Railroads In The 1970s: Penn Central, Amtrak & Conrail

Last revised: September 10, 2026

The 1970s opened on two mornings that did not belong in the same industry. On March 2, 1970, the Hill Lines became Burlington Northern, the largest railroad in the country. On June 21, Penn Central’s board voted to file under Section 77. First track had already fallen to 196,479 miles. Intercity passenger share was down around 7.5 percent. More than half the Northeastern rail network was in receivership by 1973. Amtrak took the intercity trains on May 1, 1971. Conrail took the wreckage on April 1, 1976. Rock Island filed on March 17, 1975. Milwaukee Road filed on December 19, 1977.

Rock Island GP7Rs 4505 and 4514 with GP38-2 4315 westbound through Burr Oak Yard Blue Island Illinois circa 1976

Rock Island GP7R Nos. 4505 and 4514, with GP38-2 No. 4315, lead a westbound through Burr Oak Yard in Blue Island, Illinois, circa 1976. American-Rails.com collection.

On this page: At a glance · What the 1960s left · Burlington Northern · Penn Central, June 21, 1970 · The Northeast cascade · Amtrak, May 1, 1971 · 3R Act and the Railway Association · 4R Act and Conrail · Chessie, ICG, Family Lines · Rock Island and Milwaukee · Freight, oil, and rates · Into the 1980s

At a glance

Item	Detail
Miles of first track, 1970	196,479
1960 (already past)	207,334 (on the 1960s page)
Intercity passenger share, 1970	About 7.5 percent
Freight share of intercity tonnage	Down toward about 38.8 percent during the decade (from about 44 percent in 1960 and about 75 percent in 1929)
Burlington Northern	March 2, 1970, 12:01 a.m. GN, NP, CB&Q, SP&S
Penn Central bankruptcy	June 21, 1970. Section 77. The company had been created February 1, 1968
Rail Passenger Service Act	Signed October 30, 1970
Amtrak	May 1, 1971. Southern, Rio Grande, and Rock Island did not join
Northeast in receivership	More than half the regional network by 1973
Hurricane Agnes	June 1972. Erie Lackawanna filed June 26, 1972
Illinois Central Gulf	IC and GM&O, August 10, 1972
Chessie System, Inc.	Holding company for C&O, B&O, and Western Maryland, February 26, 1973
3R Act	Regional Rail Reorganization Act, signed January 2, 1974. Created the United States Railway Association (not the 1918 USRA)
Poughkeepsie Bridge fire	May 8, 1974
Rock Island bankruptcy	March 17, 1975. Liquidation is 1980
4R Act	Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act, signed February 5, 1976
Conrail	April 1, 1976. About 19,000 route-miles at start
Milwaukee Road bankruptcy	December 19, 1977. Pacific Extension embargo is 1980
Orange Line / excess trackage	On the order of 15,575 miles cited between Washington and St. Louis in USRA planning (McClellan)
Closer	Staggers Rail Act, October 14, 1980. On its page. Mega-mergers of the 1980s are not this decade

Mileage continues the first-track series used on the 1950s and 1960s pages. Information compiled September 10, 2026.

What the 1960s left

Penn Central had been running since February 1, 1968. The New Haven had been inside it since January 1, 1969. Erie Lackawanna had been running since 1960 and was about to lose Maybrook. Seaboard Coast Line, N&W with the Nickel Plate and Wabash, and C&O control of the B&O were already on the map. Section 13a had taken off the named trains. The Metroliner was two years old. Those dates are the 1960s. This decade is the filing, the federal corporations, and the Midwestern bankruptcies the 1960s mergers did not prevent.

Santa Fe PA-1 69-L laying over at Barstow California circa 1969

Santa Fe PA-1 No. 69-L at Barstow, California, circa 1969. First-generation passenger power on the eve of Amtrak. American-Rails.com collection.

Burlington Northern, March 2, 1970

The Hill Lines became one railroad at 12:01 a.m. on March 2, 1970: Great Northern, Northern Pacific, Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, and Spokane, Portland & Seattle. The ICC had approved the combination on November 30, 1967. Burlington Northern opened as the country’s largest system, on the order of 26,000 miles before counting Colorado & Southern and Fort Worth & Denver. The Clean Air Act, signed December 31, 1970, and Powder River Basin coal are why the new map mattered as much as its size. The company encyclopedia is Burlington Northern. BNSF is 1995–96, not this decade.

