By the time the 1970s ended , the glorification days of railroading were over . symbolic of the period was the slip of Pennsylvania Railroad , which , in 1968 merged with patronizing - challenger New York Central . The effect , Penn Central , go away bankrupt in 1970 , becoming the centrepiece of government - patronize Conrail in 1976 – which itself struggled for years before finally landing on its foot .
As the 1960s dawned , steam ’s leaving had left a vast void in the railroad line landscape painting . Gone were the plaintive tin whistle in the night , the razz of steam and hue and cry of exhaust , the copious smells of hot grease and ember smoke . lack such sensory joy , the diesel seemed pale in comparison . Steam locomotive engine had been plainly alive . They also had been endlessly various , precisely the characteristic that gave the promptly standardise diesel its higher-ranking competitive border .
The demise of steam sure as shooting contribute to railroad ’s boring , intransigent slide out of the public eye . In the decade ’s early years , on the other hand , the fleet of colorful streamliner introduce in the immediate postwar geological era remained largely intact , speeding across the country behind sleek diesels – Electro - Motive ’s due east - unit of measurement , Alco ’s PAs , plus the casual Baldwin or Fairbanks - Morse social unit . The feature film trains still ran : the Chiefs , Rockets , Daylights , Zephyrs , and Limiteds ( named Broadway , Twentieth Century , Panama , Merchants , and North Coast ) , as well as the ever - popular Empire Builder , Silver Meteor , and City of Los Angeles .
Still , a vast modification occurred in the fashion the nation move . What had been a railway system state was now an automobile nation . Between 1945 and 1964 , non - commuter rail passenger travel declined an unbelievable 84 percent , as just about every American who could give it climbed into his or her own automobile , relish the independence . What changed was not just the way Americans traveled , but also the elbow room they cultivate , patronise , and wreak .
Before World War II , the commonwealth ’s growing urban universe was starting to expand into the suburbs , but these by and large were " railway suburbs " or " trolley car suburbs , " dependent on these Department of Transportation mode and fundamentally walker . The Levittowns and all their postwar family , on the other bridge player , were clearly machine suburbia : scattered , sprawl , without definable downtowns , and not negotiable on foot . Not far behind come the supermarket , shopping center , crusade - in this - and - that , and the proliferation of motel . Rail - focalise downtowns withered , and with them the hotels and Main Streets that had been their anchors .
As a result , businesses that once needed railroad access now gravitate toward highway – specially the interstates , into which the federal government pour jillion of dollars , while simultaneously mash taxes from the railroad line on rights - of - way and other caller asset , include progressively idle depot .
Branch - line passenger services were the first to go , then secondary services on the main lines . Finally , as the 1960s wore on , the flagships began to fall down . One early and dramatic casualty add up in May of 1961 , with the discontinuation of the Milwaukee Road ’s Chicago - Seattle Tacoma Olympian Hiawatha . This was a splendid train , with a full - distance domed stadium car , diner , sleeper , and distinctive " Skytop " notice car . Its route was exceptionally scenic , but the ridership just was n’t there .
Other gearing follow – many others . The roll call go on and on , as railroads represent their cases for discontinuation to the Interstate Commerce Commission ( then the arbiter of transportation issues ) and in most cases make the nod : State of Maine , Ambassador , Pacemaker , Commodore Vanderbilt , Wolverine , Ohio State Limited , Knickerbocker , Maple Leaf , Phoebe Snow , Pocono Express , Owl , Blue Bird , Penn Texas , Golden Triangle , Pittsburgher , General , Admiral , Columbian , Erie Limited , Lake Cities , Thoroughbred , Powhatan Arrow , Cavalier , Sportsman , Southerner , Peach Queen , Pelican , Ponce de Leon , Humming Bird , Dixie Flyer , Havana Special , Green Diamond , Meteor , Sunnyland , Texas Special , Shreveporter , Southern Belle , Colorado Eagle , Royal Gorge , Prospector , Pioneer Limited , Copper Country Limited , Golden State , Shasta Daylight , Lark , Rocky Mountain Rocket , Corn Belt Rocket , Sam Houston Zephyr , Black Hawk , Ak - Sar - Ben Zephyr , Laker , and Winnipeger .
