Between the lines: The politics of passenger rail service, 1958--1970

For many modern Americans, the passenger train is but a distant memory, an artifact of the past. In the postwar United States, the status of passenger rail service deteriorated significantly. There were many reasons for this decline, but large subsidies enabled by federal highway and air transportation policies greatly favored alternate forms of traffic at the passenger train's expense. Realizing that rail service in this country was either on the verge of extinction or nationalization, Congress and President Richard M. Nixon sought to preserve a modest network of passenger trains through the Rail Passenger Service Act of 1970, which created the publicly subsidized corporation Amtrak. This study looks at changing transportation policies following World War II and ultimately identifies the role that politics played in the decline of the passenger train and the creation of Amtrak.