Penn Central, June 21, 1970

Late on June 21, 1970, Penn Central’s board voted to seek relief under Section 77 of the Bankruptcy Act. It was then the largest industrial bankruptcy in American history. The Pennsylvania Railroad had not been supposed to fail. The computers still did not talk. Slow orders multiplied. Cash ran out. The company page is Penn Central. What this decade owns is the filing and the wreckage other Northeastern roads were tied to. Boston & Maine had already filed, on March 12, 1970. Lehigh Valley, Reading, Central Railroad of New Jersey, and Lehigh & Hudson River followed into court as PC’s interchange dried up and deferred maintenance became a regional condition.

The Northeast cascade

Erie Lackawanna had posted net income in 1968 and 1969. Penn Central’s inclusion of the New Haven let PC keep Maybrook freight on its own rails. EL lost on the order of $17 million a year at that gateway. Hurricane Agnes in June 1972 tore up the EL in Pennsylvania and New York; damage ran on the order of $11 million. Trustees filed on June 26, 1972. On May 8, 1974, the Poughkeepsie Bridge burned. Penn Central would not repair it. The Maybrook gateway closed. The bridge story is its own page; EL is Erie Lackawanna.

By 1973 more than half the Northeastern rail network was in receivership. That is the condition Congress wrote the 3R Act to address. It is not a single-company failure. It is a regional plant that could no longer pay to maintain itself under the rates the ICC still set.

Amtrak, May 1, 1971

President Nixon signed the Rail Passenger Service Act on October 30, 1970. The National Railroad Passenger Corporation—Amtrak—began operations on May 1, 1971. Freight railroads that joined paid an entry fee and were relieved of their intercity passenger losses. Most of the remaining named trains ended that weekend or became Amtrak numbers. The Amtrak encyclopedia is its hub. This decade owns the date and the holdouts.

Southern Railway kept the Southern Crescent. Denver & Rio Grande Western kept the Denver–Ogden remnant that became the Rio Grande Zephyr; that train is its page. Rock Island could not afford the entry fee and kept a thin Chicago–Peoria / Chicago–Rock Island service until the road’s own collapse. Auto-Train was a separate private company. Commuter trains stayed with the freight roads and the agencies that already ran them—Southern Pacific’s Peninsula commute in the photograph below is that leftover, not Amtrak.

Rio Grande F9A 5771 with the Rio Grande Zephyr at Bond Colorado circa 1972

Rio Grande F9A No. 5771 with the Rio Grande Zephyr at Bond, Colorado, circa 1972. Robert Eastwood, Jr. photo. American-Rails.com collection.

Southern Pacific Train Master 3023 with commuter train 134 at San Francisco 3rd and Townsend Depot April 1973

Southern Pacific Train Master No. 3023 has commuter train 134 at San Francisco’s 3rd & Townsend Depot in April, 1973. American-Rails.com collection.

The 3R Act and the Railway Association

Congress passed the Regional Rail Reorganization Act, signed January 2, 1974. It created the United States Railway Association to plan a Northeastern freight system from the bankrupt estates. That USRA is not the United States Railroad Administration of 1917–20; the wartime agency is its own page. James McClellan and the planners argued that thousands of miles had to come off. One figure that stuck in the hearings was about 15,575 miles of excess trackage in the Washington–St. Louis territory. Erie Lackawanna’s trustees first said they could reorganize, then asked in on January 9, 1975.

The 4R Act and Conrail, April 1, 1976

The Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act was signed February 5, 1976. It approved the Final System Plan, created the Consolidated Rail Corporation, and began to loosen ICC rate control. Conrail started on April 1, 1976: Penn Central, Erie Lackawanna, Reading, Lehigh Valley, Central Railroad of New Jersey, Lehigh & Hudson River, and related bits, about 19,000 route-miles. Delaware & Hudson stayed out as a competitor with directed service. Conrail mothballed much of the EL west of Ohio in favor of the old Pennsylvania and New York Central mains. The company encyclopedia is Conrail. Profitability at the end of 1981, the 1999 split between Norfolk Southern and CSX, and the June 1, 1999 closing are not this decade.

Chessie, Illinois Central Gulf, Family Lines

Not every combination in the 1970s was a bankruptcy. Illinois Central and Gulf, Mobile & Ohio became Illinois Central Gulf on August 10, 1972. Chessie System, Inc., a holding company for Chesapeake & Ohio, Baltimore & Ohio, and Western Maryland, was formed February 26, 1973. Seaboard Coast Line Industries marketed the Seaboard Coast Line, Louisville & Nashville, Clinchfield, Georgia, and West Point Route as the Family Lines from 1972. That was a paint-and-timetable name. Seaboard System as a corporate merger is 1982. CSX is 1980 as a holding company and 1986–87 as an operating railroad. Those later names are the 1980s onward.