The names map only a part of the landslip of " train - offs " that the I.C.C. approve in the course of the tenner . A number of Class 1 railway had previously fit load - only , and more joined the list in this period , include the Lehigh Valley , Katy , Monon , Kansas City Southern , and Frisco line of reasoning . Some of the very greatest train names were erased from the Official Guide , include , unthinkably , the Twentieth Century Limited , New York Central ’s famous New York - Chicago flyer . On December 3 , 1967 , it lost its name , and , with it , its cachet , along with its beautiful deep - windowed reflection cars ( though downgrade overnight service rest on roughly the same agenda over the road ) .
1960s Decline of Railroads
By 1966 , less than 2 percent of all intercity passengers were traveling by rail . Worse still , passenger gear faced decisive problems in addition to this desertion of patron to auto travel . For one thing , railroad track were hopelessly out of date in dealing with those patrons who did remain . They failed to muster in locomotion agents as valuable friend , and they even deny to accept the major credit add-in .
Prevailing railway system work convention reflect century - quondam consideration and equipment , meaning that crew costs were astronomical . Even the newest equipment was a tenner or two honest-to-goodness , and more often than not , maintenance had been set back as economic science acidulate .
Meanwhile , the Post Office was systematically stripping rider caravan of the mail cars ( RPOs ) that had provided substantial ( and increasingly vital ) revenues since rider trains were in their infancy . At the same time , country depots were being boarded up . In 1965 , New York City ’s Pennsylvania Station was demolished – an human action of bodied vandalism that awaken the citizenry to the potential expiration of our practiced buildings and sparked a watershed preservation movement .
No doubt the most noted , rancorous , and painful of all passenger train - off decisions involved the famed California Zephyr , the San Francisco -Chicago service of process shared by Western Pacific , Rio Grande , and Burlington . By the metre the Interstate Commerce Commission had reluctantly allowed this marvelous train to die , public opinion was thoroughly budge up , and editorial author throughout the land called to undertaking not only the railroads , but also the federal governing , for want of a balanced and coherent transportation insurance that could save long - space trains .
In June of 1969 , Colorado Senator Gordon Allot spearheaded passage of a resolution phone for a Union field of study aimed at saving the passenger train . This led in clip to the creation ofRailpax , which would be calledAmtrakby the fourth dimension this quasi - governmental corporation took over virtually all of the country ’s long - distance passenger trains on May 1 , 1971 .
1960s Railroad Mergers
Though the sixties were pre-eminently the decade in which the in camera operated rider string languished and then die , other significant forces were at work , changing forever the brass of railroading . For one thing , 1960 kicked off the mod merger movement , with competitors Erie Railroad and Delaware , Lackawanna & Western banding together in October to form Erie Lackawanna . For students of the railway scene , this amalgamation was n’t that great a shock . Both names hold up essentially intact , as DL&W was commonly called " the Lackawanna . " Lackawanna ’s endearing rider - train paint schema of maroon , yellow , and gray would grace all locomotives , but the EL circle - in - a - rhomb logotype descended right away from the Erie harbinger .
The next major merger was quite dissimilar . In October of 1964 , when the Wabash , Nickel Plate Road , and Pittsburgh & West Virginia were merged into the Norfolk & Western , their names , vividness , and Word vanished down the corridors of time – as the Virginian ’s had earlier , after its accomplishment by the N&W in 1959 .
In 1967 , a combination of Seaboard Air Line and Atlantic Coast Line produced Seaboard Coast Line . Then came the uniting that characterized the decade – the disasterous coupling on February 1 , 1968 , of the Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central into Penn Central , with the decrepit New York , New Haven & Hartford thrown in after ( against the wishes of the principal partners ) . The newly formed railroad ’s locomotor color scheme was basic disgraceful with no adornment . This proved all too appropriate . The newfangled logo , an intertwined " PC , " was sometimes called the " mate insect . "
More uniting were presently to come , most notably the creation in 1970 of gigantic Burlington Northern from the Chicago , Burlington & Quincy , Great Northern , Northern Pacific , and Spokane , Portland & Seattle .
In the 1970s , the process of merging would only quicken . Illinois Central and Gulf , Mobile & Ohio merged to form Illinois Central Gulf , while the Chessie System was created from the Baltimore & Ohio , Chesapeake & Ohio , and Western Maryland lines . In a unification of mergers , Seaboard Coast Line joined with Louisville & Nashville ( which earlier had acquired the Monon ) and the Clinchfield Railroad to create Family Lines . In 1980 , Chessie and Family Lines would come together to shape CSX – in effect , a uniting of merged mergers .
