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The great survivor: Amtrak celebrates 40 years service

THE post-war period was not kind to passenger rail operation in the United States. While the Second World War had provided a huge boost, reversing a fall in revenues that had been ongoing since the 1920s, the optimism that had greeted the new era proved to be short lived. The railroads had not stood still, replacing worn out trains with swish new diesel-powered Streamliners and other innovations, but just 20 or so years later the system was on the verge of oblivion.

The reasons for this rapid decline are several-fold, but will mostly be familiar to British railway enthusiasts. The most destructive was the onslaught of the automobile, which was propelled by the construction of national highways as part of President Roosevelt’s New Deal after the Great Depression and Eisenhower’s huge 1950s interstate network project, all funded by the federal government. Also supported by the taxpayer, yet in direct competition with the privately-owned railroads, was the rapid growth of the domestic airline industry, which was based around airports and infrastructure paid for by state and federal cash. The railroads were also hampered by labour regulations introduced during better days, but aggressive management attempts to solve these issues just led to confrontation and disruption. Exactly the opposite of the public face required, it led to a further haemorrhaging of passengers away from rail.

The actions of government during this period were reprehensible, and the various machinations of the regulator, the Interstate Commerce Commission, often seemed to border on conspiracy against rail travel. On a local level, state, city and county property taxes punished railroads for every foot of track, while other transport modes paid little or nothing. To counter the threats outlined above, the rail industry had limited options, mostly confined to mergers with competitors or abandonment of services. However, to achieve both of these aims the railroads had to petition the ICC; permission that was not always given, altered beyond usefulness, or heavily delayed, leading to a spiral of decline that did nothing to improve rail’s competitiveness against its relentless rivals. The railroads couldn’t even invest in trucking, bus or airline industries, the ICC stopping all moves on the grounds of competition.

The final nail in passenger rail’s coffin was the end of the rail movement of US Postal Service traffic, the USPS transferring its operation to road and air in 1966.

Until this point, many surviving services had been little more than mail trains with a few passenger cars mixed into the consist. With all these factors weighing together, throughout the 1950s and early 1960s there was a steady drip of once proud named and local trains that were axed, eventually leading to a torrent in the 1960s that could have been the end of long-distance passenger rail services in the country. Even the famed Pullman Rail Company succumbed, collapsing in 1969.

The situation came to a head in the first year of the new decade, following the bankruptcy of the Penn Central, which had been formed just two years earlier by the merger of two of the largest and most famous operators in the country, the New York Central and the Pennsylvania Railroad. Crippled by deferred maintenance, partly attributed to ICC delays in approving the merger, and the forced acquisition of the bankrupt New Haven Railroad, the government feared a domino effect with a whole host of other railroads teetering on the brink. The politicians realised, finally, that something needed to be done.

Amtrak is born

After enshrining the Rail Passenger Service Act into law in 1970, effectively nationalising this section of the industry, this paved the way for the federally-funded National Passenger Rail Corporation to be created on May 1st, 1971. Somewhat cynically, but typical of the period when rail was seen as a declining force, the Nixon administration expected the newly coined Amtrak network (originally to be known as Railpax) to be a short-lived experiment that would quickly fade from public consciousness and disappear.

The principle behind Amtrak was that railroads could contract the passenger operator to take over their services, payment usually being a simple transfer of locomotives and equipment. In return, the railroads would often receive common shares in Amtrak, although these were effectively worthless when government held all the preferred stock. Once the services had been transferred, the railroads no longer had an obligation to provide passenger trains, although they were expected to maintain their permanent way for the higher standards required of passenger operation. For companies that chose not to pursue the Amtrak route, such as the Reading Company, the Denver & Rio Grande Western and the Rock Island, the law required that they maintain their services until at least 1975, after which they could approach the ICC about discontinuing trains.

At start up on that Mayday morning, Amtrak began operations with locos and stock provided by around 20 different railroad companies, just six major passenger operators choosing to withhold all or most of their trains from the new national network. The system was heavily pruned before the first day, with just 182 of 364 services making the cut. Many of these were a reduction in competing trains. Amtrak even introduced new routes in its first years, with Washington to Montreal and New York to Albany returning to the schedules, having been dropped in the 1960s.

Motive power in the rainbow era

Amtrak’s fleet was mostly composed of tired EMD E and F units that dated from the 1940s and 1950s, while the electrified Northeast network was reliant on even older traction like the Pennsylvania GG-1s. Still painted in the colours of their former owners, the first loco to receive the new ‘pointless arrow’ logo was former Penn Central E8A 4616 (later renumbered 322), which gained the new brand over its original black for the launch day. By the end of 1971, the first repaints in the silver/red/black scheme (Phase I) were starting to appear.

Amtrak’s first new motive power, 150 EMD SDP40F locomotives, a cowl-bodied version of the SD40-2 with two steam generators, arrived in 1973. Unfortunately, the modifications for passenger use unbalanced the loco leading to a number of high-profile derailments at speed, resulting in a service life of just over a decade.

They were followed in 1975 by 25 P30CH units, based on the General Electric U30C, and two years later by the iconic F40PH, which would dominate Amtrak services for the next 20 years. The four-axle F40PH family was essentially a passenger GP40-2 and was rushed into production to take over from the discredited SDP40F. Utilising electric (known as Head End) power instead of steam heat, driven off a secondary generator, 215 were built for Amtrak between 1977-88, with variants finding favour with other operators such as the Canadian passenger company VIA and many commuter agencies.

Meanwhile, on the Northeast Corridor, acquired by Amtrak on the formation of Conrail in April 1976, the E60 and GG1 electrics soldiered on into the 1980s, when they were finally replaced by AEM-7 units built in the USA under licence from Swedish manufacturer ASEA.

There was a similar story with the coaching stock fleet, with the ageing passenger cars inherited by Amtrak gradually being replaced by new build, although some still work today in the company’s ‘heritage fleet’. These were based around two platforms, the Amfleet cars and the double-deck Superliners. The over 400-strong Budd-built Amfleet was based on the successful Metroliner EMUs, and were destined for shorter haul services and the Northeast Corridor. Pullman-Standard’s Superliner was inspired by the Santa Fe’s ‘hi-levels’ used on the El Capitan service and almost 300 vehicles were constructed.

Political interference

Despite the hypocrisy of its creators, Amtrak began the slow process of rebuilding in the 1970s with some success, although ridership began to stagnate in the 1980s as funding dried up. The bi-polar American electoral system being what it is, the operator has also suffered under different administrations, generally with Republicans demanding greater accountability and that Amtrak even returns a profit. This was tempered in the 1980s by the political wiles of Amtrak president W Graham Claytor, Jr. Having survived its first two decades, the dawn of the Clinton administration promised a new era for the national passenger rail operator. The story continues next issue.