Voting Station

Amtrak

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Corporation

The Resume

    (May 1, 1971- )
    Officially named the National Railroad Passenger Corporation
    Quasi-public corporation
    Formed by the Rail Passenger Service Act
    Took over passenger service from twenty private railroads
    Runs 44 routes on 21,400 miles of track

Why Amtrak might be annoying:

    It discontinued about half of the routes it inherited.
    In its early days, its locomotives and passenger cars bore the logos and paint schemes of their former owners, resulting in the 'rainbow era' of trains with mismatched colors.
    Congress keeps setting deadlines for it to become self-sufficient, which it never meets.
    Its onboard wi-fi service is unreliable.
    In its deadliest accident, 47 passengers were killed and 103 injured when the Sunset Limited derailed on a damaged bridge (September 22, 1993).

Why Amtrak might not be annoying:

    Despite predictions that rail travel would die out in a few years, ridership steadily increased until it peaked at peaked at 32.0 million passengers in 2019. (The number of passengers then dropped sharply during the COVID-19 pandemic.)
    Per passenger mile, it is 30-40% more energy efficient than either commercial airliners or private automobiles.
    Travel time on its New York City-Washington DC route improved to under three hours.
    It is popular with biking tourists as most of its trains have onboard bike racks (unlike airplanes, which require passengers to dismantle bicycles and place them in specialized bags).

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2023, Out of 18 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 8 Votes: 37.50% Annoying