The railroads were heavily regulated, unable to raise fares or realign passenger service as the market changed. They were stuck with burdensome labor agreements, and often their corporate cultures were not especially nimble or responsive. After World War II, the travel market began to change dramatically, and different railroads responded differently. Some dropped passenger trains as fast as state and federal regulators would let them, but others hoped they could market their Western trains as ways to enjoy the scenery, or vaguely hoped that good passenger service would help them to market their freight service.

The speed of air travel quickly took the profitable long-distance business travelers off the trains, while growing auto ownership and better highways lured away the regional business travelers and vacationing families, who found the auto more convenient for visiting several clients in a single day, getting to new suburban business parks, or visiting national parks and relatives' houses.

What the railroads called head-end business, US mail and package express service, was a very important revenue source for many trains. So the Post Office Department's 1967 decision to shift all first-class mail to air routes and long-distance trucking doomed many of the passenger train operations that were still recouping their avoidable costs. In 1969, the Association of American Railroads voted to seek a government solution, and the corporation we know as Amtrak began operation May 1, 1971. Ironically, with the federal government in charge, Amtrak didn't need to get permission from the Interstate Commerce Commission to drop or change its routes.