Long Distance Passenger Rail
It wasn’t the automobile alone which nearly destroyed the passenger rail system in the United States, which is now in some areas receiving a new lease on life. Government policies and the aviation industry were co-conspirators, as were major oil companies and automobile manufacturers. But they all centered about the automobile to a large extent. Of course, rail passenger service was never the primary breadwinner for American railroads, who relied on freight service and government contracts for the majority of their income.
By the 1930s passenger rail was already declining as more and more Americans relied for both medium and shorter range trips on their car. Roads had improved near the major urban areas to the point that driving was not only a viable alternative for taking the train, it was also more convenient. It’s much easier, obviously, to drive onto a connecting road than to wait at a train station for a connecting train. Cars had become much more comfortable, with smoother rides, more powerful acceleration, and working heaters, radio, and other amenities which made them preferable to mass transit.
World War II gave the railroads a brief respite. Gas rationing made using the car prohibitive for those required to travel, even on business in most cases. The railroads also moved the vast numbers of troops from mustering stations to training bases and ultimately to embarkation points for their journey overseas. When the war ended in 1945 gas rationing was dropped shortly afterwards, the automobile manufacturers retooled to produce new cars, and the returning veterans were ready to buy. The war had also led to improvements in aircraft which were quickly applied by the airlines.
Beginning in the late 1940s improvements to America’s highways were expanded to include federal and state projects, and in the ensuing decade the Interstate Highway system was begun. These projects were encouraged by the powerful oil and gasoline lobbies and the manufacturers of automobiles, the rubber industry, and others reliant on the automobile. Railroads were forced to confront their rolling stock, which was aging and in need of repair, and the rails upon which they ran, also deteriorating. While government dollars built highways, railroads were forced to rely on their own revenues to fix the rails.
The ease of travel by automobile offered by the improved highways, and the independence such travel offered, took more and more rail passengers away from the railroads, while the speed of aviation helped rob them of their former long distance passengers. More and more railroads were forced to discontinue passenger service. When the few remaining passenger lines were consolidated into Amtrak, beginning operations in 1971, it marked the end of the passenger rail era in which lines such as the New York Central and the Pennsylvania Rail Road competed for passengers with the Baltimore and Ohio. In the late 1960s electric slot car sets outsold electric trains. Even in toys, the automobile supplanted the railroads.