The great compounding of the era was n’t the effect of a merger , purely talk , but of a government bailout . By the mid-1970s , dragoon in the Northeast was in complete mental confusion . Not only was Penn Central in bankruptcy , but so were Erie Lackawanna , Lehigh & Hudson River , and the " anthracite roads " that had once thrived in eastern Pennsylvania ’s arduous - ember land : Lehigh Valley , Reading , and Jersey Central . On April Fool ’s mean solar day in 1976 , these railroads ( plus a subordinate , Pennsylvania - Reading Seashore Lines ) were consolidated to mold Con - runway .
So the working discussion in stories of 1960s and ' 70s dragoon is " ended . " Passenger geartrain were discontinue in swelling numbers , and the very concept of passenger transportation by secret railway finally became obsolete . Great railway names vanished by the score .
The abandonment of unprofitable outgrowth lines as well pull together military unit . What began as a leak in the 1960s would slowly turn into a torrent . Between 1960 and 1980 , approximately one fourth of the nation ’s route miles were abandoned , as subdivision were pruned and merger resulted in redundant trackage .
The last Railway Post Office ( RPO ) railroad car operate on June 30 , 1977 , between New York City and Washington , D.C. The last non - urban , heavy - obligation , mainline , electrified rail servicing had end in 1974 , when the Milwaukee Road de - arouse its caterpillar track across Montana and Idaho .
Rail Passenger Service Act
There were , of course , some new origin , and Amtrak was perhaps the most far-famed – a delicate phoenix of intercity rail armed service arise from the ash of the pine streamliner of the private railroads . Amtrak began mathematical operation on May 1 , 1971 , as a quasi - public corporation that had its genesis in the battles over the California Zephyr , as well as other discontinuances and downgradings . If a single individual can be called the father ofAmtrak , it ’s in all likelihood Anthony Haswell , who in 1968 base the National Association of Railroad Passengers ( NARP ) , a lobbying and advocacy group that remains a critical power in rail preservation today .
With Haswell agitate , the press providing reporting , and the regime bewilder into the exposure following the 1969 firmness led by Colorado ’s Senator Allot , thing begin to move . The Federal Railroad Administration ( FRA ) appoint a undertaking force , while the Department of Transportation ( DOT ) , antecedently fight to passenger power train , but plain in a more plus modality under new head John Volpe , on January 18 , 1970 , released a preliminary program for what would eventually become Amtrak .
All railroads then operating long - aloofness passenger trains ( as opposed to commuter service ) were eligible to join Amtrak . The monetary value of admission charge : roughly half of 1970 loss on passenger religious service , payable in equipment , cash , or service . The benefit tender in return were enormous , as participate railroads would be free of all future rider - related losses . near all flattop belt along to unite , though a few declined . Rock Island , already financially perilous and less than a 10 aside from total forsaking , simply could n’t give the fee , and thus stayed with its come through pair of short - haul Rockets .
Under the leadership of Graham Claytor ( who after served as Amtrak ’s president during one of the bay window ’s healthiest eras ) , Southern Railway opted to head for the hills its New York - New Orleans Southern Crescent , plus a few less trains , on its own . The Rio Grande , not desire to give Amtrak barren rein on its extremely scenic , single - track line through the Colorado Rockies ] , confused Amtrak ’s Chicago - to - San Francisco programme by staying out and run its own Denver - to - Salt Lake City Rio Grande Zephyr , using what used to be California Zephyr equipment .
Amtrak
At first , those rider trains that survived – and about 60 percent did not – range pretty much as before , but with Amtrak footing the bills . By fall , however , Amtrak had determined to purchase 1,200 of the good uncommitted railcar from nine of the 20 joining railway . In sentence , it would become the direct employer of all of its crews – not just on - board military service force , but engineer and conductors , too . In 1976 , on the occasion of Conrail ’s formation , Amtrak took over ownership of the Northeast Corridor – Boston to Washington , plus the spur from Philadelphia to Harrisburg – but otherwise continued to be a renter on the caterpillar track of the freight railroad .
Amtrak ’s first locomotives and gondola were all veterans purchased from participating railway , but within a few years the corporation pass stag for new equipment . These early acquisitions –diesel locomotive , electric locomotives , coach , and integrated trainsets – all turn up abortive .
