List of railroads eligible to participate in the formation of Amtrak

On May 1, 1971, there were 26 railroads in the United States that were eligible to participate in the formation of Amtrak.

Participating railroads

Twenty railroads opted to participate. Each contributed rolling stock, equipment, and financial capital to the new government-sponsored entity. In return, the railroads received the right to discontinue intercity passenger rail services; most received tax breaks while some received common stock in Amtrak. The four railroads which accepted stock were the Burlington Northern Railroad, the Grand Trunk Western Railroad, the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad ("Milwaukee Road"), and Penn Central.^[1] Because Amtrak discontinued many passenger rail routes when it commenced operations, some of the participating railroads never actually hosted successor passenger rail service. The twenty participating railroads are as follows:^[2]

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (hosted no Amtrak service until West Virginian in 1971)
Burlington Northern Railroad
Central of Georgia Railway (never hosted Amtrak)
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway
Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad
Chicago and North Western Railway (never hosted Amtrak)
Delaware and Hudson Railway (hosted no Amtrak service until the Adirondack in 1974)
Grand Trunk Western Railroad (hosted no Amtrak service until the Blue Water Limited in 1974)
Gulf, Mobile and Ohio Railroad

Illinois Central Railroad
Louisville and Nashville Railroad
Missouri Pacific Railroad
Norfolk and Western Railway (hosted no Amtrak service until the Mountaineer in 1975)
Northwestern Pacific Railroad (never hosted Amtrak service)
Penn Central Transportation (whose Northeast Corridor Amtrak acquired in 1976)
Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad
Seaboard Coast Line Railroad
Southern Pacific Railroad
Union Pacific Railroad

Non-participating railroads

There were six railroads that were eligible to participate in the formation of Amtrak that declined to spin off their passenger rail services. The intercity passenger operations of those six railroads eventually were absorbed by Amtrak or another governmental entity, or were discontinued altogether. The six non-participating railroads and disposition of their routes were as follows:

The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad continued to receive subsidies from the state of Illinois.^[3] It discontinued its two remaining intercity passenger trains, the Peoria Rocket and Quad Cities Rocket, on December 31, 1978.
Chicago South Shore & South Bend trains were taken over by the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District in 1989.
The Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad feared congestion from hosting a revived California Zephyr on its single-track mainline.^[3] It operated its last Rio Grande Zephyr in 1983, and Amtrak's San Francisco Zephyr was renamed the California Zephyr.^[4]

The Georgia Railroad received tax benefits from the state of Georgia so long as it ran mixed trains.^[3] The Seaboard System Railroad, its successor, discontinued the last mixed train on May 6, 1983.^[5]
The Reading Company determined that its Philadelphia–Newark service was outside Amtrak's scope.^[3] It was later conveyed to Conrail and discontinued in 1983.
The Southern Railway did not join until February 1, 1979, at which point it conveyed its Southern Crescent to Amtrak.

Ineligible railroads

A few major railroads with operations in the United States were not eligible to participate in the formation of Amtrak:

The Alaska Railroad provided long-distance service, but was already owned by the United States government.
The Canadian Pacific's Atlantic, though it crossed northern Maine, was considered a Canada-centric service not relevant to Amtrak. It was taken over by Via Rail in 1978 and ran until 1994. For a time, a Canadian local service also crossed part of northern Minnesota.
The Erie Lackawanna's Hoboken-Port Jervis service was considered an ineligible commuter service; in 1973, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority began subsidizing continued operation.
The Kansas City Southern Railway, having discontinued its Southern Belle in 1969, had no remaining passenger service despite its size.^[6]
The Western Pacific Railroad discontinued the California Zephyr in 1970, ending passenger service on its route. It refused to even discuss resumption of service with Amtrak.^[7]

Notes

↑ Hilton 1980, pp. 15–16
↑ Sanders 2006, pp. 7–8
1 2 3 4 Hilton 1980, p. 16
↑ "Last passenger trains rolling across Wyoming". Spokesman-Review. July 13, 1983. Retrieved September 12, 2010.
↑ Cox 2011, p. 246
↑ Carter, Thad Hills (2009). Kansas City Southern Railway. Images of Rail. (Reprint of an article by Philip Moseley originally published in the May 1986 issue of Arkansas Railroader). Charleston, SC; Chicago, IL; Portsmouth, NH; San Francisco, CA: Arcadia Publishing. p. 60. ISBN 978-0-7385-6001-4. Retrieved November 2, 2013. I was working that night November 3, 1969, when the last southbound run of the Southern Belle made its way into DeQueen.
↑ Thoms 1973, p. 50

References

Cox, Jim (2011). Rails Across Dixie: A History of Passenger Trains in the American South. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. ISBN 9780786445288. OCLC 609716000.
Hilton, George W. (1980). Amtrak: The National Railroad Passenger Corporation (PDF). Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. ISBN 0-8447-3369-5. OCLC 5777023.
Sanders, Craig (2006). Amtrak in the Heartland. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-34705-X. OCLC 61499942.
Thoms, William E. (1973). Reprieve for the Iron Horse: The AMTRAK Experiment–Its Predecessors and Prospects. Baton Rouge, LA: Claitor's Publishing Division. OCLC 1094744.

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