Amtrak created to operate nation’s passenger rail

What's an Amtrak, anyway?

The National Railroad Passenger Corp. has operated virtually all the nation's passenger trains since May 1, 1971. Before that, each railroad ran its own passenger trains, absorbing the losses themselves.

And there were losses. Except for a few well-patronized routes, every passenger train in the nation cost more money to operate than it raised in fares. Even the most basic service requires a conductor and trainman or two to collect fares and supervise boarding and de-boarding.

Amenities such as dining service, lounges and sleeping cars require still more staff. Unlike private cars, buses and airliners, which took advantage of government-funded infrastructure, the trains ran over tracks and from stations maintained and staffed by their operators.

State and federal regulations made the elimination of money-losing trains a slow, political process. By the late 1960s, passenger losses threatened the solvency of many major railroads.

“It was sort of a response to the Penn Central debacle,” said historian and author Craig Sanders. That Eastern railroad's June 1970 bankruptcy was the largest in U.S. history, and “all of the other railroads wanted out of the business as well.”

Various solutions were floated. Most sank.

“There had been a lot of proposals in Congress, none of which went anywhere, to pay railroads to operate passenger trains,” said Sanders. “There was never agreement on what sort of plan to have, so certain congressmen took it on themselves to come up with one.”

The result: the National Railroad Passenger Corp., a public-private hybrid funded by taxpayers to assume operation of intercity passenger trains under the name Amtrak.

Railroads joined Amtrak through a formula based on their passenger losses for 1969. They were free to drop passenger service, except for routes selected by the Department of Transportation. Amtrak took responsibility for those trains, buying locomotives and equipment and hiring onboard staff to run them over the railroads' tracks.

On May Day 1971, dozens of Amtrak passenger trains began operation, the day after hundreds of railroad-operated trains rolled their last miles.

The big change left Iowa with just a pair of trains. The California Zephyr crosses the state from Burlington to Omaha via Mount Pleasant, Ottumwa, Osceola and Creston. The Southwest Chief cuts across the state's southeast corner with a stop at Fort Madison.

The Rock Island, which operated the trains that served Iowa City, Des Moines and Omaha, Neb., didn't join Amtrak. By 1971, it operated only a few trains from Chicago to Peoria, Ill., and the Quad Cities, and the formula based on 1969 losses was too costly for the financially ailing company. The Rock Island operated those trains until 1978, two years before the railroad was dissolved in bankruptcy.

“That was the best route between Chicago and Omaha for passenger trains,” said Rich Harnish, executive director of the Midwest High Speed Rail Association. “When the passenger-rail network was fading very quickly, we didn't get trains where they made the most sense. We got trains where the freight service was enough to maintain the tracks for passenger trains.”

Amtrak has set ridership records in seven of the past eight years and carried 28.7 million passengers in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30. Total revenues were $2.48 billion, against $3.7 billion in operating expenses.

Despite periodic efforts to kill it, Amtrak enters its 40th year next month.