This should n’t have been surprising , since the engineering of passenger railroading in the United States had been stagnant for 30 years . The new car and railway locomotive appearing in profusion immediately after the warfare were modestly promote versions of prewar designs . Perhaps the one significant exclusion was the ego - powered high - upper Metroliner , which the Penn Central inclose on its New York - Washington speedway in 1969 . These cannular cars , built by the Budd Company , wereairplane - like , with unnecessarily cramped inside and what probably are the minuscule windows ever built into a New rider car anywhere in the world . ( Trackside rock music - ceramicist along this largely urban road were a constituent in that design decision . )
Unfortunately , when Amtrak ask some young manager for scant - haul service , the only selection not involving unaccepted hold and toll for design and retooling were " Metroshells " – Metroliners without their grip motors . Dubbed the " Amfleet , " these cars , 492 in number , have been the staple of Amtrak daylight divine service since the first one was delivered in 1975 .
Off - the - shelf passenger locomotives were no more available than coaches , so Amtrak bought Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel ( SDP40Fs from EMD ) and electric car ( E60s from GE ) that were only slightly modified freight - hauler . Both of these aim contain six - wheel trucks , and both proved derailment - prostrate at high hurrying , hard trammel their public-service corporation . Amtrak did better with its next major motif - ability selections , opting for four - wheel - truck locomotive engine . EMD begin give up a fleet of F40PHs in 1976 , and the Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel became the backbone of the Amtrak fleet nationwide for the next two decade . The next year , the potbelly tell the first of what would be a substantial fleet of AEM7s , midget but powerful electric automobile of Swedish aim built by EMD and the Budd Company . ( Earlier , Amtrak had turn to Europe for brainchild when it purchased six Turboliner trainsets from France , then had an additional seven similar sets build up domestically by Rohr . )
Growth of Amtrak
Amtrak ’s better success with equipment leverage hold out to railroad car as well . In 1975 , the corporation ordinate from Pullman - Standard the first of what would be an all-encompassing fleet of twofold - pack of cards " Superliners , " inspire by bilevel cars that Santa Fe had operated on its El Capitan , a opulence motorcoach train . By late 1979 , when the Superliners start record service on the long - haul Western trains for which they were think , they were two years off schedule . Before long , however , they were running throughout the West and prove popular with passenger .
The Superliners would , in fact , significantly fuel the Amtrak revitalisation that set about in the belated 1970s and advance real momentum through the 1980s . In the ' sixty and even earlier , the land ’s Western trains – the California Zephyr , the Union Pacific ’s fleet of " City " geartrain ( the City of Los Angeles , City of Portland , and so on ) , the Santa Fe ’s Chiefs , and others – were deservedly considered higher-ranking to their easterly counterparts . The advent of the Superliners only heighted the disparity .
Clearances prohibited the operation of these bilevels in the East , where long - distance service was address by the warhorse sleepers , diners , and lounges inherit from the private railway system in 1971 . set about in 1977 , many of these sometime cars were upgrade and change over to " head - end power " ( in whichelectricitygenerated by the locomotor replacessteamand axle - generators as the source of power for heating system , air conditioning , and lighting ) . These recondition cars , dubbed the " Heritage Fleet , " were in reality quite attractive , but they were old .
With this new and freshen up equipment , its own railroad track between Boston and Washington , and crew under its verbatim control , Amtrak grew through the 1970s into a creditable entity . It remained a politicalfootball , as it has ever since , but the corporation ’s staying mogul has surprised many critic who distrust that its creation might have been stand for as nothing more than prolonged mercy killing for the rider train .
Whatever else it may or may not have been , Amtrak was undisputedly massive . Though the corporation chose to preserve many of the great train names from the past , it cloaked all its equipment in " atomic number 78 mist " ( or , or else , natural stainless blade ) adorned with red and gloomy . Gone were the rainbow colour of the private railroads ' trains , as well as their individualized services . Standardization – of menus , accommodations , and Service – was the hallmark .
Railroad Standardization
The skin rash of mergers had a like impression on the grimace of dragoon in general , and the dying of the weak diesel builders guide to big standardization in motivation - power as well . Fairbanks - Morse ended production in 1963 . Alco throw in the towel in 1969 . Baldwin - Lima - Hamilton had build its lastlocomotiveway back in 1956 . That left General Electric and Electro - Motive Division , the latter still the prevalent force in diesel - construction .
The look and mix of units on the diesel - quick tracks changed radically between 1960 and 1980 . flowing " cab - building block " diesels were everywhere , wear down the classy , multicolored outline created in many cases by EMD stylist . " Hood social unit " – preeminently Alco ’s RS3s ( RS for " route whipper " ) and EMD ’s GP7s and later , GP9s ( general practitioner for " general purpose " ) – were fundamentally the same under the skin as the cabriolet units , but with better visibility and light access to machinery .
