Experience a vacation journey with Amtrack train service. As the National Railroad of the United States, Amtrack covers train travel across the country.
From the Northeast Corridor and its high-speed train, the Acela Express, or the long-distance trains such as the Empire Builder or the California Zephyr, Amtrack takes you on weekend getaways or month long journeys around the United States.
Amtrack train service is America's national rail passenger corporation because America wants a national rail passenger network. Most Americans want even more passenger trains, and certainly passenger trains that reach intermediate stations at more convenient hours. And poll after poll indicates the public is as willing to pay for it as they are for airports and highways and public schools. Amtrack train service has never been about profit. It's about service.
In fact, on some lanes, Amtrack has restored traditional less-than-carload service, using its passenger stations to sort and segregate freight. Amtrack offers scheduled service like 66 hours Los Angeles to New York, terminals in center cities, and sorting and segregating of freight at origin and destination.
The ARC wants to create a buffer between Amtrack and the federal government, much as the United States Railway Association insulated Conrail from politicians. The USRA, serving as Conrail's monitor, mentor, and banker, allowed Conrail engineering, operating, and marketing chiefs to focus entirely on the mission of running an efficient railroad. But such a buffer also would remove an essential revenue-generating source and threaten seamless service so essential to making Acela Express competitive with airlines.
Amtrack rail service quality (considering aviation and highway travel is usually rather a mess) is going to reposition rail's role in American transportation.
In spite of Amtrak accurately providing the service the railroad's harshest critics want to shut it down, and claim to know how to make the trains keep to schedule better than Amtrack's management team.
It's not easy being an island of socialism in America's capitalist sea. Federally-owned Amtrack train service is a convenient, gargantuan, hostile target for lower-tax advocates, federal and state budget hawks, and private-enterprise zealots. Amtrak naysayers all have failed because 30 years after accepting the burden from freight railroads to operate money-losing intercity rail passenger service, Amtrak still exists. Get used to it. The public is not going to permit the demise of Amtrak.
Amtrack web site will help you get started and prepare for your trip aboard Amtrak. Here you'll find information to help you learn thing about your trip, find the best fare, book your tickets and get the most out of your Amtrak experience. No matter where you're going, you can find loads of helpful information on this web site to help you get the most out of your trip.
On Amtrack it is about the journey, not just the destination!