By 1970, Penn Central, with only nine daily Metroliners each way, was in receivership. That same year, the federal government created Amtrak as the National Railroad Passenger Corporation. “Wards of the state,” Stephen Goddard summed it in Getting There. The public would cover costly passenger service while the profitable freight would be siphoned off for private operators under Conrail. It was little short of a hatchet job. Equipped with wretched cars from a ravaged system and severed from the profitable freight lines, Amtrak got short shrift. “Amtrak was intended to go gently into that good
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