Amtrak: Past, Present, Future

The conflicting roles of Amtrak as a business responding to market demand and a public entity dependent on political support are chronicled in academic detail and stylish prose by a 40-year rail industry veteran who has drafted rail policy positions as a senior industry official, implemented them as a White House appointed federal regulator, written about them as a journalist and critiqued them as a rail labor-union officer. This is Frank N. Wilner's sixth book, which Dan Weikel of the Los Angeles Times terms ''more than the story of a train wreck [explaining] how to tap Amtrak's potential at a time in the nation's history when passenger railroading is becoming increasingly necessary."