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Introduction: Amtrak's current situation -- A brief history of Amtrak -- Amtrak's role in intercity transportation -- The basic economics of passenger rail -- Policy options for the future of passenger rail -- Appendix. Amtrak's interconnections with freight and commuter railroads.
This study reviews Amtrak's history and the economics of passenger rail. It also examines four options for the future of intercity passenger rail: (1) Eliminating federal subsidies and shutting down service; (2) Ending national service and focusing instead on passenger rail's strongest areas (relatively short, densely populated corridors, such as the Northeast and parts of California); (3) Keeping national long-distance service as it is today but upgrading the corridors; and (4) Substantially improving Amtrak's entire network through a major increase in funding, with a view to giving rail a much bigger role in transportation between U.S. cities. Those four options are by no means the only ones available, but they represent the broad range of policy choices that lawmakers face.
During the tumultuous year of 2008--when gas prices reached $4 a gallon, Amtrak set ridership records, and a commuter train collided with a freight train in California--journalist James McCommons spent a year on America's trains, talking to the people who ride and work the rails throughout much of the Amtrak system. Organized around these rail journeys, Waiting on a Train is equal parts travel narrative, personal memoir, and investigative journalism. Readers meet the historians, railroad executives, transportation officials, politicians, government regulators, railroad lobbyists, and passenger-rail advocates who are rallying around a simple question: Why has the greatest railroad nation in the world turned its back on the very form of transportation that made modern life and mobility possible? Distrust of railroads in the nineteenth century, overregulation in the twentieth, and heavy government subsidies for airports and roads have left the country with a skeletal intercity passenger-rail system. Amtrak has endured for decades, and yet failed to prosper owing to a lack of political and financial support and an uneasy relationship with the big, remaining railroads. While riding the rails, McCommons explores how the country may move passenger rail forward in America--and what role government should play in creating and funding mass-transportation systems. Against the backdrop of the nation's stimulus program, he explores what it will take to build high-speed trains and transportation networks, and when the promise of rail will be realized in America.
This Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study -- prepared at the request of the Senate Budget Committee -- reviews past policies toward Amtrak & the fundamental economics of passenger rail service. The review suggests that there are only limited conditions under which passenger rail service in the U.S. could be economically viable without subsidies. This study also explores the implications of four options for future federal support of passenger rail, ranging from eliminating federal subsidies to funding a massive expansion of rail service. In keeping with CBO's mandate to provide objective, impartial analysis, the study makes no recommendations. Charts & graphs.
Unlike many United States industries, railroads are intrinsically linked to American soil and particular regions. Yet few Americans pay attention to rail lines, even though millions of them live in an economy and culture "waiting for the train." In Train Time: Railroads and the Imminent Reshaping of the United States Landscape, John R. Stilgoe picks up where his acclaimed work Metropolitan Corridor left off, carrying his ideas about the spatial consequences of railways up to the present moment. Arguing that the train is returning, "an economic and cultural tsunami about to transform the United States," Stilgoe posits a future for railways as powerful shapers of American life. Divided into sections that focus on particular aspects of the impending impact of railroads on the landscape, Train Time moves seamlessly between historical and contemporary analysis. From his reading of what prompted investors to reorient their thinking about the railroad industry in the late 1970s, to his exploration of creative solutions to transportation problems and land use planning and development in the present, Stilgoe expands our perspective of an industry normally associated with bad news. Urging us that "the magic moment is now," he observes, "Now a train is often only a whistle heard far off on a sleepless night. But romantic or foreboding or empowering, the whistle announces return and change to those who listen." For scholars with an interest in American history in general and railroad and transit history in particular, as well as general readers concerned about the future of transportation in the United States, Train Time is an engaging look at the future of our railroads.
Discover the story of Amtrak, America's Railroad, 50 years in the making. In 1971, in an effort to rescue essential freight railroads, the US government founded Amtrak. In the post–World War II era, aviation and highway development had become the focus of government policy in America. As rail passenger services declined in number and in quality, they were simultaneously driving many railroads toward bankruptcy. Amtrak was intended to be the solution. In Amtrak, America's Railroad: Transportation's Orphan and Its Struggle for Survival, Geoffrey H. Doughty, Jeffrey T. Darbee, and Eugene E. Harmon explore the fascinating history of this popular institution and tell a tale of a company hindered by its flawed origin and uneven quality of leadership, subjected to political gamesmanship and favoritism, and mired in a perpetual philosophical debate about whether it is a business or a public service. Featuring interviews with former Amtrak presidents, the authors examine the current problems and issues facing Amtrak and their proposed solutions. Created in the absence of a comprehensive national transportation policy, Amtrak manages to survive despite inherent flaws due to the public's persistent loyalty. Amtrak, America's Railroad is essential reading for those who hope to see another fifty years of America's railroad passenger service, whether they be patrons, commuters, legislators, regulators, and anyone interested in railroads and transportation history.