| By: | Terry Brown |
| Dates: | 1/1/2000 - 5/30/2015 |
| Album Info: | The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak, is a publicly funded railroad service operated and managed as a for-profit corporation which began operations on May 1, 1971, to provide intercity passenger train service in the United States.
Amtrak operates more than 300 trains each day on 21,300 miles (34,000 km) of track with select segments having civil operating speeds of 150 mph (240 km/h) and connecting more than 500 destinations in 46 states in addition to three Canadian provinces. In fiscal year 2014, Amtrak served 30.9 million passengers and had $2.189 billion in revenue while employing more than 20,000 people. Nearly two-thirds of passengers come from the ten largest metropolitan areas and 83% of passengers travel on routes of 400 miles or less. Its headquarters is at Union Station in Washington, D.C.
The name "Amtrak" is a portmanteau of the words "America" and "trak", the latter itself a sensational spelling of "track". |
