United States

Country Details

See Wikipedia

National Railway System

The United States rail network has a complex mix of infrastructure ownership and passenger train operation. Most of the infrastructure is owned by private companies - principally BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern, and Union Pacific - which operate freight services only. Passenger services are provided by various public-sector bodies. The federal operator, Amtrak, runs long-distance and other inter-city trains, and local services are run by various state operators. Amtrak and some other operators also own parts of the infrastructure on which they run.

Infrastructure

There is a fairly consistent basic infrastructure standard for all main-line operators (i.e. not metros / light rail):

• gauge: standard
• electrification: none (but see Northeast Corridor below)
• rule of the road: right, but with extensive bi-directional operation

Variations are noted against individual operators.

Northeast Corridor

The Northeast Corridor is the main line linking Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington DC. Due to a complex ownership and construction history, the Northeast Corridor electrification has three different systems, all overhead:

• Boston - New Haven (Connecticut): 25kV 60Hz
• New Haven - New York: 12.5KV 60Hz (includes Metro-North branches in Connecticut)
• New York - Washington: 12kV 25Hz (includes Philadelphia - Harrisburg, and SEPTA lines around Philadelphia)

Some NJ Transit branch lines connecting with the Northeast Corridor have 25kV 60Hz electrification.

Maps

• Printed: Steam Powered Video publish a series of rail atlases covering the United States but a number are now out of print.
• Sonrisa publications currently (late 2024) have 19 books, mainly of the western states, of strip maps each covering one or more states.

Holidays

Holiday periods may see reduced passenger services, or even no passenger services at all, whereas heritage railways may have increased services. If visiting a country check [https://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/ here for holiday dates.

Information

• The Man in Seat 61 site has a useful guide to train travel in the United States, including summary timetables and ticket details.
• Summary timetables for Amtrak and some other services are available in some editions of the European Rail Timetable.
• A real-time interactive map and other information for many "commuter rail" operators (and other transit services) is available at Pantograph. Note that this does not include Amtrak services.

Ticketing

Tickets are generally not interavailable between operators, even on shared routes. Exceptions may be identified in this Guide when known.

Amtrak

The main source of information is the website.

Map

Amtrak provide an interactive map, and also a PDF map: on the Routes & Destinations page, click the "National Route Map" button

Timetable

• Journey planner: on the website front page
• Online timetables: Amtrak no longer provides timetable PDFs but a complete calling point schedule per named service by direction is on line and can be located from the Amtrak home page by clicking on Schedules in the menu bar, and then on the train pictogram to choose by Route. The Rail Passengers Association publishes unofficial timetables in a similar format to the old PDFs, created from Amtrak data.
• Printed timetable: it is not known whether Amtrak still publishes a paper timetable. The compilers would welcome updates.

There is an archive of old Amtrak timetable PDFs, both official and unofficial, and other resources, at juckins.net.

Engineering Information

See Service Alerts & Notices.

Real-time Information

• On the Amtrak website front page, click the "Train Status" button to check individual trains by origin/destination or by train number
• A real-time interactive map of Amtrak (and VIA Rail) trains is available on the TransitDocs website. Click on individual trains to view their details.

Ticketing

Amtrak offers several rail passes. Note that these do not provide unlimited travel within a particular period and area; there is a limit on the number of times any given route segment may be travelled, and the national "USA Rail Pass" permits only ten journey segments (point-to-point journeys on a single service). A rail pass is also not a travel document in its own right; for each journey on a rail pass, a conventional ticket must be issued, free of charge, with reservations as necessary.

Regional Routes

Various state-supported regional routes have their own websites, which may provide more information than is available from the Amtrak website.

• Capitol Corridor: Auburn-Conheim - Sacramento - Oakland - San Jose (California). The front page includes a PDF schedule.
• Cascades: Eugene, OR - Portland, OR - Seattle, WA - Vancouver, BC. Train Schedules includes a PDF schedule.
• Downeaster: Boston, MA - Brunswick, ME. Schedule and Fares includes a PDF schedule.
• Pacific Surfliner: San Luis Obispo - Los Angeles - San Diego (California). Schedules includes a PDF schedule.
• San Joaquins: Oakland / Sacramento - Stockton - Bakersfield (California). Schedules includes a PDF schedule.

State Pages

Information for operators within individual states, including metro and light rail systems, is broken down by state:

State	Status
Alabama	only Amtrak service
Alaska	see state page
Arizona (including Phoenix)	see state page
Arkansas	see state page
California (including Los Angeles and San Francisco)	see state page
Colorado (including Denver)	see state page
Connecticut	see state page
Delaware	see state page
District of Columbia (DC / Washington city)	see state page
Florida (including Miami)	see state page
Georgia (including Atlanta)	see state page
Hawaii (including Honolulu)	see state page
Idaho	only Amtrak service
Illinois (including Chicago)	see state page
Indiana	see state page
Iowa	only Amtrak service
Kansas	only Amtrak service
Kentucky	only Amtrak service
Louisiana (including New Orleans)	see state page
Maine	see state page
Maryland (including Baltimore)	see state page
Massachusetts (including Boston)	see state page
Michigan (including Detroit)	see state page
Minnesota (including Minneapolis)	see state page
Mississippi	only Amtrak service
Missouri	see state page
Montana	only Amtrak service
Nebraska	see state page
Nevada (including Las Vegas)	see state page
New Hampshire	see state page
New Jersey	see state page
New Mexico (including Albuquerque)	see state page
New York	see state page
North Carolina	see state page
North Dakota	only Amtrak service
Ohio	see state page
Oklahoma	see state page
Oregon	see state page
Pennsylvania (including Philadelphia and Pittsburgh)	see state page
Rhode Island	see state page
South Carolina	only Amtrak service
South Dakota	no rail passenger service
Tennessee (including Memphis and Nashville)	see state page
Texas (including Dallas and Houston)	see state page
Utah	see state page
Vermont	see state page
Virginia	see state page
Washington (state)	see state page
Washington D.C.	see state page
West Virginia	service provided only by Amtrak and MARC (see Maryland)
Wisconsin	see state page
Wyoming	no rail passenger service

Note that some states do not have Amtrak service: Alaska, Hawaii, South Dakota, Wyoming.

