Rail transport in the United States

Today, most rail transport in the United States is based in freight train shipments. The U.S. rail industry has experienced repeated convulsions due to changing U.S. economic needs and the rise of automobile, bus, and air transport. Despite the difficulties, U.S. railroads carried 427 billion ton-miles of cargo annually in 1930. This increased to 750 billion ton-miles by 1975 and reached 1.7 doubled to 1.5 trillion ton-miles in 2005.[1][2] In the 1950s, the U.S. and Europe moved roughly the same percentage of freight by rail; but, by 2000, the share of U.S. rail freight was 38% while in Europe only 8% of freight traveled by rail.[3] In 1997, while U.S. trains moved 2,165 billion ton-kilometers of freight, the 15-nation European Union moved only 238 billion ton-kilometers of freight.[4]

Railroad companies in the United States are generally separated into three categories based on their annual revenues: Class I for freight railroads with annual operating revenues above $346.8 million (2006 dollars), Class II for freight railroads with revenues between $27.8 million and $346.7 million in 2006 dollars, and Class III for all other freight railroads. These classifications are set by the Surface Transportation Board.

In 1939 there were 132 Class I railroads. Today, as the result of mergers, bankruptcies, and major changes in the regulatory definition of "Class I," there are only seven railroads operating in the United States that meet the criteria for Class I. As of 2006, U.S. freight railroads operated 140,490 route-miles (226,097 km) of standard gauge in the United States.

Although Amtrak qualifies for Class I status under the revenue criteria, it is not considered a Class I railroad because it is not a freight railroad. Today, the sole intercity passenger railroad in the continental United States is Amtrak. Commuter rail systems exist in more than a dozen metropolitan areas, and commuter systems have been proposed in approximately two dozen other cities, but these systems are not extensively interconnected.

The most notable exception to this general rule is New York City, with its extensive subway system, the Long Island Rail Road, the Metro-North rail extending into Connecticut, and links through the New Jersey Transit system to the Philadelphia-based Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority trains to points as far south as Newark, Delaware. About two-thirds of all U.S. passenger rail riders, and one in every three U.S. mass transit users, rides trains in the New York metropolitan area. For more on that phenomenon, see Transportation in New York City. Chicago, along with its subway system, has a similar but smaller Metro system.