The next evolutionary step was to " hack " the short hood for better advancing visibility , an innovation of the early 1960s that would epitomise diesel aesthetics for the next two decades ( until the boxy , blunt " guard cabs " of the 1980s ) . Streamlining and fancy blusher schemes seemed superfluous in this hunkered - down era of railroading , characterized by board - up depots , vacate branch phone line , and weed - overrun rights - of - way . First - coevals diesels from all the builders joinedsteamtrains in the fight yard . Utilitarian " chop - nosed " unit in a special numeral of basic models from EMD and GE were the locomotives appropriate to this era of dramatically lessened expectations . For much of the industry , in particular in the East and Midwest , where the dealings Qaeda had eroded badly , selection was virtually all that could be hop-skip .
But even in these saturnine mean solar day , when the hereafter looked bleak indeed , railroad had begin to reinvent itself . diesel engine standardization , and perhaps the example of locomotive pooling that occured naturally in mergers , led to increase power run - throughs from one railway system to another – an efficient andtime - relieve practice . Intermodal traffic ( trailers and container on flatcars , otherwise sleep with as TOFC and COFC)-became a pregnant ontogeny sphere , duplicate between 1965 and 1980 , with the greatest explosion still to come .
railroad track began to work other recess with " unit of measurement string " of a exclusive commodity , such as food grain or coal . ( In 1979 , in a rare example of route expansion , Burlington Northern open up its new Powder River Line , bug fertile coalfield in Wyoming . ) Centralized traffic control , an idea that was already many decades old , became the average , along with weld runway .
railroad is an old - line industry , capital - intensive and labor - intensive , with a exhaustively unionized workforce . Though every gain was make headway only after a fight , essential work - rules rationalisation was begun . The cognitive operation of eliminating fire fighter on locomotive engine , for instance , bug out as far back as 1964 . work party operating territorial dominion , free-base on divisions that often dated back to railroading ’s early day ( and thus resulted in operating crews receiving a day ’s remuneration for a few hr ’s work ) in some event were revised .
In the final month of 1980 , several authoritative effect occurred . In December , The Pullman Company was dissolved as a legal entity ( though it had ended its staffing ofsleepingand sitting room cars 11 years in the beginning ) , and Northwestern Steel & Wire in Sterling , Illinois , dropped the fires on its refugee fleet of steam locomotives – engine that this immense scrapyard had pick out to operate on , squeezing out a last few utilitarian mile before melting them down for razor blades . This was the last daily , non - tourist steam operation in the United States .
Less than two months before , on October 14 , President Jimmy Carter had sign into law the Staggers Rail Act , partly deregulating the railway line . This event was meaning . It was the go - ahead for the railroad manufacture , however dramatically redefined and slimmed down , to " highball it " once again .
1960s and 1970s Railroads Timeline
1960 :
The Erie Railroad commingle with competitor Delaware , Lackawanna & Western to form the Erie Lackawanna Railroad .
1963 :
After a U.S. ship is attacked , Congress endorses the Tonkin Gulf Resolution , authorise U.S. intimacy in theVietnam War .
New England ’s riotous Rutland Railroad is vacate . Sections of the line presently reopen as the Vermont Central Railroad and the Green Mountain Railroad .
1965 :
New York City ’s Pennsylvania Station is rase in December , sparking a landmark saving movement that continues to this day .
1968 :
Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central merge to organize Penn Central .
1969 :
The Pullman Company ’s staffing of kip cars ends as of January 1 .
1970 :
In this frenzied time of mergers , Chicago , Burlington & Quincy ; Great Northern ; Northern Pacific ; and Spokane , Portland & Seattle combine , mould Burlington Northern .
The Interstate Commerce Commission reluctantly permit the dying of the legendary California Zephyr .
1971 :
Amtrak takes over most passenger - train operation in the United States .
Auto - Train get service in December , carry automobiles and their occupier between Lorton , Virginia , and Sanford , Florida .
1973 :
A fleet of French - built Turboliners are delivered to the United States , mark fledgling Amtrak ’s first new equipment learning .
1976 :
Conrail start operation as a upshot of the integration of Penn Central ; Erie - Lackawanna ; Reading ; Lehigh Valley ; Jersey Central ; Lehigh & Hudson River ; and Pennsylvania - Reading Seashore lines on April 1 .
1979 :
The first doubled - deck of cards Superliner cars enter overhaul for Amtrak .
