Amtrak Rail Routes by Ridership

Today’s mapping theme is movement and I decided to map all active Amtrak routes by ridership totals. Amtrak serves as a national rail system for the United States, providing medium and long-distance passenger rail service across the continental United States, as well as nine destinations in Canada (the only states in the Lower 48 not served by Amtrak are South Dakota and Wyoming). I personally enjoy long train rides and prefer riding Amtrak to flying, especially if I am traveling within the Northeastern US where I live. There is something unique and special about being able to stare out from a train car’s window, leisurely watching cityscapes, rural communities and wilderness pass you by.

While I enjoy riding America’s rails, our government does not invest enough into the national rail system. Compared to other national rail systems I have travel on in the Netherlands and Spain, Amtrak does not compare, and the US system could benefit from additional funding to support more frequent inter-city service and build out a more expansive network of rail to connect more communities. In any case, this post is about maps and movement, so back to that.

For today’s map, in addition to bringing in Amtrak routes, I wanted to show ridership totals along each line. To do this, I was able to incorporate fiscal year 2019 ridership statistics into an active Amtrak routes shapefile’s attribute table. From there, I then used graduated symbology and used thicker lines to represent lines with more riders, and thinner lines to represent the less busy lines. I played around a bit with color and symbology until I got to something I liked. I then added the 48 contiguous United States to the background to highlight the expansiveness of the network. If you are familiar with North American geography and know where to look, you can make out the locations of major rail hubs like New York, Chicago, Washington D.C., and Los Angeles.

Of possible interest, a breakdown of ridership statistics by route: