Who Tore Up the Tracks? · Episode 9 of 24 · 20 min
The Last Train Out: Death of the Passenger Train
In 1946 the streamliners were full; twenty-five years later the private passenger train was dead. The episode traces the jet, the interstate, regulators who forced losses, and the 1967 loss of Railway Post Office contracts, then the Penn Central collapse of 1970 and Amtrak's start in 1971, running about half the trains on about half the map.
Who's who
- Stuart Saunders+1 more episodePennsylvania Railroad chairman and architect of the Penn Central merger
- Alfred PerlmanNew York Central president and Penn Central co-executive
- Howard Hosmer+1 more episodeICC examiner whose 1958 report predicted sleeping cars gone by 1965
- Richard Nixon+15 more episodesPresident who signed the Rail Passenger Service Act in 1970
- Roger LewisAmtrak's first president
Where it happens
- Feather River Canyon, CaliforniaScenic route of the California Zephyr
- Wisconsin+3 more episodesSmall-town depots where the last trains stopped
Timeline
- March 1949California Zephyr debuts as the high-water mark of the scenic streamliner
- October 1958Boeing 707 enters airline service; Transportation Act eases train-off cases
- September 1967Post Office cancels its mail-by-rail contracts
- February 1968Penn Central merger takes effect
- June 1970Penn Central files the largest corporate bankruptcy to that date
- May 1, 1971Amtrak begins, keeping 184 trains on 21 route pairs
Still debated
Historians argue whether passenger rail was savable: pessimists say cars and jets made the network doomed, while optimists say a corridor core was viable. Whether Southern Pacific deliberately degraded service to justify discontinuances is documented as a pattern, but its intent is contested.
← PreviousParadise Paved: Suburbs, Bulldozers, and the Freeway RevoltNext →The Freight Verdict: Trucks, Staggers, and the Railroad That Survived
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