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In the United Kingdom, Amtrak is the name of a parcel delivery company. The two companies are not related.
In its original conception, Amtrak owned no track and was not truly a railroad. Rather, Amtrak trains used the existing network of freight rail system s and relieved private freight rail companies of their previous legal obligation to provide passenger rail service. For the most part, this scheme still exists today, but certain dense passenger lines, such as the Northeast Corridor between Washington, D.C. and Boston via New York is largely Amtrak's own railroad. (This line essentially was transferred to Amtrak from the Penn CentralThe Penn Central was an American railroad company, headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and formed by the merger in 1968 of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central Railroad; the New Haven was added to the merger at the insistence of the Railroad, which had gone bankrupt and was getting out of the railroad business, in the 1970s.) Interestingly, the segment of this line between New Rochelle, New YorkNew Rochelle is a city located in Westchester County in the US state of New York. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 72,182. A July 1, 2002 Census estimate put the city's population at 72,472. The city is named after the city of La and New Haven, ConnecticutThis article is about the city in Connecticut. See New Haven (disambiguation) for other places of the same name. Harkness Tower, part of the Yale University campus located in downtown New Haven New Haven is the second-largest city in Connecticut, and is l is not owned by Amtrak but by Metro North Railroad; the segment in Massachusetts is owned by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authoritymajor intermodal transportation authorities The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA is a quasi-governmental organization formed in 1964 that controls the subway, bus, commuter rail, and ferry systems in the Boston, Massachusetts area. Origina. NJ TransitNew Jersey Transit (NJ Transit) is a statewide public transportation system serving the state of New Jersey, USA. It operates bus, light rail, and commuter rail services throughout the state. NJ Transit's commuter trains feed into Pennsylvania Station in, MARCMaryland Area Regional Commuter more commonly refered to as MARC (pronounced as a single word), is a commuter rail service operating three lines from Washington, DC to various places in central Maryland and the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. The thre, and SEPTAThe Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority SEPTA for short, is a regional quasi-public state agency that operates bus, subway, commuter rail, trolley (streetcar), and trackless trolley service in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area. The city t trains run over parts of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor as well.
Amtrak owns 730 route miles of track including 17 tunnels consisting of 29.7 miles of track and 1,186 bridges (including the famous Hell Gate Bridge) consisting of 42.5 miles of track in its network of 22,000 miles of routes. This rail network serves 500 communities in 46 of the United States, with some of these routes serving communities in Canadian provinces along the United States border. The states which are not served by Amtrak trains are Alaska, Hawaii, South Dakota, and Wyoming. However, Wyoming is served by Amtrak's Thruway Motorcoaches. As a general rule, even-numbered routes run north and east while odd numbered routes run south and west. However, some routes, such as the Pacific Surfliners, use the exact opposite numbering system, which they inherited from the previous operators of similar routes, such as the Santa Fe Railroad.
Amtrak operates 425 locomotives, 351 diesel and 74 electric, 2,141 railroad cars including 168 sleeper cars, 760 coach cars, 126 first class/business class cars, 66 dormitory/crew cars, 225 lounge/café/dinette cars, and 92 dining cars. Baggage cars make up the remainder of the fleet. 20 Acela trainsets currently provide high-speed rail service along the Northeast Corridor between between South Station in Boston and Union Station in Washington D.C. Amtrak also codeshares on Continental Airlines with their rail service between Newark Liberty International Airport and 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Wilmington, Delaware, Stamford, Connecticut, and New Haven Union Station in New Haven, Connecticut.
Amtrak employs over 22,000 people and until recently received very little federal government funding, leading to budget crisis and recurring debates over its elimination. However, recently government funding of Amtrak has been greatly increased. In fiscal year 2001, Amtrak served more than 23.5 million passengers, and despite an overall decrease in travel, Amtrak served more than 23.4 million passengers in fiscal year 2002. Through its various commuter services, Amtrak serves an additional 61.1 million passengers per year in conjunction with state and regional authorities in California, Maryland, Connecticut, and Virginia:
A stalemate in federal subsidization of Amtrak has led to cutbacks in services and routes for the last several years. Congress has agreed to provide up to $900 million in subsidies, however Amtrak President David Gunn has insisted that Amtrak needs at least $1.8 billion to continue as an operating entity. Several states have entered into operating partnerships with Amtrak, notably California and Washington.