Why Amtrak’s long-distance trains even exist

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A massive thank you to Scott Hurd, John Robert Smith, Paul Hammond, and Ryan Pecaut for helping out with this one. This video could've easily been titled "History of Passenger Rail in the US", and covering that kind of topic requires a looooot of help :)

If you're motivated to dive into passenger rail advocacy: John Robert is heavily involved with Transportation for America (https://t4america.org/), and Ryan with All Aboard Ohio (https://www.allaboardohio.org/ and follow @allaboardohio). Both groups are doing incredible work to make things better one step at a time.

One of you amazing viewers, Michael Tribianni, also completed his thesis on the role of federalism in restricting passenger rail development. Check it out if you want to learn more about the top-down coordination I mentioned briefly: https://digitalcollections.drew.edu/U...

Finally, the Empire Builder was quite the experience - I highly recommend for anyone looking to get a better view of America :)

00:00 a unique form of torture
01:26 boom times
05:00 robber barons
07:55 name trains
12:58 streamliners
15:25 post-ww2
19:05 amtrak
24:30 our turn to do something