As the United States marks its 250th anniversary, WTOP presents “250 Years of America,” a multipart series examining the innovations, breakthroughs and pivotal moments that have shaped the nation since 1776.
AAR is proud to partner with WTOP to bring you this series.
By the late 1950s, America was moving faster than ever. Interstate highways were spreading across the country, jet aircraft were carrying passengers coast to coast in a matter of hours, and the railroads that once dominated long-distance travel were struggling to survive.
The passenger trains that moved millions of Americans in the first half of the 20th century — and carried troops across the nation during World War II — were rapidly losing riders.
By the late 1960s, the era of railroads dominating intercity passenger transportation was effectively over.
For more than a decade, nearly two dozen privately owned railroads struggled to maintain passenger service while losing millions of dollars annually.
“The railroads really gave it a good try after World War II. New equipment, faster trains, luxury accommodations,” said DePaul University transportation professor Joe Schwieterman. “But it wasn’t enough.”
Congress concluded that without federal intervention, passenger rail service in the United States would largely disappear.
In 1970, President Richard Nixon signed the Rail Passenger Service Act, creating a new federally supported corporation that would assume responsibility for most intercity passenger rail service. Amtrak began operations on May 1, 1971.
“1972 is before us,” Nixon said during his State of the Union Address. “It holds precious time for us to accomplish good for the nation. We must not waste it.”
The decision was far from universally popular within the administration. Office of Management and Budget Director George Shultz argued that passenger trains were proven money losers that would require tens of millions of dollars in federal subsidies to survive. Others, including free-market economists serving on the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, viewed the proposal as an inappropriate government intervention into the marketplace.
According to transportation historians and the Eno Center for Transportation, some administration officials believed Nixon should have allowed the private railroads to abandon passenger service altogether rather than support a federally backed railroad.
Instead, the government created the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, better known as Amtrak.
The new company immediately streamlined operations. Of the 366 passenger routes that previously existed, Amtrak retained only 184.
It also inherited significant challenges, including aging equipment, deteriorating stations and incompatible operating schedules.
With a streamlined route structure, a focus on the heavily traveled Northeast Corridor, a smaller network of long-distance trains and increasing federal investment during the 1970s, Amtrak gradually stabilized.
New equipment was purchased. Tracks were repaired. Stations were modernized. And ridership slowly returned.
“Amtrak really gave them that relief,” Schwieterman said.
One of the company’s first priorities was addressing the condition of its railcar fleet.
In 1972, Amtrak evaluated approximately 3,000 passenger cars and removed 1,800 from service.
“You can’t run a good railroad without good railroad cars. So our first order of business was to take stock of our rolling stock,” Amtrak wrote in a 1972 letter to passengers.
One of Amtrak’s most visible supporters would emerge from Delaware.
As a U.S. senator, Joe Biden frequently rode the train between Wilmington and Washington while raising his young family. The trips helped make him one of the railroad’s most recognizable advocates.
“You get to know everybody, the folks. I used to have a Christmas party for Amtrak employees at my home, and it got so big we ended up having a summer party because family and retirees kept coming back,” Biden said during an event in Philadelphia while serving as president. “Amtrak wasn’t just a way of getting home. It provided me, and I’m not joking, an entire other family. We shared milestones of my life.”
Over the years, Biden repeatedly supported federal investment in passenger rail, including funding included in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which provided billions of dollars for new equipment, station improvements and infrastructure upgrades.
During its 55-year history, Amtrak has faced repeated efforts to reform, restructure or even eliminate the national passenger rail system.
Today, supporters argue passenger rail is stronger than at any point in Amtrak’s history, with new trains, improving reliability and record ridership.
According to Amtrak, Fiscal Year 2025 produced an all-time record of 34.5 million passenger trips, a 5.1% increase over the previous year. More than 15 million of those trips occurred on the Northeast Corridor between Washington, New York and Boston.
Jim Mathews, president and CEO of the Rail Passengers Association, believes the railroad’s future remains bright.
In a letter earlier this year discussing conversations with officials at the Federal Railroad Administration, Mathews wrote:
“I’m more confident than before that what FRA is examining really isn’t a back-door attempt to dismantle the national passenger rail system, as some online rail supporters have feared,” he said. “Instead, it appears to be an effort to think seriously about how Amtrak’s structure can better support the service expansion Congress has already directed it to deliver.”
Created as a temporary solution to a transportation crisis, Amtrak has survived for more than half a century and remains one of the most enduring transportation experiments in American history.
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