad Passenger Corporation was created to operate virtually every intercity passenger rail line in the United States.
Known as Amtrak, the quasipublic agency reduced the number of intercity passenger trains by one half in its first year of operation, retaining service only in areas of high-density travel. Amtrak, which now operates up to 300 intercity passenger trains per day on 21,000 miles of track in 46 states, carried nearly 26 million intercity passengers in 2007.
Sections in this article:
- Introduction
- High-Speed Passenger Service
- Railroads in Other Countries
- Amtrak
- Decline and Revival
- Abuses and Regulation
- Technological Innovations
- An Era of Rapid Expansion
- The Early Nineteenth Century
- Early Railroads
- Bibliography
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
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