The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak (; AMTK, AMTZ), is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. states and three Canadian Providences. Amtrak is a play of the words America and trak, the latter itself a sensational spelling of track.
Founded in 1971 as a quasi-public corporation to operate many U.S. passenger rail routes, Amtrak receives a combination of state and federal subsidies but is managed as a for-profit organization. The company's headquarters is located one block west of Union Station in Washington D.C. Amtrak is headed by a Board of Directors, two of whom are the Secretary of Transportation and CEO of Amtrak, while the other eight members are nominated to serve a term of five years.
Amtrak's network includes over 500 stations along 21,400 miles (34,000 km) of track. It directly owns approximately 623 miles (1,003 km) of this track and operates an additional 132 miles of track; the remaining mileage is over rail lines owned by other railroad companies. Some track sections allow trains to run as fast as 150 mph (240 km/h).
In fiscal year 2022, Amtrak served 22.9 million passengers and had $2.1 billion in revenue, with more than 17,100 employees as of fiscal year 2021. Nearly 87,000 passengers ride more than 300 Amtrak trains daily. Nearly two-thirds of passengers come from the 10 largest metropolitan areas; 83% of passengers travel on routes shorter than 400 miles (645 km).
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In 1916, 98% of all commercial intercity travelers in the United States moved by rail, and the remaining 2% moved by inland waterways. Nearly 42 million passengers used railways as primary transportation. Passenger trains were owned and operated by the same privately owned companies that operated freight trains. As the 20th century progressed, patronage declined in the face of competition from buses, air travel, and the car. New streamlined diesel-powered trains such as the Pioneer Zephyr were popular with the traveling public but could not reverse the trend. By 1940, railroads held 67 percent of commercial passenger miles in the United States. In real terms, passenger miles had fallen by 40% since 1916, from 42 billion to 25 billion.
Traffic surged during World War II, which was aided by troop movement and gasoline rationing. The railroad's market share surged to 74% in 1945, with a massive 94 billion passenger miles. After the war, railroads rejuvenated their overworked and neglected passenger fleets with fast and luxurious streamliners. These new trains brought only temporary relief to the overall decline. Even as postwar travel exploded, passenger travel percentages of the overall market share fell to 46% by 1950, and then 32% by 1957. The railroads had lost money on passenger service since the Great Depression, but deficits reached $723 million in 1957. For many railroads, these losses threatened financial viability.
The causes of this decline were heavily debated. The National Highway System and airports, both funded by the government, competed directly with the railroads, which paid for their own infrastructure. American car culture was also on the rise in the post-World War II years. Progressive Era rate regulation limited the railroad's ability to turn a profit. Railroads also faced antiquated work rules and inflexible relationships with trade unions. To take one example, workers continued to receive a day's pay for 100-to-150-mile (160 to 240 km) workdays. Streamliners covered that in two hours.
