Talk:Amtrak

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This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (center, color, defense, realize, traveled) and some terms may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

	Amtrak was one of the Engineering and technology good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones Date Process Result January 2, 2006 Good article nominee Listed December 10, 2006 Featured article candidate Not promoted April 23, 2007 Good article reassessment Delisted
Current status: Delisted good article

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Shortdesc

Pinging Noloolonolo - The short description of this article has been "American intercity passenger rail operator" for some time now, and I don't think removing the (precise and accurate) adjective "intercity" to emphasize the internationality of the service is necessary. I've reverted your changes, but I figure it's worth having a discussion here to decide on the best terminology we can. I'll note that "intercity" is the descriptor used in the SD for Via Rail, for example. AviationFreak💬 20:55, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I fully agree. "Intercity" is the more important descriptor (to distinguish from commuter, metro, etc). "National and international" is not as relevant, especially since the international portion is such a tiny fraction of the network. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 21:05, 5 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Completely agree. Intercity rail is a well-known and established category of service. International rail is a redlink for a reason. oknazevad (talk) 01:20, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Link to Amtrak long-distance service study

@FFM784: I'm a bit confused about why a long-distance Amtrak service planning document would be considered "only indirectly related" to Amtrak? -- Beland (talk) 22:38, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I concur and restored the link. Yea, it's on the FRA website instead of Amtrak's, but Amtrak is subject to the control of the federal government and the FRA is the key agency. This was the FRA being specifically instructed to perform a study regarding Amtrak, so it's directly related. oknazevad (talk) 07:10, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I concur with removing the link. While the study is about Amtrak, it's not significant enough to the broad topic to be worthwhile as an EL. There are a number of current studies about Amtrak expansion at various levels; there's no reason to include this one specifically. It's already linked and discussed at Long-distance Amtrak routes#Long-Distance Service Study where it belongs. Pi.1415926535 (talk) 19:11, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, great, I'm fine with that alternative. -- Beland (talk) 22:59, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This a general article is about the railroad, and not the FRA's Long Distance Service Study or Amtrak's Long Distance Service. We wouldn't add other reports about Amtrak to ext links here and this report also doesn't belong.FFM784 (talk) 20:10, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm inclined to agree with removing the link as well. WP:EL states that the number of external links should be kept to a small number. If the content is really relevant, it should be cited in the appropriate place in the article instead. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:32, 7 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There would appear to be consensus here so I will remove the link in a moment. Thank you to everyone for the collegial comments.FFM784 (talk)

SVG map

The Amtrak Network SVG map

Here is a decent SVG map that someone can make edits to get it up to date. Wikideas1 (talk) 13:46, 18 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]