‘Amtrak Joe’ Marks Amtrak’s 50th
Written by
David Peter Alan, Contributing Editor
April 30, 2021 was a cool, sunny and windy day in Philadelphia, as President Joe Biden joined Amtrak officials and selected guests to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the day “America’s Railroad” began operations.
It was a day that many rail passengers at the time never thought would come. Amtrak was founded to relieve the private-sector freight railroads of their obligation to run passenger trains, and most of the trains that left their points of origin on April 30, 1971 did not run the following day. At the time, few expected Amtrak to last very long, except, perhaps only on the Northeast Corridor (NEC). But Americans still wanted the few trains that were left and kept using them, so Amtrak is still with us.