Amtrak at 30

摘要

As I write this column, the newspapers are full of articles and features about the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, aka Amtrak, marking its 30th anniversary. That will be old news by the time you read this, but I think the points I want to make should be as valid then as they are when I'm writing them. I started at C&NW on Monday, April 26, 1971, and Amtrak ran its first train on the following Friday, May 1. That was quite an initiation into the railroad industry. An entire era of private rail passenger service was ending and a strange new one was getting under way. Exactly how would this system work and what would it do? In those days, no one really knew. Unfortunately, it seems that no one really knows today, either.