Rock Island and Milwaukee Road

The Rock Island had waited through the 1960s for a Union Pacific merger the ICC would not finish. It filed on March 17, 1975. The road kept running, buying used first-generation units because it could not buy new ones. The F9Am in the photograph below is a former Union Pacific F3, rebuilt, lettered over the portholes, and sold to a railroad that needed anything that would move. Liquidation came in 1980. The company is Rock Island.

Rock Island F9Am 4158 former Union Pacific F3A rebuilt to F9 specs circa 1975

Rock Island F9Am No. 4158, circa 1975. Built as Union Pacific F3A 1416-A / 1522, rebuilt to F9 specs as UP 522, sold to the Rock in 1972. American-Rails.com collection.

The Milwaukee Road filed on December 19, 1977. The Pacific Extension embargo of March 1980 and the Soo Line sale are the next decade. The company is Milwaukee Road. Employee wages, up on the order of 54 percent between 1968 and 1974 on some tallies, met a traffic base that was not growing at that rate. The ICC still sat on general rate increases; a 4 percent freight-rate hike was denied in 1972.

Freight, oil, and a share that would not stop falling

H. Roger Grant had put railroads at about 44 percent of intercity freight tonnage in 1960. By this decade the share was down toward about 38.8 percent, against roughly 75 percent in 1929. Ton-miles themselves were not collapsing—the economy was larger—but trucks and barges were taking the growth. The OPEC embargo of October 1973 and the 1973–75 recession hit carloadings. Coal, after the Clean Air Act, began to look like a Western railroad’s future rather than only an Appalachian one. Piggyback, already a 1950s business with a car company, kept growing as a way to meet the highway on a flatcar. The TOFC hardware story is not this page; the 1970s fact is that intermodal was one of the few products still moving in the right direction while the Northeastern plant was in court.

Union Pacific E9A 951 leading Amtrak San Francisco Zephyr with SDP40Fs out of Cheyenne Wyoming circa 1979

Union Pacific E9A No. 951 leads Amtrak’s westbound San Francisco Zephyr, with a pair of SDP40Fs, out of Cheyenne, Wyoming, circa 1979. Burlington Northern (ex-CB&Q) flyover in the background. Mike Bledsoe photo. American-Rails.com collection.

Into the 1980s

Conrail was running. Amtrak was running. Burlington Northern was running Powder River coal. Chessie and the Family Lines were holding companies with paint. Penn Central, Erie Lackawanna, Reading, Lehigh Valley, and the Jersey Central were lettering in a federal freight company. Rock Island and Milwaukee were still in court. The ICC still had a rate bureau. The plant was smaller than it had been in 1970, and a great deal of what remained was slow.

The Staggers Rail Act was signed October 14, 1980. Contract rates, easier abandonments, and a smaller ICC are that statute. It is its own page, and it opens the 1980s onward. Norfolk Southern (1982), Seaboard System (1982), CSX as an operating railroad, the Rock Island liquidation, and the Milwaukee Pacific Extension embargo are not this decade’s property. The 1970s left them a federal passenger carrier, a federal Northeastern freight carrier, a Western giant built on the Hill Lines, and two Midwestern names that would not survive the next map.

Sources

First-track 196,479 (1970) and 207,334 (1960), continuing the series used on the 1950s/1960s pages and the live 1960s/1970s statistics block
Grant, H. Roger. Erie Lackawanna: Death of an American Railroad, 1938–1992. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994. Maybrook loss, Agnes, EL filing June 26, 1972, inclusion request January 9, 1975
Loving, Rush, Jr. The Men Who Loved Trains. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006. Penn Central, Conrail politics, wage and rate context
Daughen, Joseph R., and Peter Binzen. The Wreck of the Penn Central. Boston: Little, Brown, 1971. June 21, 1970 filing
Saunders, Richard. Merging Lines and Main Lines. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press. Merger and Conrail context
Schneider, Gregory L. Rock Island Requiem: The Collapse of a Mighty Fine Line. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2013. March 17, 1975 filing; UP merger delay
Rail Passenger Service Act, October 30, 1970. Amtrak operations May 1, 1971
Regional Rail Reorganization Act (3R), January 2, 1974. United States Railway Association
Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act (4R), February 5, 1976. Conrail start April 1, 1976, about 19,000 route-miles
Burlington Northern, March 2, 1970. Clean Air Act, December 31, 1970
Illinois Central Gulf, August 10, 1972. Chessie System, Inc., February 26, 1973. Family Lines marketing name from 1972
Milwaukee Road bankruptcy, December 19, 1977. Poughkeepsie Bridge fire, May 8, 1974
Staggers Rail Act, October 14, 1980 (closer; encyclopedia on its own page)
Yenne, Bill. Atlas of North American Railroads. St. Paul: Voyageur Press, 2005

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