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Formed by the Federal Government back in 1971 to preserve the remaining passenger trains, Amtrak has had a difficult history. After operating the former railroad owned cars and engines for several years, Amtrak finally purchased their own equipment in the form of the Amfleet cars back in 1975. Amazingly most of thses cars remain in service to this day. Also in the early 1970's Amtrak purchased several EMD diesels for their long distance trains. These SDP-40F were basically freight units lengthened to accomodate steam generators still needed for the 1950's era cars. These units suffered from a history of derailments owing mostly to their truck design. The shortened F40 units were a real success story, however. While most are retired now, several continue on in service on commuter or private hands.
The first bi-level Superliner cars arrived in 1979. Ordered in batches over the next several years, they are the main long distance fleet. The exception are any trains destined for New York. The overhead wires and low tunnels prohibit their use along the Northeast Corridor.

The Northeast Corridor stretching from Boston to Washington, D.C. is owned outright by Amtrak. Quite a bit of money has been spent on the NEC over the years to bring it up to near high-speed rail standards. The sharp curves in several places and some very old tunnels limit speeds in many places. The Acela trains do get up to 130 mph in several stretchs below Wilmington, Delaware, north of Trenton, NJ and a few places in New England. Today Amtrak is the primary passenger carrier between New York and Washington, D.C.
If it weren't for those curves and tunnels, the overall travel time between the two cities would be drastically less.

Long distance trains operate over the private freight railroads as they have been since 1971. While the track is significantly better than in 1971, the Amtrak trains still encounter the same old problems as in the past. Equipment break-downs, de-railments, bad weather all plague the railroad to this day. Of course, some things cannot be changed, such as the weather. Despite several difficulties over the years, Amtrak has been working well with the freight railroads to maintain every effort to keep their trains on time.

For those interested, there is web site that will allow you to track the progress of most Amtrak trains at any given time. The times shown are from Amtrak as it reports their trains arriving or departing each stop.
To check it out, Click Here..........

Things are hopefully looking up for Amtrak in the coming years as much talk around politcal circles continues to include new high-speed rail projects and more improvements for the NEC. Right now, Amtrak could very much benefit from the purchase of more equipment. Many trains sell out quickly due to the limited number of seats or bedroom accomodations.

To visit Amtrak's Home Page for schedules, reservations and information, Click Here.......

This page will be a continual work in progress. There will be pages of NEC action, as well as, long distance trains at various locations across the country. One page in particular will be my three-week cross country trip way back in 1979. On that trip I used 19 different long or short distance trains to travel from Bay Head Jct in New Jersey to as far away as Lillooet, British Columbia in Canada. The trip included several Amtrak routes that were discontinued shortly after my trip and the Rio Grande Zephyr across Colorado and Utah. It will be an interesting travelouge !

Thanks for visiting and I hope everyone takes a trip on Amtrak as soon as you can. It really is a great way to travel.

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