Some state operators serve more than one state; the links in the table indicate the main entry for each operator:

Operator	Service
MBTA	mainly Massachusetts; the Providence Line extends into Rhode Island, via Providence to Wickford Junction
CTrail Hartford Line	mainly Connecticut; extends to Springfield, Massachusetts
Metro-North	mainly New York; much of the New Haven Line and its branches are in Connecticut
PATH	metro-like service between New York city and nearby New Jersey
New Jersey Transit	services on many northern New Jersey routes operate to New York city; the Atlantic City Line runs to Philadelphia (Pennsylvania)
SEPTA	mainly Pennsylvania; the Trenton Line extends to Trenton, New Jersey; and the Wilmington / Newark Line to Newark, Delaware
PATCO	metro-like service between Philadelphia (PA) and Camden, New Jersey
MARC	mainly Maryland; all lines run to Washington DC; the Brunswick Line extends to Martinsburg, West Virginia
WMATA	Washington Metro lines extend into Maryland and Virginia
VRE	mainly Virginia; both lines run to Washington DC
NICTD (South Shore Line)	mainly Indiana; the line runs to Chicago (IL)
Metra	mainly Illinois; the Union Pacific North line extends to Kenosha, Wisconsin
St. Louis Metrolink	light rail service in Missouri and Illinois

US Territories

There is a separate page for the US territory of Puerto Rico; the territories of American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, and U.S. Virgin Islands have no railways.

Tourist Lines

See Wikipedia

Recent and Future Changes

Recent Changes

The re-instated Amtrak Mardi Gras service between New Orleans and Mobile commenced on 18 August 2025.

SMART will extend 3 miles from Sonoma County Airport to Windsor, Ca on 31 May 2025.

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) began passenger service on the South Coast Rail on 24 March 2025. The Middleborough/Lakeview line which runs Braintree to Middleborough, is extended to Fall River (the Fall River line) with a branch to New Bedford (the New Bedford line). The Middleborough/Lakeview line will be renamed the Fall River/New Bedford line.

Chicago "L": The Brown Line towards Kimball has used a flyover north of Belmont since 19 November 2021.

From an unknown date after 2018, Amtrak services to/from New Orleans and Chicago or Houston use a new connecting line in New Orleans off their previous route from just north of Southport Junct to west of Carrollton Junct.

The daily Fort Worth to Oklahoma City Amtrak trains have run via a changed route in the northern Fort Worth suburbs since 2018 or 2019 when the previous line some distance to the east of Haslet West Alliance yard was severed by an extension of the runway at Fort Worth Alliance Airport. They now run via previously freight only lines south and north of the yard, plus a new alignment to the west of the SPV Atlas shown yard wye. This is shown correctly on OpenRailwayMap and the Conductor timing sheets on October 2024 travellers train showed the new construction is from mp 362.4 to 366.5 but the changed route in total is 8.5 miles including the previous freight only lines either end of the yard. The service to Oklahoma City had resumed on 14.6.1999.

Future Changes

The NorthStar commuter service between Target Field Minneapolis and Big Lake will cease running on Friday 2 January 2026, with last services either on Saturday or Sunday 3rd or 4th January subject to when the Minnesota Vikings [American Football] play their last home match of the 2025/26 season. The first two miles from Target Field will lose all passenger services, the rest is covered by Amtrak's Empire Builder.

The Dallas Area Rapid Transit's (DART) new Silver Line service from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport east via Addison to Shiloh Road Plano is announced as opening on 25 October 2025. The linked article claims it is 26 miles.

SEPTA in Philadelphia announced major service cuts due to a funding crisis. Phase 1 implements 20% service cuts on August 24, August 25 and September 2 [with all Regional Services reducing to hourly off-peak] and a 21.5% fare increase on September 1, with a suggestion of complete service withdrawals of the following from 1 January 2026.

• Valley to Cynwyd
• North Philadelphia to Chesnut Hill West
• Philadelphia to Thorndale
• Jenkin to West Trenton
• SEPTA service to Trenton and Wilmington via the NEC (Amtrak line)

Also on the suggested closure list is the subway branch from Girard to 8th/Market and Streetcar lines 10 and 15

As at August 2025 the PRT website in Pittsburgh advises that due to a funding crisis, without additional funding the Silver Line would be withdrawn. If this goes ahead it would close the branch from Washington Junction to South Park Library

The Chicago South Shore Lines' new West Lake Corridor passenger service on 8 miles from Gary to Dyer was hoped to commence by 31 October 2025, but has been delayed by issues concerning a bridge "to at least" the end of 2025. Elsewhere there is progress on a possible replacement line to South Bend Airport direct from the west as opposed to the current route approaching the Airport from the east but construction has yet to commence.

Orange County Transit Authority are building a 7km tram (streetcar) route between Santa Ana Regional Transportation Center and Harbor / Westminster. Testing is due to begin later in 2025 for public opening in Spring 2026. See OCTA streetcar website.

UTAH Transit Authority (UTA) has finalised plans for a new Trax light rail line connecting Salt Lake City International Airport with the University of Utah's Research Park. The new Orange Line is expected to open by 2032, ahead of the 2034 Winter Olympics.

Updated August 2025.

Lines with Obscure or Sparse passenger services

See USA - Lines with Obscure or Sparse passenger services.