Railroad service in the United States consists mainly of freight, with a well-integrated network of private freight railroads of standard gauge extending into Canada and Mexico. Passenger service is primarily public transit and commuter rail in major cities. Intercity passenger service, once an important and important part of the national passenger transportation network, plays a limited role compared to transportation patterns in many other countries.
The United States may be a nation of automobiles, but it is also one of the greatest countries in the world to explore on passenger trains. There are a number of private operators who offer exclusive and luxurious packages for private passenger trains, but it is the public and subsidized Amtrak trains that most tourists and travelers take to America by rail. The coast-to-coast journey from San Francisco to New York City by train is one of the world’s classic rail journeys, known for both its spectacular scenery and its historical significance.
The United States was one of the pioneers of rail transportation. Before flying, rail transport was the primary means of long-distance travel and played an important role in the colonization of the Wild West in the late 19th century. Perhaps the most significant event in American railroad history was the laying of the last spire at Promontory, Utah, in 1869, when the first transcontinental railroad between New York City and San Francisco was completed. The advent of the railroad also played a key role in the industrialization of the United States because it allowed the rapid transportation of raw materials and goods across the country and allowed people to move relatively quickly from their homes in rural areas to others. industrial cities working in factories.
Before embarking on a railroad adventure across America, it’s worth understanding the precarious situation Amtrak is in today. Somewhere between a private and a public company (Amtrak’s preferred stock is all owned by the U.S. government), Amtrak must provide public service while striving to be profitable as a competitive mode of transportation. Amtrak is currently the only operator of regular intercity trains in the United States. Despite passenger growth (caused by rising gasoline prices and the growing inconvenience of airline safety measures), Amtrak depends on hard-won government funding of more than a billion dollars a year and is often subject to controversial and bizarre policy prescriptions from Congress.
Amtrak’s financial situation is not the only problem. Most of the rail lines Amtrak uses are owned and operated by private freight companies. Although Amtrak has the legal right to priority over freight trains, in many cases Amtrak service is interrupted by freight traffic. Many rail lines are not double-tracked, and the places to pass are often few and far between. And, unlike in much of Europe or East Asia, electrified lines outside the Northeast corridor are the exception rather than the norm, and while modern diesel trains are much better than their predecessors, they are still limited in acceleration and maximum speed compared to similar sets of electric trains.
The Amtrak situation has slowly but surely improved since the beginning of the new millennium, and passenger numbers have increased either because of or because of local investment in rail service at the state and federal level. Since 2000, annual passenger numbers have grown by more than 50 percent. Passenger growth has prompted Amtrak to expand its services by introducing several additional rail lines (e.g., from Lynchburg, Virginia, to Roanoke). While major high-speed rail programs have either failed or are a decade or more away from completion, many minor improvements (sometimes combined with Amtrak or local organizations buying rail from freight railroads) have helped improve travel times and total travel times. A growing awareness of the environmental disadvantages of airplanes and automobiles has contributed to the efforts of some, even small cities, to introduce small commuter train systems. Positive examples of this include Nashville or Albuquerque, which opened several commuter rail lines only in the mid-2000s. In addition, states sometimes intervened when the federal government wanted to cut funding for routes through their state, so some states now see more service and less risk of service cancellation than ever before in the Amtrak era.
The largest U.S. cities without a single rail station (Amtrak, commuter rail, or historic rail) are Phoenix (light rail is present), Columbus, and Las Vegas (there is a short monorail line).