Amtrak in 1973 and other stories about trains | 60 Minutes Full Episodes

I may be an idiot but how about if we quit spending hundreds of billions of dollars overseas and spend it here instead.

I absolutely love this history piece.

60 Minutes YouTube Manager saw the response to the last train video was like and was like 👀

I work for the railroad and half the crew has been eliminated and rail travel is still crappy 55 years later

When I was 12 my Grandfather took my sisters and I to California in 1963. We went from Ny to Chicago then from there to California. The train was state of art called the Super Chief. This was the best adventure I've ever had.

One thing to note: ridership shot through the roof later in 1973 after 60 minutes rode the JWR. It reached about 20m systemwide 10 years later and held steady until about 2,000, when it started growing again. Except for the pandemic years, they now reliably haul about 30m-35m people a year today, spread almost evenly among 3 business units - the Northeast Corridor, various short state corridors (operated on behalf of states that pay money for their own custom routes, like San Diego-LA-San Luis Obispo, Chicago-Detroit, New Orleans-Mobile etc) and the long hauls. The JWR still runs today as “The Cardinal” alongside other famous names, such as the Sunset Limited, California Zephyr and Silver Meteor. 35m pales in comparison to air traffic and road use but it isn’t nothing. More people in this country would use these services if they are mire frequent and reliable. The end of the 1973 piece is correct when it said it’s up to us to demand more out of our government for infrastructure like this.

I got to see the Pennsylvania and New York Central (NYC) slowly deteriorate, then merge into the disaster that was PennCentral, then be semi-nationalized into ConRail. I remember when the failing railroads all too happily handed over their money-pit of passenger service to the National Rail Passenger Corporation (Amtrak). When I was just a youngster, my mother had taken us on a NYC passenger train from Rochester NY to La Porte IN to visit grandpa. I fell in love with train travel. I have since ridden every one of Amtrak's long-distance routes, some many times. I believe if gov't funds roads and air travel, they should also fund passenger rail at least as much. I hope the BrightLine projects continue to succeed long-term.

Epilogue on the Portal bridge in the 2014 report: The first replacement bridge is complete over the Hackensack River, and Northeast Corridor trains are now going over it at 90 mph versus the old Portal swing bridge which had a max speed of 60 mph. From what I’ve been made aware of, once they tear down the old portal swing bridge, they might build another double track bridge on the right of way where the old bridge was; but like the new bridge at a higher elevation to allow ships and barge traffic to pass underneath without needing a swing or lift bridge span.

what a hodge-podge of equiptment in the beginning. i love it

Great to see the legend Mike Wallace doing real journalism and peak 60 minutes, truly in form.