The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak , is a government-owned corporation that was organized on May 1, 1971 to provide intercity passenger train service in the United States. "Amtrak" is a portmanteau of the words "American" and "track".

All of Amtrak's preferred stock is owned by the U.S. federal government. The members of its board of directors are appointed by the President of the United States and are subject to confirmation by the United States Senate. Common stock was issued in 1971 to railroads that contributed capital and equipment; these shares convey almost no benefits but their current holders declined a 2002 buy-out offer by Amtrak.

Amtrak employs nearly 19,000 people. It operates passenger service on of track primarily owned by freight railroads connecting 500 destinations in 46 states.Amtrak Fact Sheet. Some routes also serve Canada. In fiscal year 2008, Amtrak served 28.7 million passengers, representing six straight years of record ridership. Despite this recent growth, the United States still has one of the lowest inter-city rail usages in the developed world.

History

Amtrak's origins are traceable to the sustained decline of private passenger rail services in the United States from about 1920 to 1970. In 1971, in response to the decline, Congress and President Nixon created Amtrak. The Nixon administration secretly agreed with some railroads that Amtrak would be shut down after two years. After Fortune magazine exposed the manufactured mismanagement in 1974, Louis W. Menk, chairman of the Burlington Northern Railroad remarked that the story was undermining the scheme to dismantle Amtrak. For its entire existence, the company has been subjected to political cross-winds and insufficient capital resources, including owned railway. Recent years have been among Amtrak's brightest; the corporation completed a significant rail project in the northeast in the early 2000s while its major competitors—particularly airlines—were affected by bankruptcies, 9/11, and rising fuel costs.

Passenger rail service before Amtrak

From the middle 1800s until approximately 1920, nearly all intercity travelers in the United States moved by rail. By 1910, close to all of intercity passenger trips were by railroad. The rails and the trains were owned and operated by private, for-profit organizations. Approximately 65,000 railroad passenger cars operated in 1929.

For a long time after 1920, passenger rail's popularity diminished and there were a series of pullbacks and tentative recoveries. Rail passenger revenues declined dramatically between 1920 and 1934, but in the mid-1930s, railroads reignited popular imagination with service improvements and new, diesel-powered streamliners, such as the gleaming silver Pioneer Zephyr and Flying Yankee. Even with the improvements, on a relative basis, traffic continued to erode and by 1940 railroads held 67% of passenger-miles in the United States. World War II broke the malaise. During the war, troop movements and restrictions on automobile fuel generated a sixfold increase in passenger traffic from the low point of the Depression. After the war, railroads rejuvenated overworked and neglected fleets with fast and often luxurious streamliners — epitomized by the Super Chief and California Zephyr — which inspired the last major resurgence in passenger rail travel.