The Inquiry Into The Development And Management Problems Of Amtrak Of The U.S.

Amtrak, National Railroad Passenger Corporation, is the only national passenger railway, one of a few federal, quasi-public corporation in the U.S. It was created by the federal government to save the rail passenger service which is involved public interest during the reformation of railway industry in 70s, 20^th century. Taxpayers were promised a profitable system within three years. More than three decades have passed and Amtrak has not yet to turn a profit in any year, despite promised reforms. After the beginning of the 21st century, Amtrak is facing an unprecedented crisis of survival, the federal government has tried to end Amtrak several times, but haven't realized eventually. Several acts have been released to restructure Amtrak, and top-manager also been changed several times, but quasi-public character has not been shaken.The main reason of Amtrak's great loss is that there are problems with its management. It could embody in aspects including low efficiency as a quasi-public corporation, regional administration don't support it, freight railroads' impacts and so on. But the root is the efficiency of management system of quasi-public corporation is low, and the absence of efficient competition.This paper tries to make a thorough inquiry the course of the development of Amtrak from the perspective of history, combined with the representative story of Chicago-New York routes, then come up with main problems. At the end in this paper, some references have been provided to the reformation of railway in our country.