Environmental Graffiti

Image by Wili Hybrid

Passenger Rail service was once a booming industry in the United States and was the main revenue source that spurred the rapid growth of rail transport throughout the late 18th Century and early 19th Century. However, as the price of cheap fuel and the birth of the automobile arrived, the use of passenger rail slowly faded away. During the 1960s, cheap airfare further helped to kill the inter-city rail services that were offered and eventually the once profitable business was a money pit for railroads. Between 1946 and 1964, the annual number of passengers declined from 770 to 298 million. Passenger rail service in the United States showed the signs of underinvestment as rail facilities suffered from decrepit equipment, cavernous and nearly empty stations in dangerous urban centers, and management that seemed intent on driving away the few remaining customers. The 1960s also saw the end of railway post office revenues, which had helped some of the remaining trains break even.

During the years of the First World War, cars were more attainable for Americans - that over-time replaced the need for commuter services and intra-city mass transit. While rail travel was able to survive this era with the dawn of WWII in the 1940s, it once again faced a new type of competition. Commercial aviation was supported at many levels by the government in creating sprawling airports, provided subsidies to build terminals and funded construction for highways to lead to the airports and to other cities.

Rail travel in the United States seemed destined for disaster. That was until 1970, when the Rail Passenger Service Act was signed by President Nixon. Legislators created the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, which allowed any passenger rail company to contract with the corporation to join the system. This helped burden the huge cost of operating passenger rail service in the United States. Notwithstanding this, it created several problems that still haven’t been addressed today.
Original Passenger Car for Amtrak in 1968.

Image via Wikipedia

Currently, Amtrak operates passenger services on 21,000 miles of track and connects to 500 destinations in 46 states. In fiscal year of 2006, Amtrak served 24.3 million passengers; a company record. According to estimates for the fiscal year 2007, Amtrak has served over the 25 million passenger mark, a 6% increase from the previous year. Projections show that in 2008, Amtrak could serve as many as 27 million passengers. Unfortunately, this total is only a faction of the 660 million passengers that flew on airplanes in 2006 in the United States.

So what’s holding back passenger rail service in the States? The largest issue for travelers is the delays. In an era where travelers hate delays, railroads in the US are the worst. Amtrak only has an on time performance rating of 74% in comparison to 82% with commercial aviation. You may ask, “How can service be delayed when they don’t have to contend with weather, security and maintenance issues like the airlines do?”

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