Amtrak was established by the Rail Passenger Service Act of 1970 and began operations on May 1, 1971. It was created to relieve the struggling railroad corporations of their historic obligation to carry passengers. Half a century of public investment in highways and air travel had undermined the ability of railroads to provide passenger service at a profit and was causing a crisis in the industry. (Check out Episode 2 of our main series for an in-depth exploration of this history.) So the public bailed the railroads out by creating Amtrak, a quasi-public corporation that would henceforth carry passengers across almost the entire U.S. rail network.

However, as we learn in this Rail Bite, Amtrak was given a contradictory mandate. On the one hand, it was expected to preserve passenger rail service, which had long ceased to be viable as a profit-seeking enterprise. On the other hand—and at the same time—it was expected to turn a profit and avoid relying on taxpayer subsidies. Because of this, many people believe that Amtrak was created to fail.

Whether it was created to fail or not, Amtrak’s planners had their marching orders. They set about designing a system they thought could eventually turn a profit. The result was that Amtrak discontinued about 250 trains—roughly half the system at the time—on day one of taking over passenger service from the private sector. Despite these cuts, aimed at minimizing losses, Amtrak has still never turned a profit. So it has been forced to cut service time and time again.

To adjust to this reality, Congress has shifted the statutory language surrounding Amtrak several times, to emphasize providing service and to de-emphasize—and ultimately eliminate—the obligation to turn a profit. However, Amtrak is ultimately constrained by the amount of money the federal government chooses to allocate to it, and that amount has thus far never been sufficient to generate a genuine revitalization of the system.

As Amtrak today faces a renewed threat of privatization, it is beyond essential to understand why Amtrak was created to begin with, and how the mandate it was given incentivized the development of the system we have today.

Maddock Thomas, our guest in this Rail Bite, is a researcher and organizer with Railroad Workers United (RWU), a cross-union caucus of railroad workers, that has been taking the lead in fighting for a rail system that better serves, not just the people who operate and maintain it, but all of us.

In particular, Maddock is one of the key leaders of RWU’s Public Rail Now campaign and the author of the 2024 White Paper “‘Putting America Back on Track’: The Case for a 21st Century Public Rail System.”

Our new Rail Bites series presents you with some of our favorite clips from our amazing guests on Reconnect America. With Rail Bites, you can look forward to more frequent, shorter-form content in between our carefully crafted longer episodes.

Reconnect America is hosted by Bill Moyer, co-author of the book Solutionary Rail: A People-powered Campaign to Electrify America’s Railroads and Open Corridors to a Clean Energy Future. Check out the essays and supplemental posts that complement this podcast HERE.

Learn more, get involved and pitch in to support the work of Solutionary Rail at SolutionaryRail.org. Keep the podcast ads-free and without paywalls by making a tax-deductible donation HERE.