US.XI.
The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, known publicly as Amtrak, is a government owned corporation that was organized in 1971 by the United States Congress and the Nixon administration in a response to a sustained decline in private passenger rail service in the prior fifty years. There are a number of factors that contribute to this decline including the loss of United States Mail contracts in 1966 and the increased move towards private automobile, bus, and airplane travel throughout the 1900s. I love trains and take them whenever and wherever I can. These are two Amtrack trains at the station in Philidelphia, Pennsylvania. It makes me proud that in the interest of the public, our government has guaranteed passenger rail service where the free market could not, to our lower forty eight states, as well as the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Quebec, and Nova Scotia.
Pennsylvania. Autumn. 2009.